Poultry again....

Poor Lucy, she has to endure us looking at her every day.
Apparently sharks and geese share some evolutionary history......
(PS One gosling is completely hatched, one is almost out, will update photos tomorrow!)

Come on fatties, out you come!
I almost fell for it "They don't WANT to come out"
Now when I open the door in the morning they all bumble out....and fly around the yard, kinda.
Think big gawky awkward person...
Of course they don't want to come out when they are first given the opportunity,
they had to get used to it....

This photo is old, they are already bigger, but it is
STILL TO DANG COLD for them to go out......
What cool birds to raise!

Poultry Update

I thought I'd do a little update on the various feathered members of our farm family....

Big guys working on newly planted strawberry field....EAT THE WEEDS!!!! Our 14 big guys are free range on the farm. I see them walking up and down aisles munching away. We have to figure out how to fence them once strawberry season starts! They have LARGE poops. As the Manitoba Farmer lady described them to me "Processed grass with a bit of icing sugar on top" She neglected to mention they are close to dog poop size! I can imagine they might turn a few customers off even though they are not stinky at all, they are seriously JUST GRASS!

Lucy is sitting on 6 eggs in her goose barn - 2 are hers and 4 we stuck in a week later (When we found a nest in the cover crop) We've got to be careful and try and remove the two eggs that are further along to hatch out in the house and let her keep the 4 later ones.....or the other way around, we haven't got that far! We're looking forward to the goslings though!

The girls are laying 12-14 eggs a day and we are still getting a large double yolker every day, we love the eggs and at this point aren't managing to accumulate any to sell, but we are saving money on purchased farm fresh eggs.....

Broilers: The inflato chickens are inflating. They are almost 4 weeks old and are pretty big now. Hubby had to modify our brooder room - we added another 4x8 sheet of flooring and gave the chickens and turkeys each a section.

We are readying an outdoor fenced area for them to roam. We're not sure how much they will roam, but the option will be there. The soil isn't so good so I'm picturing the soil being improved with copious quantities of chicken poop, cover crops being planted in between broiler batches which the next batch can then munch down.....We built the fenced area so the tractor can get in if necessary. (Not planned, the wire fencing ran out so hubby made a modification that turned out to be a tractor gate-brilliant!) Our weather is unseasonably cold and we can't let the turkeys out until it's 20 degrees out (70)....

Turkeys: They are CHARACTERS. One sits in the feeder and eats. If we leave the top gate open they are checking out how they can escape......They have a funny gobble-cheep right now and are acting like turkeys with their wings and tails. They are inquisitive and remind me of raptors on Jurrassic park - especially with the sounds they make...I bet the developer of the raptors had heard turkeys! I can only describe it as a turkey purr! WE have to figure out where to build a permanent pen/shelter for them but the nights are still a bit cold for them....

DUCKLINGS/Weeder Geese: I LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM! My guys can munch through about 5 buckets of chopped greens a day now. They chow it down! I REALLY want them to develope a liking for creeping clover, devils thumbprint and other pesky weeds.....They are not tame, but will come for me if I bend over and talk to them. They are outside all day every day now in their duck tractor which we move every two days. They seem pretty happy! I've thrown in slugs but have yet to positively see a duck down one. EAT THE DANG SLUGS!

I call it a guck tractor - goose + duck - And truly the guck they produce in one day is amazing! Hopefully our lawn grows well behind them! It's the only part of our lawn that is mowed....with all the rain we've been having getting anything mowed or ploughed is a bit of a challenge right now!

We have a "Duck house" that we put them in at night....an old coffee kiosk we bought off craigslist and converted....This will be where the ducks are trained to go at night so we can get their eggs.....but somewhere out on the range, not on the driveway in front of the barn.....We want them to be free range once strawberry season is over....We're not sure yet about the chinese geese going in at night....must explore options!

Did I mention we're behind in the strawberry farming work?

The pigs arrive the day after tomorrow......

One flew over the cuckoo's.....

Our farm has now been taken over by birds and I'm slowly and surely going quackers.....

