Chicken with a Prolapse and How to fix it!

  This is Kristine, a large fowl Cochin mix.....

As you can see, she has not been feeling very well. Her comb is pale, she is dirty, her tail is down and her undercarriage/butt fluff is caked with poo. 

I have noticed her being this way for about 2 weeks, but have been unable to catch her until yesterday. I promptly flipped her topsy tervey to check out her rump and came to find this.....

This is often called a Prolapse by mistake. Prolapse is a normal part of laying an egg. 

  The oviduct's shell gland, pushes an egg out of the cloaca. It does this by holding onto the egg and prolapsing or turning itself inside out to push the egg out of the vent but then goes back inside the hen. If this tissue stays outside the vent it is a very bad thing and is called Blowout. Or called eversion.

  There are a few ways to fix this but I have found that most people just "cull" the chicken. What I have read, most people use Vaseline or KY jelly to help with pushing it back into the hen. Another thing some use is Preparation H, because it helps with the swelling and makes it easier to push the tissue back in. 

  Also an "old wives tail" solution is honey, Yes, honey. 

Many of these things have worked for many people. But what I have see a lot of is that the blowout will reoccur a few times if not just stay out and that is when the hen needs to be culled. 

 Other things that are needed to help the blowout heal is to put the hen in a clean, dark place by herself and reduce the amount of feed to slow down or stop egg production so that the prolapse has less of a chance to happen again.

 I plan on using honey (because that is what I have) and trying this once or maybe twice if it happens again. But if it continues past that, I will be culling my poor girl.

  Have you had to deal with a blowout? If you have what method did you use and what was the out come?

Animals, Animals every where!

  AAaaahhhh, Breathing a sigh of relief the big holidays are over. I hope everyone had a fun, safe Christmas and New years. We all survived here, our wallets are a bit wounded but will heal with tender love and care and will gain weight after a few pay checks.
  Uh, well I guess not all of us survived the holidays, we went ahead and invited one of the turkey toms inside for Thanksgiving dinner and the other tom for Christmas dinner. They were good company and made those dinner so much better, those boys each had their day to be our guest of honor.  

  For Christmas I decided to get my wonderful husband a new puppy. I hopped on Craigslist and began my search. After a few days I found a family who's female Great Dane had pups with a Black Lab/German Shepherd mix male and I knew that this was the one. They were asking a real world price for a mutt not some high $ amount for what they had now deemed a designer breed with some stupid nonsense name of the combined breeds. Don't get me wrong I love all those dogs just as much as the pure breeds, but in no way dose it make sense to charge pure breed prices (witch includes shots, free first vet check, puppy packet, option to buy AKC papers for your dog, and an adoption contract with return clause and agreement not to breed said dog. If they are good breeders.) for a MUTT with no shots. Yes this includes Labradoodles, Yorkey Poos and many others.
  Ok I am done ranting (maybe). Here is the adorable lil pup we brought home...

  This is Ratchet at 6 weeks. As in the Transformer character, we have a thing for naming our dogs after Transformers and our cats after car dealers. 

This is him a few DAYS later, not a week or two but days later. This boy is growing fast.

Here he is about 4 days later with his best bud Barricade our English Mastiff. These two are the picture of friendship. Jazz did not quite care for him much at this point as Jazz is a 4 year old Great Dane, which if you know Danes means he is an old man, and old men don't care for them damn young ins (they tend to go after your toes and he hates that).

And here he is now. This was taken the day before yesterday.

These were taken the same day. He has now won over Jazz but Barricade is still his number one bud. One of the first things I teach my pups (besides sit, stay, and where to potty) is how to pose for my obsession with taking pictures.

  Speaking of my picture taking problem, the day those precious puppy pics were taken it was a beautiful sunny day (although very cold and icy). So I took advantage of the shimmering golden rays of warmth beaming down from the sky as blue as an ice burg and played paparazzi to my chickens. Get ready for a picture overload......

 This is Bonnie and Effie they are Exchequer Leghorns and lay small white eggs. They were brought here by a fellow BYCer whom had gone through a hard time, had to move and could no longer keep her 5 chickens. Sadly her Welsummer, Salma was killed before she could bring them to their new home. 

 In this one you see Sunny, my Buff Orpington and Gertrude (another of the 4 girls brought by the BYCer). This picture would have been better if one of the pigs had not come up and nudged my right arm. Damn pigs!

