Good Bye Boys

We finished putting the shingles on the big chicken coop this morning (finally!) and had come inside for a few minutes when two women pulled up outside.  They asked if we sell chickens (to eat) and I said that I actually did have a few boys that I needed to get rid of.  I had just taken pictures of them yesterday so that I could try to sell them.

Clyde Jr. wouldn't stand still for the camera

I made her promise that when she killed them she would do it fast so they wouldn't hurt and then the oldest son and I went to catch them.  We sold them these two and also the "stranger" rooster from next door.  I felt bad handing them off to her, but I know I can't keep them all and I can't eat them myself so this was the best alternative.

We got to talking and she told me how in her culture they eat the flowers from squash bushes, so I told her to take some from my garden as well as the lettuce that I can't keep up with eating as fast as it has grown.

The amazing part is that out of the 9 chicks that Silkie Sue hatched, only three were boys (Bubba, Clyde Jr., and the unnamed boy above.)  That is a very good ratio.

I'm a bit worried about not having enough boys now, but I know we have boys in the younger batch of birds and I know that when/if I get more birds, I want to go with purebred ones so the rooster would need to be purebred as well.

Not a real farmer

By yesterday afternoon, BuffyToo was no longer eating or drinking.  I tried giving her yogurt, and tried putting her beak in the water, but she wasn't interested.  She could no longer stand up straight and was standing in the corner of the box because the walls were balancing her upright.

I wrapped her in a towel and tried to feed her again without any luck.  When I set her back in her box, she fell forward with her face in the food dish.  I had no other choice but to wrap her back up and sit down on the couch with her.

I could tell she was losing control of her body as her head was twitching and turning at times.

I held her until about 10:30, when I had to go count the birds outside and lock everyone up.  I laid her back in her box with some hand towels under her head so she wouldn't have her face in the sawdust.  And that is where she died.

I wrapped her in one of the younger son's old Toy Story shirts and buried her next to Poopers and Bubba.  

This has been the hardest one for me to lose and I am fully aware that real farmers everywhere are shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at me.  "It's just a chicken" and I am clearly not very good at losing one.  

Not a good week on the farm

Friday night there was one buff orpington chick missing.  One of the pure bred 3 month old babies.  We looked around for at least a half an hour for feathers or any sign of her, but came up empty handed.

Two days prior to this we had seen a fox walk through the goat pen not too far from the coop, and since these younger birds were so small still and liked to go further back into the woods, I assumed the worst.

The next morning, I decided that we wouldn't let the birds out.  I felt bad because the chicken run really isn't big enough for all of the birds, but I didn't want to risk the younger ones getting snatched up again.  Unfortunately, the oldest didn't latch the door closed, and seven of the youngest birds got out so we were on a mission to collect them.

We couldn't find two of them for awhile and as we walked around again looking for them, the oldest found a small pile of feathers from the missing buff orpington.  It was only about 8 feet away from where the fox had been a few days before.

We ended up finding the two missing birds and getting everyone locked back up.  Later in the day when we had people over and there was lots of activity outside, I let the older birds out.  They tend to stay in the open yard and don't go back into the woods, and with all of the activity, I figured a fox wouldn't come around.

Soon after we let them out, the oldest carried BuffyToo over to me and said she wasn't moving around much and seemed dizzy when she tried to walk.  I set her next to the one of the pools so she could drink and then checked her out.  She had some caked feces on her rear end and her comb was pale.  She definitely wasn't moving around much and I wasn't sure if she'd gotten dehydrated in the recent heat or if it was something more.

Then Bubba's chest seemed so much larger than it had the day before.  He seemed to have more trouble walking as well.  I tried to help him throw up a bit, and he did, but he still just wasn't moving the same.

Later that night, BuffyToo hadn't gone into the coop, and instead we found her in one of the goat houses.  So I decided to bring her into the house last night.