The geese are now free ranging - they just eat so much grass so fast the fencing was too much trouble to keep moving, so we just opened it up and let em go......and they do a route thru the farm every day. To say that it is picturesque to look up from weeding to see a gaggle of geese murmuring to each other 10 rows away is an understatement. They are such characters. Again, every 12 minutes some processed grass is deposited by 14 geese. Everywhere. So far not near the house. Processed grass is not smelly, and disperses fairly quickly......but still at almost the size of a dog poop it's a pretty incredible amount of fertilizer.

The best is the 3 eggs a day. THREE VERY BIG EGGS!!!
The ladies are laying a dozen a day right now! We still have our double lady and they very neatly lay most of the eggs by about 11. I did build 4 more nesting boxes out of large round plant pots....jammed together side by side and screwed onto a board with another across the front so the eggs don't roll out. Works well. The ladies love them!

They run to us whenever we get in their pen and are quite game for a feather stroke.

From a distance we see them running up and down their fence frantically after whatever the other has found....And they love squash. Luckily we have about a few acorns left over from last year that are not quite edible anymore....but are fine to cut in half and feed the ladies! (The spaghetti, sweet mama and stripetti are still rocking yummy! I'm surprised I'm not orange from all the squash we've been eating!)
Ducks: Arrived. Grow fast. Stink. Messy. Cute cute cute. Characters. A lot of cool information can be found HERE HOWEVER mine are outside tonight and they are only 10 days old. I couldn't bear it any more.....They go thru their water like crazy. Hubby on day 2 built a 2x4 frame with chicken wire on it to fit on the floor of their brooder for them to sit on up over the floor...and put a cover on their water so they couldn't jump in and a cover on their feeder so they couldn't sleep on it and crap in it.......The mucky sludgy poopy mess everyday underneath them was incredible.....They've been outside now for 4 days during the day and this is their first night out.....in a makeshift pen in the greenhouse, with a light on them, straw underneath them and I hope they will be ok.....As for feeding them a finely chopped slurry of veggies (see above noted webpage)....HA! I find and pull up all the weeds I want them to be responsible for when they are let loose on the fields....watercress, chickweed, clover, shephards purse....they are developing the exact palate their mama wants them to - no unschooling for those suckers. EAT AS I SAY. Now I just hope they didn't let that BIG BLACK SLUG get away today I put in with them......August and I have designed and tried to build (read hubby put together) the floor for the duck house. Ok, when hubby told me I had to cut 45 degree angles for bracing I was like, well you're going to have to show me the trick for that I don't know how. Did you know that the skill saw blade moves to a 45 degree angle? doh.

Tomorrow I hope to find time to work on the walls......Did I mention hubby is beta testing NEED FOR SPEED this weekend......
Earlier this week in desperation I was going to try and set up an outdoor run for them with some of the pig fencing, however it's not QUITE warm enough (it is in the greenhouse....) My mum's ex came over (I called and practically begged...) and built the most amazing duck tractor in about an hour. I should patent it. It's hexagonal, with pvc piping and joins, about 4 feet high, 14 foot diameter with 1 inch chicken wiring attached with those pull plasticky tie thingys, don't know what they are called. Amazing. Will for sure be putting ducks and goslings in there until after strawberry season.......and moving it around.......

Sad postscript: The ducks made it through the night problem free (a quick google search told me I wasn't being cruel) but sadly our dang dogs had at them today. So much for being poultry trained. They systematically in about 5 minutes flat annilated them. I had JUST moved the pen to a clean spot in the greenhouse, removed the night shelter roof, changed their water, fed them weeds and gone inside. Not minutes later saw the dog......See farmer lady run screaming from the house in her slippers.....I was so upset. Devastated. Sad. Stupid stupid me for not making a better temporary pen. I have already ordered more ducklings, but feel terrible. Lesson learned (the hard way) Zapper collars go back on. (NOTE: The ducks were not in the pen in the picture above, but just a make do pen with short sides...)

I can hear a lot of peeping, which would be the 52 chicks and 26 turkeys in two brooders in my front hall. Arrived yesterday. Incessant peeping. Very fluffy and cute. All meat birds. Stink! We hope to figure out a way to move them out of the house tomorrow. They have to have access to heat at 95 degrees which is quite hot......there are infra red lights on them at all times.

Have to build a couple of sheds for them too.....
Our goslings arrive in a week.....
Quack! Quack! QUAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!