Cleanup Crew

A cleanup crew standing by for work.

Nature is so amazingly efficient. Every plant, every animal, every atom has a role. Death and decomposition are not ends, but simply an arc in the circle of life. When we humans harvest crops--plant or animal--we absorb nutrients and process mass through our intestines. When Nature harvests, she sends her own cleanup crews. Now when I look across a landscape and spot vultures circling, I no longer see the darkness and ugliness once associated with death. Now I see Nature's workers, stepping in to play their role in the incredible cycle of birth, life, death, and regeneration. This web of life, this partnered dance with its myriad players, it is all beautiful; these are miracles woven by God through nature.

Eggs-in-waiting

Yesterday I had the opportunity to process the second hen of my farming career. As before, her life was taken by other animals; she's too valuable alive for us to kill so early in her life. Again I was amazed by the quantity of ova, all lined up, waiting their turn in the egg production cycle. Each a perfect sphere, neatly encased in tissue, a ball of color and life-in-the-making. For lunch I treated myself to the freshest of meals, these yolks, the soft-shelled egg, and the most delectable liver, cooked gently in a cast iron pan with chopped tomato and a splash of olive oil. The taste was enough to bring a smile of satisfaction that lasted throughout the afternoon. She was a good hen.

I am so thankful for the rich multitude of gifts we get to open daily, living here on our little farm.

Kid Clothing

Pamela inspects her kids.

The thermometer registered 25 degrees Fahrenheit when I headed out this morning. Although our new-mother goat Pamela had been keeping her kids beneath the heat lamp since birth, I still brought out a couple of quilted flannel shirt-sleeves in case the kids were shivering. (Yes, I know, she had three kids, but I had two sleeves ready from when the orphaned Savannah doelings had moved here; I would procure a third coat if necessary.)

The kids were clustered directly beneath the heat lamp, as I had hoped, yet the littlest kid--the one we named Emmilye--was shivering. I popped her into the shorter of the two shirt-sleeves, adjusted the width to accommodate the breadth of her little shoulders, cut vents to make flaps over her flanks and tail, and fastened the button at her throat to keep the tube in place. The stall smelled of diarrhea, a condition not all that uncommon in the first days but one that needs to be monitored and for which counter-measures may need to be taken. I gave each kid a squirt of  goat Nutri-drench, and gave Emmilye three.

Momma goat stands by her snoozing kids.

Next I herded Pamela, who had gone out to the pasture for a drink, back to the stall for her kids. She nosed suspiciously at the newly-clothed Emmilye, but accepted her readily. Still shivering, Emmilye made her way to a teat but grabbed for it ineffectively. After watching her unsuccessful attempts for a bit, I intervened and was rewarded by improved performance once the kid had gotten a fresh taste of milk.

Since I had another sleeve handy, I woke the other doeling, Erin, and dressed her. She is smaller than the buckling, but heartier than the littlest doeling. With a couple of snips at the fabric and a neat button at the kid's neck, I was able to present Pamela with two kids insulated against the cold. Erin nursed briefly, then returned to the kid-pile beneath the lamp. (Note: The lamp is turned off for photographic purposes only, to inhibit the red glare in pictures.)

A broody hen atop her clutch of eggs.

Before I left the stall, a hen came in to claim her spot on the nest she had made in the corner feed tub. At first she flapped her way up to a way-station and stood there to cackle until her rooster--just outside--returned the call. Then she flew onto the feed tub and settled down, right at home in her stall with a new family of goat companions beneath her roost.

Soup's On

Morning sunlight reveals this hen is guilty as charged.

This morning when I went out to the yard, I found that the Leghorn chickens had killed one of their own. This did not really surprise me because one of the hens has sported a bloody throat on and off (mostly off) for a few weeks now; however, it did irritate me. These white egg layers have been consistently producing jumbo size eggs, even through the winter months, so we're sorry to lose a good laying hen.

This hen was caught red-feathered, as it were.

On the bright side, the night had been quite cool so I had no qualms about picking up the hen to pluck her for our stew pot. Given the sub-freezing temperature, several of her feathers resisted plucking and I'm afraid that it will be easiest and quickest to simply skin her before cooking. Now that I understand that animal fats are good for us to eat, especially the tasty ones--chicken skin, bacon, butter from unpasteurized cream--I resent losing this tasty treat, but it won't go to waste. Someone will get to eat it.

Mmm mmm, chicken is on today's Sunday dinner menu.

Kids!, finally

Welcome, kids! (Left to right: Metro, Emmilye, & Erin.)

On this Winnie-the-Pooh oh-so-very-blustery day, the goat gals greeted us with triplets this morning. Miss Pamela, who had been growing bigger and bigger and bigger for weeks now, delivered three healthy kids before dawn and had them up and dried by the time I trundled out.

That's Erin in the foreground and Emmilye behind her.

They had already had their colostrum, but were not averse to suckling a bit more while I watched. Guardian Luther came in to be sure all was under control, leaving after he'd policed and approved the stall space.

I hung some TekFoil insulation over much of the doorway to cut the whistling wind. The bigger kids, Shea and Taylor, "helped" by trying to climb the silver mass while I was hanging it. If enthusiasm were all that was needed, they would be winners for sure.

Pamela sees to her newest offspring.

Dam Pamela stood for my nosing about, even handling her and the kids. It's uncanny how the new moms know that I'm there to help, especially when--like Pamela--they are usually standoffish with me.

Now we're waiting on Marcie to deliver. Her sides have become impossibly stretched of late.

Too Muddy for Safety

Saturday evening, one very muddy Stella favors a foreleg.