 Again Beautiful Gertrude. She has not begun laying for me yet but seems to be thinking about it as her comb is becoming more and more red.

 Handsome boy here. This is Seth ( I have wrongly called him Steve on occasion whoops). His prior family had bought what they were told were all pullets. One of the young girls in the family had dubbed this sweet lil chick hers. Well sadly it turned out to be a little cockerel who has turned into a great rooster.

 Man, by the look on this Easter Egger's face you would think that life has just handed her such a bad hand. But she is sweet and lays some big beautiful blue eggs.

(Left to right; Motor Mouth a Brown Leghorn, Fancy a Silver Laced Cochin, and Blue a Blue Andilution sp?.)

Three old biddies (they are not really old 1.5yr old) standing out side of the run looking in. What are they staring at so intently and seem to be gossiping about? Non other than......

 Big Daddy Red, my Road Island Red rooster. Why you ask are they swooning over him???????

 Because he is just one big hunk-O-rooster!

 Yet to be named and of unknown parentage, this up and coming rooster has amazing color. He came from yet another BYC friend. I had bought several eggs from her to hatch for specific egg laying colors. I had a 99% hatch as they were hatched by two broodies at the time, Kristine a Black Cochin mix and Fancy. Sadly all but this boy and three pullets did not survive hawks, other predators or apparently  drowning in the pig water at the age of 6 weeks old.  

 Here are two of the three pullets. Also unnamed but almost at POL (Point Of Lay)

 Maggie, a Gold Laced Wyandotte. She is a hefty girl, the last of the 4 from another BYC home. Not yet laying but in good time she will.

 Frolicking!

  After I figure out how to make a page for ya'll to send in pictures I hope you will do just that. I love seeing happy chickens.

  I really can't wait for spring and summer weather. Longer days brings not only more eggs but more warm time outside with camera in hand.
   

So many things in the works.

  When it comes to sitting down and blogging, I really want to do it. I have a few blogs that I follow myself and wish I could be half as good as them. Now yes, I tend to be busy for a few hours a day what with 5 farm kids, three farm dogs (yes we added one for the holidays), the pigs and many MANY chickens. But all those chores are done in the morning and evening, during the day when all the kids are at school my brain goes blank and either I don't remember that I was going to blog or I can't think of what to write.
  So no more saying that I will be doing this more often, but I will be trying to. Ha Ha we will see how this works.
  As far as the blog site it's self, I am really trying to get it looking nice but I don't quite know how to. Slowly I have figured out a few things but not as many as I would like to.

  Other things that are soon to change..... We are looking for a new home/farm!
 Hopefully we will find larger property for the animals and a larger house for the kids. I am so very excited for this and yet it is one of the hardest things to do. Find a house that has what you want, check! Put high $ offer on house, check! Be out bid and heart broken then have to find a new house to love.....check. Man what a roller coaster. But I will keep my hopes up and fingers crossed that the perfect house is waiting for us and that is why we have lost all the good ones along the way.

  Do you own your home or are you hunting for your first one? Did the right house just jump up and say "Hi, I am the house you wanna buy."

I am here and alive! There have been so many things going on this summer that I did not have the time or energy to hop on here and do my thing. But I promise I will be on more now that the kids are in school.

One of the things we have been busy with is all the chicks! I have had 7 hens go broody this summer and of those 7, three have gone broody twice. There are about 25 chicks running around of all kinds of breeds that I will be so excited to have laying next spring. Most are mixed breeds right from my flock.

This is Fancy, she is a Silver Laced Wyandotte with feathered legs. I bought 14 eggs from a friend on Back Yard Chickens. I divided them up between two broody hens Fancy and Kristine who is a Black Cochin. Both of these ladies hatched out their chicks but found out that the chicks all responded to Fancy more than Kristine. After about 2 weeks Kristine gave up and let Fancy take over the care of all 14 babies. Sadly I am down to only 9 of these chicks now, most of them had been taken by some smaller predators while we were gone for a weekend on vacation. The latest one to have passed was my daughter Rylaya's favorite that loved to be held. That chick had tried drinking out of the pig watering tub and seems to have fallen in and not been able to get out.  Out of the 14 I have one Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and the rest are EE's and Olive Eggers.
Now both moms have moved on and begun laying again (Kristine might be going broody again)

For some reason my pictures of Kristine and her chicks would not load, but I have many many pics of Fancy with her chicks.

