Pekins

     Last week I picked up three beautiful Pekin ducks to add to my flock of Pekins. I already had a pair of them that I picked up as ducklings in February. They turned out to be a pair. So when I picked up these three I was thrilled to find out they are three females. We are hoping to get some eggs from them in the next few months so we can hatch a batch before the weather gets to cold. In the meantime they look beautiful on our pond.

    We currently have Guinea hen, Bantam, and Standard chicken eggs in the incubator. If you are interested in any chicks contact us. We are hatching chicks about every two weeks. Our email is isaiahjjenkins@yahoo.com

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.

Flock Update

Sumatra chick

The Sumatra chicks are growing really fast, I gave a few of them away. It looks like we have four hens and one rooster. They are always underfoot hoping for a hand out, some of the friendliest chickens I have ever had. I picked up four bantams. A pair of Americana's and two Buff Brahma roosters. We have some Americana/Light Brahma and Delaware/Light Brahma eggs in our incubator.

Buff Brahma Rooster

The Kids are growing

Saanen Buckling

 I'm So Damn Hott!!( our new herd sire) and the Saneen doeling

 Angelfly and the Saanen  buckling

    We are raising four kids: three were born here and one of them we bought to be our new stud. He is a great looking black Lamancha buck.
Angelfly is looking like she is going to be a wonderful doe! She is in your face friendly and butts the others away when she think you're giving them too much attention. The other two are the Saanen twins. Not sure if we are going to keep them or not. We might let the Saanen buckling breed a few of our does. Seeing how we love his mom and she gives us about a gallon of milk a day.

Starring Elvis and Kits

 

    Well after much debating about what to post about with lots of great pics and stories to tell, seeing how I haven't blogged in ages, this is it. Been busy with work, shearing, fishing, and collecting. But in the end cuteness wins.
 The baby bunnies eyes are open now and they are just adorable. I didn't have good pictures of dad, who we have now named Elvis. So I am including a few pictures of him. Honey's babies didn't make it but Pepper had three survive. Two are dark brown and one is the dads buff color. They are pure bred Lionheads can't wait to see how they develop.

 

More Shearing

My brother and I sheared 6 sheep yesterday and as you can see two of the sheep where very big. One was probably over two hundred and fifty pound.

The First Shearing

As some of you may know, I shear sheep kind of as a side job my dad has been shearing sheep since I have three. I had gone with him since than. Starting by trimming hooves when I was about 11 and shearing my first sheep when I was 14. The one time I got a chance to shear as many as I could in a day I did 32 which is far from what the real pros do. I can usually shear a sheep in about seven minutes. I did my first job of the year last as usual I was sore the day after even though it was just two sheep. .I hopefully will be shearing twice this coming week

It was a very busy week here at the farm. We have a new Lamancha buckling from great lines. We drove 4 hours today round trip to pick up three female heritage breed turkeys pictures to come as I get them.

Tis Chick Season

       My Americana hen's chicks have hatched Light Brahma/Americana and Delaware/Light Brahma. So far she has three but a couple more are pecking. There was some question as to whether the Americana cock we had fathered the chicks but they all have feathers on there legs, so I guess not.The Sumatra/Barred Rock chicks are growing very fast. I think most of them are probably purebred Sumatras. They are from a top show line. On a upsetting note something killed my female turkey last night so the search is on for another female heritage breed turkey

 Sumatra chick foraging

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Some Changes

     Well we have made some subtractions and additions to our farm. We sold four of our goats including two of our older ones: our buck Jasper and our first time freshener Clover. She was milking great out of one side but the other side was giving barely anything.
  We also sold our two mixed kids that were born this year, one of my Lionhead rabbits and a Light Brahma rooster. I picked up eight Sumatra and Sumatra cross chicks. I also got a Dominque cross rooster.
 Yesterday after a few months of searching I found a male Lionhead rabbit. So hopefully will have baby rabbits in a month or so.
 My Americana hen is also sitting on about 15 eggs that should hatch this weekend.

They have EARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Sugar, our registered Saanen doe, had twins a boy and a girl. They seem huge compared to our Lamancha cross kids. Yes, they are very cute but I still prefer the ones without ears. The buck is for sale if anyone is interested 50 dollars now seventy five as he gets older more if we are able to registered him. 

Duckies

The ducks I got a month ago are getting huge. They now have run of the yard and the pond. They are very spoiled and like to be fed out of your hand. We are pretty sure they are a pair. The goats stepped on ones leg and broke it, we taped it up so it couldn't use that leg and now you can hardly tell which leg it was.