A Rough Week

  A rough week here at the farm. We lost our Lamancha buckling who was going to be a herd stud this fall. The temperatures were in the hundreds for three days and then dropped down to seventy. I don't now if he suffered from heat stroke but he died all of the sudden. He may have eaten something poisonous but we have never had any problems with the pasture he has been in and he wasn't out of that pasture. The three other kids are fine. The pasture is heavily shaded mostly woods.

The same night we lost the buck, something managed to break into our chicken coop and carried off seven chickens. We had been losing the occasional chicken; some during the day we had thought it was a stray dog but now I am leaning towards a fox. Seeing how all that was left were feathers, the chickens were all carried off.

Okay on a more positive note our Narragansett turkey hatched seven poults. She is doing a great job taking care of them leading them around the yard. They are Narragansett/Blue Slate cross. So enjoy the pics

LIL Turkey

Dad

Mom

Lil Peeper

Mom sitting on eggs

   We had some turkey eggs in the incubator from our Narragansett hen and our Blue Slate tom. Only one of them hatched but the hen is sitting on fifteen more eggs so hopefully most of those hatch. We raised Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys one year and hatched them. They weren't too bright; liked to sit in the road and eat anything including sockets from a socket set. These Heritage breed turkeys are a joy to have around they are friendly and smart and can forage for a good part of there diet.

Is it spring yet?

Blue seems to think so, by strutting around the yard and challenging anything that comes along including us. But this has made for awesome pictures of him trying to attack me. We are waiting for our hen to starting laying as they only lay in the spring and early summer. This breed is believed to have originated in Mexico about 2000 years ago. It is quite rare this days due to the commercial breeds of turkeys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well I can't resist sharing these two pics of our kid goats along with the turkey. They are growing very fast.