Are any of my fellow chicken peeps raising chicks through the winter to have them start laying next spring? And what breeds are you raising?

Break out new arrival equals a few sick chickens!

 A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the Bothell Feed Center. Now this was a particular nice day, the sun was beaming and the breeze was scarse. Not a great day for an animal to be traped outside in a box. That being said, the great people at the Feed center informed me that they had come across a rooster of some sort out in thier parking lot, packaged in a dark green tote and a wire mesh lid. They had no idea how long this poor guy had been out there. But he also had a note taped to the box with him that read; "My name is Charley, please help me find a new home". Well I ran right over to collect said rooster, see some of the workers there have chickens but are eather not aloud to have a rooster or do not want one. I had no problem having him untill I could find him a home.

But first I wanted to quarentine him as we had no clue were he came from. Regardless it is always a good idea to quarentine a new addition untill you know they are not sick from the previouse home or even because the stress of travel to a new home and new exposures can weeken their system temperarely and they can become sick. A good amount of time to keep them seperate is 2-3 weeks.

 I put him into his temperary encloser were he could see the flock but not come into contact with them. Apparently he had other plans. The next morning when I went out to check on everyone he was our frolicking with the ladies. I made the decistion to let him be out with everyone, which I have come to realize was a bad idea. I now have a few girls that have come down with a respitory issue. With the generouse help from some very knolegable people on the Where am I? Where are you? Washington thread of http://www.backyardchickens.com/ I now know what I need to correct this problem and am on my way back to healthy chickens.

 Here is a picture of the culpret who got me chickens sick:

One of these days I will tell you a bit about this interesting little guy, but that is a story for another day!

Do you always quarentien your new chickens or just throw them in and hope for the best?

On a side note, I am sorry for my bad spelling. I tried useing the spell check, but don't think it worked as there were not highlighted words. There is no possible way I spelled everything correctly, not even a chance! 

It's been a while!

  April was the last time I posted, and there have been many changes sense then. Good and bad, but we have survived and are thriving and will continue to do so.

  All my kids will be out of school this coming Wednesday!

  Well as far as chickens go, we are defiantly up a few from the last time I posted.
I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but as far as adults I now have about 25 Hens and one temp rooster.
  Then, well then there are the chicks and pullets..... Lets see there are 3 that are 15 weeks old, two pullets and one roo (that is my up and coming roo for my flock) 7 Silkies that are about 7 weeks old, one mixed girl from my flock that is also 7 weeks, 2 hen raised mix chicks that are 9 weeks old, 6 chicks that are about 13 weeks old, and 3 bantam unknown breeds from the feed store that are about 3 weeks old. Not to mention that I have two hens that went broody (these are my 4th and 5th hens that have gone broody) and I bought 15 eggs to divide between them. So one had 7 and one had 8.... Well one still has 7 but my other girl STOLE eggs from the other nest boxes, my last count under her was 11 eggs. I moved them into the broody area right away so that she could not "collect" any more! Those eggs were set on Monday the 18th. Today is day 4 and hatch day should be about July 8th (one of my dear daughters birthday, Rylaya)

 Well I think that is all for now, but hopefully I will have time tomorrow to post some pictures!

I know it has been a while, let me catch you up!

 I know it has unfortunately been a while sense I last posted. I tried to a few weeks ago but my computer tends to be a POS and after I had typed up a Very long blog and pushed post it would not load and did not save! Needless to say I was beyond mad and it sort of chased me away from blogging for a bit.
( as I type this I am hoping it does not happen again)
 So happenings sense then......
Well the 25 eggs that I was incubating got down to a small number of just six eggs for lock down. Sadly through out days 19 and 20 of incubation all remaining 6 died. 5 of them were fully developed.
That was very frustrating adding that to my first hatch with 31 eggs that went though a huge temp spike and I had to discard all of them.
But I am hopping things work out better this time around. Fist of all, I have a beautiful black Cochin mix that has gone broody (meaning she wants to sit and hatch eggs) and boy has she been a champ so far! The day that I planned on moving her into a separate safe area to lay peacefully she had stepped out of her box to stretch and eat a bit while allowing another hen to lay in her box. Now normally I stand guard while the "other" hen was laying in her box so that I could remove the new egg before Momma came back in that way I did not have to disturb her later on. Well this time I did not and when I came in to check on Momma and make sure she was back on her nest, I found her in the box right next door with out her eggs. Then I noticed that one of Mamma's eggs had been broken by the "other" laying hen and she got yolk all over all the Mamma's eggs (just not her own damn egg of course) So I had to discard all 5 of those eggs as most likely they would have been contaminated and would not hatch. I immediately cleaned up her box and gave her 6 more eggs, she watched as I did this and hopped right on over as soon as I began to walk away.
 I then went to work getting her broody room ready! Because she hunkered down so quickly onto her new eggs I just went ahead and moved her right then and there. ( Best time to move them is at night when they are sleeping and not really paying attention.) Momma had not problem with the move.
 Decided to candle the eggs a few days ago and found that 2 were not developing so I removed them. The rest are due to hatch around our youngest son's birthday April 27th. My excitement levels are so high right now I can't stand it. To be able to watch a momma hen hatch and raise her own young is going to be GREAT!