We have had rain several days over the last week, enough that the horse pasture is a sloppy mess. When there was a chill in the air over the weekend, our mares gallivanted up and down their hillside, kicking up mud and racing around. All was well until we noticed that Stella was down. She was stretched out full length in the mud and rain, in a posture more suited to sunbathing than the weather we were having.

When I went to investigate, she was calm but remained down. After I tied on a halter, she got right up--but one of her forelegs was canted out at an unusual angle and she would put no weight on that leg. Being Saturday night, we could not raise help through our regular veterinarian, so I consulted by phone with a friend and with two large animal veterinarians on call for other practices.

Although the conversation with the first veterinarian fed my darkest fears and led to me consulting with the disposal services she recommended, the second veterinarian took a more wait-and-see attitude. He suggested letting the mare wait for a couple of days and see how she fared.

Monday, Stella shares hay while receiving hydrotherapy to her shoulder.

After Stella had gotten up so quickly for me, I saw that she could not lie back down readily. When she finally tottered forward and fell to get back to the ground, I was very concerned; however, by Sunday morning she was up and moving about the pasture. Much reassured, assuming that she would not be moving about so readily if she had suffered a fracture, I treated her with a steady hosing with chilly well-water for 45-minute intervals twice on Sunday, and again on Monday.

Events conspired to keep me from contacting Doc Kinslow until Tuesday, by which time Stella had settled herself in a small area where she could nip at green shoots and push herself around on the hillside using the chicken coop for leverage. This was far from ideal. After Doc sent me home with a prescription for the pain and swelling, we agreed to give her a couple of more days and see how she fared.

Although she was getting around again, by Wednesday the leg was useless.

Unfortunately, she did not fare well. What had started out as a swollen shoulder graduated to an entirely swollen leg. And while she became more mobile again, she was not using the leg at all--it just hung uselessly and dragged. What we had hoped would turn out to be a pulled muscle was far more serious.

She was a valiant gal, but we knew she was too injured for what we could do for her, and we said our goodbyes this morning. After she was gone, the remaining two mares called out for her periodically throughout the rainy afternoon. They had seen their friend leave, and did not understand why she was not coming back. This was a very sad day here on the farm.

The Little Truck that Could

She makes carrying the load look easy going downhill.

The farmer from whom I purchase most of our hay these days, Clint, told me once that he thinks my little farm truck swears at me each time he sets a round bale into her bed. He may well be right. She does sink down considerably and her rear tires spread a tad wider.

Even so, I'm not one to underestimate what that little pickup can do. She's a 1985 Isuzu Pup that likes to stall out at stops and turns, but always, always gets underway again. So when I went to get hay today, we towed along the little trailer and loaded in 21 square bales before crossing the street to have a round bale loaded.

Of course, I had not thought to check the trailer's tires and one side was low when the load had been piled in. Luckily Clint's girl friend was handy and took me up to a house with an air compressor. We are glad she saved her good deed for the day until we came along; we would not have wanted to get stuck along  any of the fifteen miles of narrow, hilly, winding country roads on the way home.

We're proud that our little truck keeps on going, and going, and going. The animals who rely on her appreciate her dedication, too.

Poultry at Roost

Poultry at roost for the night.

When twilight approaches, the chickens promptly settle in to roost. One small flock settles in the home pasture near where the goats and alpacas share a hay rack. Since a tree came down in a storm some months ago, they have--thankfully--left off roosting in the hay rack, and now settle onto the branches crowding around it. Another flock settles along the edges of shipping crates turned to planting beds. The two groups of caged poultry settle across the perches provided for them. The birds are all so pretty,I cannot help but to admire them when we cross paths.

The Dominickers at roost in their chicken tractor.

The little Dominicker flock--I'm not even sure it qualifies as a "flock" with just two hens and their rooster--seems content in their little chicken tractor. Each time I move the contraption, I admire how the birds more right along with it, eagerly rushing forward to their new patch of ground if they are awake, or riding their roosting rail unperturbed in the evening. Better design ideas come to mind when we encounter a snag, usually a corner gets hung up on a rock and the end fasteners give way or simply threaten to do so.

I did shop for pre-fab chicken tractors, but found that all the good ones are priced fairly, and the cheap ones appear to be made of cedar--which is toxic to poultry, I understand. (Say what, that's a cedar branch upon which the Dominickers are clustered? That's true, but only because cedar abounds in these parts and the hens choose to roost in live cedar trees from time to time anyway. Most of the time they spend scratching about on the ground anyway.) Until I get busy creating another, most of our hens will continue to free-range unencumbered by "protective" fencing.

Still Waiting...

Nubian doe Pamela carries her pregnancy low in anticipation of kidding.

Miss Pamela goat, our tri-colored Nubian doe, did not grace us with kids for the New Year. No, she seems content to get the extra attention of an expectant mother while keeping us waiting. It's interesting that she allows the extra attention at this time because both of our Nubian does tend to be a bit standoffish with people the rest of the year.

Yesterday while I whittled away at the fallen branches of the treetop that has been providing the chickens with a roost beside the hay rack, Pamela came and stood with me once--"helping" to hold down the branch I was sawing by steadying it with a forefoot. She seemed to know that I was spending the time tackling this too-long-ignored chore so that I could keep a close eye on her, and she was being obliging. Since I did not finish the job, the hens still have some spots for the night, but we have a growing collection of small branches ready to be used as firewood.

Something tells me that this doe may hold out for some weeks now. While she looks heavy with kid, I did not think anyone was due for another few weeks yet. Late January is when the calendar says we should expect the year's first kids. Until then, I'll stick close and keep an eye on the herd.