Picking Up Chicks

We decided our chicken eggs aren't colorful enough, so we ordered more chicks. 😅 25 to be exact, but some are for my dad. These breeds will lay a range of green/teal/olive and deep chocolate browns. 

In preparation for their arrival, G set up this gigantic box from the garden center in my in-laws' garage (with permission). Should be nice and cozy for them! 

Great way to hang a heat lamp -

They arrived Thursday morning! Shipped via USPS. 

They got to foraging right away, some even eating their shredded paper bedding. 

Eventually they huddled up for a group nap. 

Jaron loved them. We helped him pet one and he had a huge grin on his face the whole time. 😊

One last egg related thing... Our eggs are on the shelf at the co-op! Havenacre Homestead label and everything. I wonder how quickly they'll sell...

Mineral Feeder Upgrade

Remember how our mineral feeder was attached to the end of the milking stand? And how it would get full of poop / the chickens would scratch at the mineral so a lot was wasted? 

Well, I finally fixed it. 

It was an easy fix, although I tried a couple different ways before I ended up with something I could live with. 

Method number one was putting a board across the studs. I didn't love how much the feeders stuck out.

Next I tried a piece of wood between the studs. Better. They still stick out, but not as much. 

The best way would be if I could just screw them directly into the plywood wall between the studs.  

The problem with that is the plywood isn't thick enough, so the screws would poke through the other side. We definitely don't want that, so I had to settle for method number two.

Now let's see if I hung them high enough to avoid poop getting inside...

Speaking of high up: 

The Stander

Help Me Grow left us with a new tool to use with Jaron. It's a device that keeps him upright in a standing position to work on his balance and muscles needed for standing. He is such a busy boy that doesn't typically happen, so they thought this would be helpful for him as he learns to stand and walk. 

The first time we used it, he hated it, cried, and tried to escape. 

The second time, I had the idea to put it on a table so he could look out the window at the animals. That worked like a charm! 

He spent a good 15 to 20 minutes looking at all the animals outside. I took him out, and about 5 minutes later he wanted to get back in to look at the animals some more! So we did. 

 

Food Co-op

Our eggs are officially for sale at the St Peter Food Co-op! I did the first drop off of 11 half dozen duck eggs this morning. 

Last night we candled, washed, labeled, and packaged the eggs. When candling the eggs, I'm looking for cracks in the shell, thin areas in the shell, split yolks (from being frozen), and meat spots. Those eggs go in a separate pile for us to keep at home to eat ourselves. 

Our stamps haven't come yet, so G printed our logo and the safe handling instructions to attach to the cartons for now.

The breed of ducks we have lay colored eggs, but sometimes the pigment rubs off which can make the eggs look dirty. I was concerned customers would complain, so I had chat GPT write us up a little note to include inside our cartons.

I think our first delivery looks pretty official!

 

Uneven

The kids very obviously have a favorite side to nurse on. One side was very small and the other looked huge. We don't want her to get mastitis, so G milked her a bit to ease the tension and make the teats more even. Hopefully the kids will nurse from that side now. 

Our first goat milk from our goats:

We let the little family out of the back area yesterday afternoon. They've had their time to bond and the other goats miss Gerda. Senka is definitely the more adventurous of the two. Seems like she likes to explore. 

We took Jip for a walk and found the kids outside when we came back. Somehow I don't think they'd get this close if Jip were home...

Brighita bounced around like a kid herself, clearly loving the new additions to our homestead. 

Meet Senka and Chaiavar

I was right. 🥳

Gerda's twins were born Thursday late afternoon. 

This is Chaiavar, Chai for short. 

He was definitely the first born kid. By the time we found them, he was completely dried off and very steady on his feet. 

This is Senka, which means shadow, a little girl. She was mostly dry but Gerda continued to lick the wet spots on her back. She was still unsteady on her feet, but she'd gotten up on her own! 

It was unclear if she had nursed- just one of Gerda's teats was empty. We moved her close and she nosed around. She did latch eventually, so we knew she had colostrum, the first milk that's really rich and full of good stuff for energy and the immune system. 

The twins are small; the chickens are bigger! That's from the Norwegian Dwarf genetics on their dad's side (Cocoa, Svetlana and Fritz's son). 

Before we went in the house, we ushered the new little family to the back corner where they could bond and have some privacy. We'll keep them there for a couple of days to make sure the babies know who mama is and mama knows who her babies are.

Shed Clean Out and... Kids???

I know I keep saying that Gerda is really close to having her kids, but this time I really mean it. 😅 Her udder feels tight and full, and I'm pretty sure I saw some mucus coming out this morning. 

When I think back to how small her udder was in early December and how worried we were that she would kid when we were gone, I have to laugh. She's probably three times as big now as she was then. 😂 Well, now we know for next time. 

Thankfully we're in a warm stretch this week. My father-in-law was able to take Jaron for a couple hours this morning so I could tidy up in the shed.

Because of the cold stretch, the goats were stuck inside that whole time, and the poop has really built up. I wanted to clean out the back area so Gerda would have a fresh clean place for her babies. 

Turns out, there's about one foot of bedding on the goat side of the shed. I took this picture after I had cleaned out all of the hay from the back corner.

After it was all out, my protective bar was way too high up. The mama goats could walk right underneath it. (I also found a duck egg buried in the hay. I wonder if it's still good?)

The chickens loved scratching in the dirt once it was uncovered. A bunch of them gave themselves dust baths until I rebedded the area with straw.

The amount of hay I took out of the back corner:

Why is there so much? Well, most of it is wasted hay the goats were supposed to eat. We need to get a better feeder. Goats are actually pretty picky eaters; they really like eating leaves and not stems. So if the hay they're getting doesn't have a lot of leaves, they eat the good stuff and leave the bad stuff- aka the stems- behind. Sometimes they knock their feeder over (which is just a big tub) and everything falls out. We could put that hay back in, but if they poop on it before we can, that's no good, and the hay ends up as part of the bedding mound. 

So, a better feeder is at the top of the to-do list!

Back to the shed clean out...

Here's the lowered bar. I added another above it just in case.

After putting fresh straw down, the back area was finished. I thought about cleaning out more of the shed, but since it's only the beginning of February, there's still a lot of potential for cold weather. The deep bedding helps to keep the animals warm in two ways - one, by insulating them from the cold ground / keeping them higher off the floor; two, the bottom layers of bedding can decompose, providing heat. I'm not sure how deep the bedding has to be in order for part two to happen, but I figured it'd be better to leave it. 

Even if Gerta has her babies in the main area, we can easily move her into the back corner with her kids until they have bonded. Stay tuned on whether my prediction is correct!