Also, I finally decided it was time to try my hand at incubating again. I put 30 eggs in my bater on April 17th at 10 am.(Hopping this time an even number will be more lucky for me) So far so good, temp is steady around 100 and I also bought an automatic egg turner so I only have to open the bater to candle my eggs. Really have my fingers crossed this time.

More Baby news, Hanna Bean is due to deliver next month around the 12th of May. I have already got her birthing pen put together in my "barn", although right now it houses my 5 7week old pullets whom will be going into a large dog crate at the end of this week and be put into the coop so the girls can all get used to them.

This birthing pen so to speak will also be used for many other things, like..... Brooding my baby chicks (such as now), separating sick chickens from the flock, quarantine for new hens that arrive from time to time, and if not being used at the time I will put all broody hens in there with nest boxes on the ground for babies to get in and out until ready to go into the coop with their momma.

And now for the grand finale, seeing as we are already on the large subject of babies....... We have come to find out that we are adding one more to our home! I am about 6 week prego!!!!! Yes people if you have counted that will be a total of 6 children in our home. As for your next question, after this one I am done.

I will try to post the progress of chicks and kids (goat babies) as we go along.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Whoot Whoot tomorrow is Friday!

Excitement, followed by sad findings....

The excitement I have for my lil chicks to be born is overwhelming! As is the excitement I get before I candle my eggs.

To be able to see the developing stages is amazing.

I began with 25 eggs, after a few days I decided to candle them for the first time and found two eggs that seemed to not have been fertile. Which is fine, I knew that not all of them were and that a few of these would not make it to hatching, that is just life. I was thrilled to see that two of the eggs I was positive would not be fertile for lack of seeing my rooster "get" those particular hens, were indeed fertile and developing! One was a white egg from my white Leghorn girl (cleverly named Ivory) and the other was from one of our first hens an Ameraucana (named after her Black Beard)

Unfortunately, after candling a few times I found the big blue egg had died. Sad but again it was OK. I was the most hopeful for my lil white egg because my rooster is a beautiful black Cochin with great feathered legs and I really wanted to see what would turn out from them combined.

Yesterday I was candling and was able to see my white egg baby move for the first time, she wiggled and twitched and fluttered in there as I watched on. At least she seemed to be keeping herself entertained! At this time in the game I had come down to 18 eggs that seemed to have life, although of that I had 4 that were questionable.

Well tonight as I candled them, I did as I always do and looked at my white egg first and here is what I saw.........

If a developing egg is not something you are used to seeing than let me explain.
This is a no longer living baby chick. What you want to see is the upper part of the egg (well in this pick) being pretty dark and only really being able to see a few even darker spots (as the baby) and an amazing spider webbing of veins. Although I can see a few veins, they are thin and no longer pumping also the baby was not moving.

To tell you the truth I should not have let myself get that excited about any of the eggs, it would have been a lot less upsetting. But sadly I am not that type of person.

So I continued to candle my eggs and found that I am down to 9 eggs that have moving, living chicks in them.

This is a blue egg, so it is very hard to see inside.

This is a very light brown egg, as you can see there are veins. At the bottom, the bright yellow area (from the light) is the air sac. The very dark area is the chick and boy was she bouncing around in there.

Not sure why this one loaded sideways, but again good lil growing chick in this one as well!

I will keep my head up as I always try (dose not always work) and I can always try this again. I have my fingers crossed for the rest of these eggs.

5 free chicks for me!

I have noticed that between taking care of the kids, husband, animals and the house, I don't put up many blogs about my animal adventures or at least as many as I should.