When I went in to count the chickens, Bubba was laying on the floor, he'd died sometime after I'd put him in the coop.  The oldest dug a hole next to Poopers grave, and we buried him last night.  I feel so horrible for him and worry that he was hurting when he died.

This morning I gave BuffyToo a bath to clean her rear end and gave her some yogurt.

That's yogurt that I dipped her beak into

She didn't really seem interested in the yogurt, but did drink some water.  I remembered this morning that she was one of the five birds we got in our second group of birds last year, and the owner would not reply to my requests to find out how old she is.  I'm sure she's at least a couple years only, and I'm really not sure if she's ever laid an egg since I don't know who is laying and who is not.  She could just be old, or she may be sick.  I really have no idea.

I decided to keep an eye on her in the house today and I will pick up some medicine from the store today.  I hope she gets better, but if not, I hope she goes in her sleep from old age and doesn't suffer.

It's been a rough couple days on the farm...

The only good news is that Big Red is still alive.  She still walks like a penguin but I haven't been able to bring myself to have her put down since she doesn't seem to be in pain.

This post was shared on Thursdays @ the Homestead Blog Hop

It's too darn hot!

Virginia is going through a serious heat wave where the heat index is over 100 degrees outside.  I won't even pretend like I'm outside between 12 and 9PM for more than the 30 seconds it takes to walk from the house to the air conditioned car.  It's bad.

The birds are drinking water, but I need to have more water dishes around the property so they'll have it nearby when they wander.  I picked up two pink plastic pools for them to use.

I figure between the dog and the birds, the water will be gone.  If not, I may be laying down on my back in one and putting my feet in the other in an attempt to cool off.

Not again

We have another sick chicken, another chicken in my kitchen.

I noticed the chest on this guy looked big, but being the novice chicken keeper, I didn't know if something was wrong or if it was just the way this bird looked.  He acted fine, ate normal, ran around with the other birds.  Every night when I was moving the birds from the nest boxes to the roosts, I would forget to check it and during the day, there's no way to catch them.

Two nights ago when I picked him up to move him, I definitely felt something.  It wasn't just a fat bird, it felt like a huge balloon of air or fluid.  I put him on the roost and came in to research things.

Sounds like he has a pendulum crop.  A bird can have an impacted or a sour crop.  The crop is like a pouch in the neck where food goes.  Sometimes, food can get stuck like a huge nasty hairball and it becomes impacted.  It's serious and deadly.  Sometimes, it can go sour and get infected.

If these issues aren't fixed, the muscles in the chest and neck can become too weak and won't go back to normal, and it becomes a pendulum crop.

So the next morning when I went to let the birds out, I scooped him up before he had a chance to run for freedom and I brought him to the house.  I put him in a box in the mud room with water for most of the day, and then when I thought it was just too hot, I brought the box into the house.

What I read said to withhold food, so I did.

The last time I checked on him at night, he threw up a little and then I remembered that I'd read you're suppose to make a sour or impacted crop bird throw up.  For about 10 minutes the oldest son and I massaged his crop and tilted him upside down to let him throw up.  It was gross.  It could have been worse.

The lump was still the size of a grapefruit.

The things I read said to withhold food for 24 hours, and someone else said to just let him go back with the flock.  So the next morning, after 24 hours, I took him back outside.

He was a good patient, sat patiently in my arms and didn't cause any problems.  I just feel bad for him.

He's the first of Silkie Sue's chicks to be named.

Bubba.

I am determined to fix this thing

Two years ago, when we moved here, I bought my first lawnmower.  I did some researched and talked to someone who had this specific mower and thought I made a good choice.  For the first year, things were great.  

The second year it stopped working.  It would sound like it was going to start and then die quickly.  I did some research and knew it was the carburetor.  So I replaced it.  

Things still didn't work.  I took it to a shop, they fixed it and told me it was "bad gas".  I bought new gas, mowed the lawn twice, and then it stopped working.   I took it back to the shop and they fixed it for free (this time), and told me it was bad gas again.

