Well, alot has happened here since we lost Carmen. We got another goat on St. Patrick's Day. She is a Boer goat that was born on February 18th. We all thought that a name pertaining to St.Patty's day would be nice for her. So, after going through many name ideas we all settled on "Clover". She was one of three triplets born.Her mother is notorious for only wanting to take care of one baby and shunning the others.So, her owners had to raise her. She was raised in their home and bottle fed. By the time we got her she was down to three feedings a day and only during the day. We were pretty thrilled about that. She is being kept in a large kennel in the garage during the night and let out during the day, for now.
A couple of days later we got 20 baby chicks! This was part of Jade's Birthday present. We told her that she had to wait 3 weeks for the rest of her birthday present to arrive. Because the D & B feed store here in Twin Falls weren't getting their supply of chicks in until then. Sebastian and Matthea also get to raise some of the chicks. Let me think, we have some Golden Laced Wyandotte's, Auracana's, Barred Rocks, Brown Leghorns, and Rhode Island Red's. It was a straight run purchase. Meaning, that the sex of the chicks are unknown.So, we are hoping that at least some of them are hens that will lay for us. Unfortunately, with a straight run purchase you usually end up with a larger percentage of cocks (roosters). But, that would only mean that they will end up on our dinner table in about 2-3 months. Which is the ideal time to butcher your chickens. Anything older than that isn't worth eating unless it's stewed or used for making broth.
Which brings me to our next adventure.....
The very next day, some friends of ours, brought over some roosters. Craig sees them at his work on occasion and they have a large farm with cattle, goats and chickens. They have been wanting to help us out with a few animals once we had our land. Well, they called Craig and asked if we were ready for some roosters to butcher.Craig thought they had said 3 roosters, so he told them to bring 'em on over! They showed up with 30!! As they were unloading they had realized that two stowaway's were hens. So, we were left with 28. Craig didn't know what to say except for thank you and off they went and there we were wondering if Craig could have them all butchered by the end of the day. HA! The next day, Craig and Sebastian picked out the lucky rooster who was going to be their guinea pig. It was a large Rhode Island Red. They both did a fantastic job with the whole procedure, that was carefully studied beforehand. The bird ended up looking rather scrawny when it was all over with. But, these birds are for practice anyway. We roasted the bird and...well....it was rather tough. I believe these birds are around 10 months old. The flavor was there, in fact the flavor was great! You just needed a lot of time on your hands to chew your meat! Like I said earlier, the best time for butchering chickens is when they are between 2 and 3 months old. They will be tender instead of tough. So, the chicks that we have now will probably end up in our freezer in a couple of months.
We had the rooster's in another outbuilding separate from our other flock of chickens. Something that you need to do as a preventive measure to not spread disease, before introducing new birds to your old ones. Plus, we didn't want any roosters fighting with the Polish rooster who isn't use to being housed with other roosters. After a couple of days I made the guys take them out and put them in the backyard. They were making quite a mess out of where they were. And if we were not keeping them for long I didn't want the housing mess to worry about. They roosted in our Pine tree that first night.We were down to 27 since we cooked one. That night I caught our neighbors dogs in our backyard.The roosters made enough noise for me to wake up. The next morning we were down to 24. Craig found one of their carcasses in the neighbors back pasture. That was enough for him to go and have another talk with him. (I forgot to mention that, after the killing of the first goat, he talked to the neighbor about his dogs. The guy told Craig he would keep his dogs locked up at night.) Well, he went back again to just give him the facts of what his dogs have done and that if the dogs are caught harassing animals on our property they will be shot. So, a co-worker has let Craig borrow a gun and he is ready. The dogs were not out last night though. Not sure if it was because we had a lot of rain last night or if the neighbor took Craig seriously this time. There are way too many roosters for us to butcher,just for practice.So, we will try to give them away or in the meantime, they will be dog bait so that Craig can use the borrowed gun. We have talked to other neighbors that have had a problem with these dogs and would love to find a way to stop this problem. Hopefully, we can get this resolved.
On a brighter note, our hens have been laying about 2 eggs a day for us!!! I keep meaning to take photos of them. But I don't remember until after we have eaten them. I did however take a picture of the eggs cooked! Today, our hens have laid four so far!!!! Very exciting! We're wanting to maybe hatch a few eggs in an incubator as part of their science class. I don't know if we'll do that this year or wait until next spring.
The snakes have come out of their winter hibernation. I believe we have found between 8 and 10 so far. The kids enjoy taking out their machetes to go snake hunting! We have been cutting back some brush near the canal and have a huge pile of branches that we have been burning little by little. Sebastian takes the snakes that have been killed and throws them on the fire. Roasted snake anyone???? yuck..... We have made a huge dent in the brush clearing. We are all suffering from sore bodies. Even the kids are moaning and groaning before bed and complain of backs hurting and sore legs and arms. But by the next day, when they see all of their hard work, they are very proud of how much we have accomplished and they comment on how good it makes them feel.
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