On one of my many trips picking up free chickens that I found on Craigslist, the woman I got them from told me to check out this feed store. Not only do they deliver for free and only use things from local farmers their prices are not to bad. Just so happens that they were having a free chick event (not the kind of "Chick" that the Chief was hoping for ;o) So while I was in the proses of building my first attempt at an incubator, I went and picked up my 5 free chicks on March 10th. I ordered 3 Barred Rocks and 2 Road Island Reds which just made my urge to incubate my own eggs just that much worse!

I turned my not so great home made "incubator" into a mini brooder for the first week or so. As they get bigger I will move these lil fluff balls into a large tote.

                                  I am not the only fan of our cute little peepers.

It gives you a small heart attack when you see your baby chicks sleeping for the first time, looked like I had a hand full of dead babies!

These two are my most curious lil "girls", any time I tap on the glass they come running up to see what it is. The other three could care less.

So I was doing my normal obsessing over taking pictures of things, this time it was my chicks. When I noticed that one of my RIR chicks has what looks like eye liner. I wanted to take a pic of it to show you guys, but as I tried taking her pic there was this black fuzz that appeared in the right side of the pic.

 I took another and yet again, the black fuzz on the right but it took up more of the pic this time.

(Notice the eye liner? I think I will call her Cher. Why I have not a clue, but that is what came to mind)
As I zoomed out to see what it was I realized that some one is liking the camera attention and wants to be in all the pictures.

       I love the look she is giving me!  "Yes, I am here. You may take my picture, cause I am so fuzzy."

So I leave you tonight with thoughts of lil fuzzies running around peeping joyusly.

And as a side note, I did candle my eggs tonight, but my camera was not cooperating with me. I will try again in another day or so.

Incubation update!

This message is brought to you by very sore hands and even worse arms and leggs!

Finaly finnished the turkey coop, but that is a post of pics for tomorrow.

Dun dun duuuuu,  Today is day three. I candled almost half of my eggs and all 12 of them are developing into lil baby dark spots and I saw definite vains in two of them. Oh I am so very excited.

I am even happier because the one egg that I thought would not be fertial, on acount of not seeing my Rooster get to my White Leghorn momma, is very fertial! I wish it was easier to see into the darker eggs, waiting to see if my blue and green eggs are fertial too...... Guess I'll have to wait untill I think day 10. Oh my Holly crap I am on pins and needles, I can't wait for 18 more days!

Definatly will make sure that i take pics next time I candle. I was just so excited to see behind the locked door to the baby room.

Anyone elts seen inside of a devolping egg? It is amazing!

Start the 21 day count. Incubating chicken eggs!

For the last few days I have been very busy building and building. House for new turkeys, coop expantion, and new goat area!  I will save some of those for another day.

The one I am most excited about is my incubator.

This chicken "Math" has really begun to add up at my house. I started off with 5 hens just after the new year and now I have 25 hens and 2 roosters. Alas, I am done buying laying hens. Now I am moving on to chicks and incubating.

                                           This is Lacey being checked out by Big Daddy Jaxx!

                 I really think there is a Love connection here. Hopefuly this results in some babies!

I have been getting alot of insperation from a site that I frequent often back yard chickens.

I decided to take a look at some ideas for a brooder as I am getting 5 chicks on the 10th, for free! But then I also went on to sneek a peek at all the amazing incubators that these brilliant people have come up with. I went threw the house and found that I had all the makings for an incubator made from one of my 10 gallon fish tanks. Before I really knew it I was gathering it all up and putting it together.

Here is where I was going to list the things needed to make my incubator and put pics, but I got tired that night and put this blog on hold and went to bed. I woke up the next morning and my temp shot up from 99 to 106 overnight. The reason for this is that about 15min before I went to bed I had truned the eggs and let the heat out. I wanted the temp to get back to 99 as fast as possible so I put a towel ontop of the lid to help. Well it helped the temp alright, but I forgot to take it off the lid and just went to bed.  So I had 31 cooked eggs in the incubator.

Well my wonderful husband, being the great Chief that he is, told me to just go and buy a real incubator. So I did! 25 eggs went into the battor lastnight around 5pm. That sets them up for an April fools day hatch! I am so very excited.

Thanks to a fellow blogger informing me that my colors on this here blog were to hard on the eyes I have changed them. I really hope that this makes it more pleasant to read! Again thank you for your input and sugestion.