It was new gas!  I'd also added something to help with the ethanol!  

A few weeks later, it stopped working again.  This time, I bought the parts I needed and cleaned the carburetor and drained the tank myself.

Things worked great for several weeks.

Until last week.  It wouldn't start again.  I can't imagine having to clean the carburetor every month so I did some research and found that the fuel line (tube) could be bad and that I could add a fuel filter to the fuel line to help keep gas clean.

So I bought the parts this morning and got to work.

The mower "before"

I decided to replace the air filter, clean the carburetor, replace the gaskets, replace the fuel line, and add a filter.  I couldn't think of what else to do.  

The parts

I was annoyed with how much gas I drained and won't be able to use.  The jar on the left was already nasty and dirty, but the gas in the jar on the right didn't even look bad.

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  I had to cut the new fuel line to fit the space, and cut it to add the fuel filter.  I wasn't sure which direction the filter should go until I found a note online that the filter has an arrow, sure enough, I turned it over and there it was.

The arrow is pointing down in this picture

 And then I took the carburetor off.  I was shocked at how much dirt was in there.  I later found that some of it may have fallen in as I was taking it off, but geeze!

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 Once I had it all back together, the fuel filter fit perfectly.  And I was excited to test things out.

I poured some special stuff in to help clean the tank and carburetor and fight ethanol issues, and then I had to run to the store to buy new gas.

There's the fluid in the filter

When I got home, I poured the new gas in and it sputtered for about 15 seconds before dying.  I was scared.

I started it up again and it sounded beautiful.  I mowed about half of the lawn (45 minutes) before someone pulled up the driveway and I had to stop.

I'm just glad I was able to get her going again, but the true test will be if she works after the 3rd or 4th job.

They just smell different

Each time I work in the garden I can smell the produce around me.  It's a smell that I realize I haven't smelled in a very long time, which is sad.

Real garden produce smells so much different and better than what is in the grocery store.

It dawned on me one day that the fact that I noticed it was sad proof of what our food system has become and what I took far too long to get back into.

Our first cucumber and several small roma tomatoes

Everything in this salad was from our garden

And then there were two

I finally did it.  I finally downsized to two goats.

Jenny, Rucker, and Cash found a new home with a couple in West Virginia that has several pet goats, a pet miniature donkey, and a pet cow.

It was the hardest for me to pick up Rucker and put him in their kennel.

The oldest son got really quiet and wouldn't say much.  This was his way of showing that losing the goats is hard for him.

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After they left, Kelly was crying out in a way that I've never heard before.  She and Jenny had grown apart ever since the boys were born because Jenny was their mom and moved on to protecting and parenting them, so I didn't realize how much it would bother her.  Broke my heart.

The most persistent perennial... weeds!

Every time I start a project I always think how I should have taken "before" pictures so I can see my progress.  The same thing happen this morning, about thirty minutes into weeding the garden I knew I should take a picture of how bad things were.

There is a path buried under those weeds

The sweet potatoes have gone everywhere

Not sure why I bothered to weed the Brussels sprouts when they've been destroyed by goats

Good thing these grow higher than the weeds

I spent about 2 hours weeding and laying down newspaper to help stop the weeds.  I only wish I had a ton of mulch to lay down so it would look as nice as the tomato rows.  I finally stopped, knowing that I still have a ton of work to do.

Weeds cleared and paper to help keep it this way

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And seeing this gave me hope for the fresh produce we will have soon, and annoyance at all the weeds under there

That sucker is huge!

I have been pretty disappointed with the garden so far.  I'm not sure if I'm just expecting things too soon or if it isn't producing when it's suppose to be, but besides the lettuce, this is the first thing that we have harvested.  It is pretty darn big though.

There are several pickling cucumbers and butternut squash growing and a bunch of tomatoes that are still green so my hopes are still up.