Losses, new arrivals, and soon to be's!

The past week has been very interesting.

As you all know we welcomed Hana Bean to our homestead the Wednesday before last.
She had a bit of a hard time adjusting to her new home, but now all is well. Getting used to The dogs is a slow prosses for her as she had never been around any and Baricad and be a bit excited at times, it is all coming along though. The baby boys have taken a liking to Hana but it is not a mutual thing yet, as I am sure it will be soon.

Losses,

Yesterday I was running late and in a hurry. Normaly when I go out to do all the feedings my dogs are out with me, but this morning they were in finishing up thier breakfast. As I walked into the yard to feed the baby boys, I saw this dog like thing zoom by the outer property gate opening where all the chickens hang out and forage. I knew exactly what it was........A damn Coyote! I dropped those bottles and ran out after him, all the while forgeting that I did not have my Mommy protecters (the dogs) with me. I ran as fast as I could tward where he was heading, I figured he just came out for a shot at an easy breakfast and that I had cought him in the act and ran him off. I called for my 9 yr old daughter Rylaya to "Let the boys out now, HURRY!" They came bounding out of the fence.

By the time we got to where I thought he was, he was gone. So I turned right around and ran the other way to the lower property. I stoped at the top of the hill before the decent down and there he was at the far end, he even turned and looked right at me when I yelled at him. Then he ran into the creek and was gone.

I was worried there might me another one because they sometimes run in pairs, not often though. But I thought sence my luck was good enough to have coyotes in the middle of the city in the first place that I better not chance weather or not one was still here. Better safe than sorry. So I again turned around and ran back the other way. I checked on the girls as I ran by, I saw most of them. But wait, where are the newest three? I stopped dead in my tracks with the dogs going crazy by my side..... Shit..... Those three girls never stayed with the group, they always ran out to the front pasture every morning. I began to run again, hopeing that they found shelter in the thick black berry bushes that they like to wander underneath.

Nope. As I walked into the tree line there was the first batch of strewn feathers from one of my new Silver Laced Wyndottes. This group consisted of two SLW and one Elvis looking cracked out Road Island Red. I walked a bit ferther and there was another struggle site. Leaves cleared from the battle, dirt turned up and feathers all around. But no bodies, no parts, no blood! In total I found four spots where this had occured so I imagine that they gave a bit of a struggle, I praised them for that! Still I have not found any sign of RIR feathers. Maybe that kill was taken very quick and easy then left with to eat else where.

The boys and I continued our rounds of the property to scare any remaining coyotes looking for the breakfast buffet. Also so that I may continue yelling and curseing out that damn coyote that did get my girls, and warning him that he better not come back or I will be useing his beautiful hide as a bed or couch cover!

My own reaction and feelings in this are funny to me. Why? Well because you see, I have this soft spot for animals, it is called my whole self. I love animals with every ounce of me, just a bit under the amount I love the Chief and our tribe. Normaly if any of my animals had died in anyway, I would have just broke down and cried, and cried, or and cried some more. But those ways have begon to change after I started out lil homestead thing here. I killed my first chicken on Saterday or Sunday ( but that is a story for another day, coming soon) At first it made my stomach a bit funny, but as I began gutting it, I got better and then the feeling was gone.  So when I realized this coyote had taken two, possibly three of my girls I was not sad. No, I was PISSED the FUCK OFF!!!! This bastard took food off of my table, and out of the mouths of our tribe! Those two (or three) chickens would have brought us not only eggs soon, as they were not yet laying, but two dinner each! That is four dinners. It took me at least half the day to cool down from this insident. I think the Chief was really getting tired of hearing about it, which in turn made him more mad that this had happend cause he had to listen to me rant.

Well, after contacting the local Fish and Wild life in our area, and finding out that there is nothing I can do about it in the city limits (if they were to find out) The Chief sugested that we go pick up a high powered pellet gun, if not for anything elts but to make him think real good and heard about coming back again after his next atempt.

This has happend at a really bad time for our homestead as we are getting some additions. Which brings me to.....

New arrivals,

After scouring Craigslist as I do every morning and at least a dozen more times threw out the day, I found a lady in Seatac with three hens and a rooster 8 months old. She was giving them away for free. Would have been nice if she had decided this last week as I drove right by her house on the hour drive to get Hana Bean, would have been convienent. So I got ahold of her and arranged to go pick them up. For those of you whom do not know my area at all, this is 45 min away. Our scheduals conflicted so much that she told me just to go to her house and get them out of her back yard.......Right.

Well today I packed up the car with a few boxes, chicken treats and Mommy treats as well as my Smith and Weston M&P 9mm. I love this thing. See I am a very petite girl/woman and allthough I can certainly carry twice my weight in gold (not literaly, but alot ;0) the Chief insisted that when going to do dealings with people from Craigslist (becaue of the killings and robberies) that I carry my gun. Expecialy when I can't take Jazz with me ( Mommy protector #1)

It did not dawn on me untill I got there that Roosters can be VERY protective of their girls...Shit! So here I am thinking I am going to get my ass handed to me by a pair of spirs, but I though hell I came all the way out here, I'll give this a shot. I went into the yard and was greeted by these two beautiful Black Cochin hens and a Gorgiouse BC Rooster. The roo did not run after me, just stared at me for the 5 seconds it took me to get a handful of scratch out of my bag and throw it for them. I looked for the third hena and she was nice and snug in the nesting box waiting for me to wisk her away.

As I took chase around the yard, I noticed that there were eggs all over. One here, one there and then a nest of about 10 under the porch. The chase of the girls ended very quickly with the great help of some very ong branches that had fallen off thier trees. Then I went one round with the roo threw the yard and in the coop he went. Oh damn, what a shame sir. Here just let me close that door for you. So I closed the coop door and opened the nest lid, grabed out the hen and then used a small lil broop to make the rooster walk right to me. I was very worried about what would happen when I grabed him, but I prepaird myself and carfuly grabed him by the neck and under his burly chest. No struggle, in the box he went and out to the car.

The only way I had to contact this woman was email. So I sent her one to say thank you and let her know I was  heading out. And as if free chickens was not enough I asked her if she was done with chickens and I could have the water container. I waited a few minutes and then headed on my way as I wanted to get home and let these beauties out so I could stare at them in my yard. Now I am wishing I was a bit more patiencent. Not even five minutes later as I just got on the freeway she emailed me back saying that the chickens where her ex husbands thing, he left them there months ago and she did not want to deal with them any more and that I was welcome to any of the suplies I wanted.....Are You Kidding me! She even said if I had drove a truck that I could take the chicken coop. I had been nice enough to collect the eggs for her and put them in the nest box so she did not have to hunt for them and she said I could have taken those too! CRAP!!!! Because I was already on the freeway and did not know this area at all, also cause I didn't drive a truck, I drove home happy and bumbed at the same time.

Now just so you know because of how she openly let me into her yard, and how we do not trust people I made sure to leave a note on the door with my contact info on it.

Also the breed of the chickens was a mystery, I was expecting just either some mutt chickens or just some of the few I already have, which for freee is just fine by me. But no I got these......

For some reason, I didn't really ever want chickens with feathery legs. But now that I have them, they are awsome! It reminds me of bell bottom pants.

Then there is,

Soon To Be's

While on one of my Craigslist searches I also found a pair of Heritage Turkeys for $75. I got ahold of the woman that owns them and she is holding them untill Saterday for me! I was planing on just letting them be where ever they wanted with a shelter to go to and not fence, just roosting in the trees. But now with this coyote thing I am worried that I may have to cancle on buying them for now. Which sucks really bad cause all the other turkeys I have seen for sale are about $100 for the pair. I would really rather not back out. These turks are already at laying age and will hatch their own babies.

Apparently all my goats think they belong in my house!

Today was Finlay Wednesday, the day I went to get my new goat momma Hana Bean!

She kept nibbling on my ear!

Look at her perty widdle face!


I drove an hour and a half away to go pick up our new goat.  Sadly she does not look as good as I wished her to, just as far as her hoofs not being trimmed in a long time! But I will learn to do that tomorrow and fix them for her.

She did not take to Jazz or Baricade as well as the baby boys did, she instantly began to butt heads with Jazz when he was just saying hi. That is OK she will get used to him. To bad that even if she got along with Baricade his time is almost up. But that is a sad post for another day.

I figured because I have been feeding the babies in the house that it had something to do with them always trying to get in the house. But as soon as I let Hana Bean into the yard and I went inside she walked right in behind me...... WTF? She walked in as if she had always been here and was always let in the house. Well, I don't have to worry to much as I will be moving the goats out to the main yard instead of being in the dog yard. I just had the babies there so they were safe, but now they have Hana Bean to hopefully protect them.

It is almost time for the last feeding of the night for the baby boys, so I just wanna add that I am very excited for the kidding part of this and the milk to come.

Today was defiantly a MONDAY, a Monday that had a happy ending. (The appropriate kind)

I was pleased with my self first thing this morning because I woke up 10 minutes earlier than normal. No, not really that big of a deal, but I figured it was a sign of a good day to come......

Got most of the kids off to school without a hitch, but when it came to our oldest, who just came back from vacation in Disney land, it started. He got a bit of a late start on his day, but we got out the door on time but the bus driver apparently did not read the date that Chase would be back to school. So as the bus got closer and he began to get out of the car.......the bus just drove on by.

Good thing we are not that far from the school, I got him there on time!

Now back home where the last of the five is waiting with Daddy for me to get back. Getting him off to school went just fine.

I did my morning online reading and quick browse threw Craigslist, after my morning chores of course, and I came across #1. a female Oberhaslis goat that has already been bred, due in May and they only want $100 for her. Of course she is an hour away but still a great deal. #2. Three "laying" we'll see about that, hens $15 for all of them only 2yrs old. Granted my luck with getting things off of Craigslist is not all that great. But I got really excited anyway hoping to get return phone calls and emails.

I needed to run some errands so I loaded up into my car and got to the end of our driveway, and stopped next to our dumpster to empty the car of garbage. Then I came to realize that some how the car doors got locked. It gets better, although you would think it was good because I was just in our driveway, still at home. We do not have any spare keys for this particular vehicle. Along with that, my purse with all my money was in the car as well as my house keys, and I was blocking the whole driveway. At this point I felt very smart (sarcasm) and my enthusiasm for the day was beginning to fade. The Chief came out and rescued me with some lil car tricks he knows and off I went.

There is hardly ever a day that we catch the first light on our street when it is green, so no surprise that I again today landed at it being very red. But then the four lights on the way to the freeway were apparently all against my today as well. Which is crap cause I always get mostly green lights.

About noon I did get am email regarding the chickens. The man said I could have them and to come get them around 5 or 6pm tonight. Well between chores, dinner, bath time and animals I don't leave my house really after 4. After a few more emails back and fourth it began to look like it just was not going to work, our schedules just were not lining up. So I told him this and thanked him for his time.

I still had not got a call back about the great deal goat, so I figured that she was already gone.

A few hours later, one on top of the other, I got a return call on the goat and now I pick her up on Wednesday, and the guy decided to just bring the chickens to me tonight.

On top of all that, one of my baby goats was not eating as much as I would like until this afternoon. Then he jumped right up and sucked down his full bottle!

All this I thought was going to just be one of those Mondays, but it turned into a happy ending after all!

Baby goats are here!!!!

My babies are here..... Or well, my mommy protector Jazz (great dane) has claimed them as his babies!

This is him licking this baby clean.

My Jazz normaly listens very well, but when I told him it was time to come in the house, he looked at me and said there was not way he was leaving these babies. I had to DEMAND that he come with me at least 4 times before he very slowly walked twards me with his big head almost draging on the ground.

Sir Bently found them very interesting, not only did they touch noses a few times as well as taking turns fallowing eachother. But Bently took to garding the babies while they slept in their new lil house. He sat on the corner of their porch for a while, just sitting and sitting.

I don't quite understand..... Are they dogs? They don't smell like dogs....

These goats are called Oberhaslis, they are rare in the United States. Originating in Switzerland, they are a winsome and affectionate breed- even the boys are docile and easy to manage.
So I bought the two boys that I helped with the birth, and had planned to also buy a baby doe. But with everything figured out it came up in my thoughts that it would be at least a year before we got milk from her. This is due to that fact that she would not be old enough to be bred untill August of this year, 6 months from now, then it is about 130 days of pregnancy. Lastly it would be another 2 months untill the babies would be weaned unless they were sold before that. Comes to about a year.

I talked to the breeder and she will have a few females in March or April that will be in milk and that she will be willing to sell. So I decided that even though it will be a bit more costly than was initally planning at least we will get milk alot sooner! There for instead of $100 for a bottle baby doeling and buy one get one free for the males at $25. I had to pay full price $25 each on the boys right now and then when one is ready $300 for the female.

At least this will give me time to collect the things I need for the milking prosses and storage!

I am so excited for all these new happinings at my house.