October Avery, does and ducks

Downloaded some recent photos, and feeling the need to get a post out there, but not much in the talking, or writing mood, so: above = ducks. Note heated green water tub on right. Roof netting to keep owls and ravens out.

We have a new feature to our doe stall this winter; the back door, which allows us to divide up the does and all have access to waters, feeders and are able to come in and out as they please. Key for weaning doelings and separating pregnant does from spunky adolescent does. I've been leaving the doors open so that the goats climatize while the temperatures are mild. The doors are insulated, but only the front door has a door flap.Once the temperatures start dipping down to zero and colder, I'll start leaving the doors closed. Eventually whoever is on the far side will be locked in for the night. We decided not to make a flap on that door so that the structure stays warmer. We'll see how it goes...

goats and sunflowers

We've been making a few improvements on our current goat setup. When we moved the does to their current location last October, there were a few essentials we overlooked, the most significant being that we hadn't set up an easy way to get bedding out of the stalls and pen and away to a convenient compost location. We are now remedying that by pushing a path in on the downside of the stall. Dustin has been using a skid-steer to remove all the hay and bedding that has built up over the last year. He also put up electric fencing for a second pen, and built a door at the rear of the stall that exits into the new pen. The buck pen has also benefited from Dustin having time off work. The stall is cleaned out, as well as several wheelbarrows of bedding removed from the feed area. Yesterday he moved the feeder away from the gate and built a roof over it that can be pulled with a rope to lift from outside the pen. So we can toss hay into their pen without having to handle to boys - very convenient this time of year when they are in full rut - saves lots of laundry and extra showering. In the past we have tossed hay in from outside, but the feeder was close to their gate, so it was a never ending battle with the hay building up and blocking the gate.

New doe pen.

Now there is a door on the stall wall facing us. You can see the new path that wraps around the building.

In other goat news, Rose is in heat for the first time this season. I was hoping she would be hoarse by this morning as she spent the better part of yesterday and all night hollering at the top of her lungs. Of course she is the one doe that I'm planning on breeding late as she is giving the most milk right now. We've started drying off Xanadu as she hasn't been looking well. We had the vet come out and look at her. She is anemic so we've been worming her heavily and we gave her a round of antibiotics. We've stopped milking her and have separated her from her daughter in an attempt to reduce stresses on her body.

Turkeys

Sunflowers

It has been a good sunflower summer. I've been cutting fresh sunflowers to bring in the house regularly. There are several that are going to seed. The goats love to nibble on sunflower heads as do the chickens, so I'll hang and dry them for winter treats.

Interior Doe Shed

The does have been spending quite a bit of time indoors lately. I am standing just to the right of the entrance. Yin is standing to the left of the interior wall and sliding pocket gate. The outside walls are well insulated but the long wall on the left is currently uninsulated. By next year at this time it should be our enclosed, insulated and heated shop. Right now the structure still needs a couple sheets of plywood, a door, insulation and the wood stove hooked up, for starters. You can see the frost lines on the wall. The area that is not frosty is sixteen inches of insulated floor and twelve inches of solid wood blocking.

 

Here is a view from the back corner facing the door. You can see the frosty flap that they push through to go in and out. Below is a picture of their light source. So far we are just using a regular light bulb, but if we need to, we can just unscrew the bulb and replace it with a heat lamp. We have tried to put the light as out of the way as possible. It is enclosed in a metal basket and the cord is wrapped in wire so if the goats were able to get at it they wouldn't be able to chew the cord. Their is a hole drilled in the wall directly behind the cage that the cord enters through. So far I've just been plugging the light in when I feed in the morning and unplugging it at night. I'll probably put it on a timer and save myself a little effort one of these days. So far I'm pretty happy with our new goat shed. It feels snug and draft free inside. It is noticeably warmer than outside. We keep the heated waterer and feeders outside to encourage the goats to leave their shelter and get outside. I read somewhere that you don't want the barn to be much more than thirty degrees warmer than outside or it will be too drastic a change in temperature for the animals. Also, if our waterer was indoors it would add a lot of humidity to the air.  I encourage the goats to get outside as much as possible. Even on the coldest days, I still feed grain and some hay outside. On a side note, it is a balmy twenty degrees above zero today. So I'm looking forward to getting outside today, and I'm sure the goats and chickens are too.

 

Cold weather and Chicken coops

I just came in from night time chores. It is about ten degrees below zero and snowing. It was one of the few nights that I paused and contemplated whether I really needed to go outside. Tempting me, was not only the cold weather and lack of motivation to pile on all my layers, but the time of night and the knowledge that all the animals were probably sleeping. It is almost midnight and these days we usually give everyone dinner and close chicken doors earlier in the evening. When the weather gets this cold we toss extra hay at each feeding, so no one was going to go hungry. I went out mostly to check on everyone and make sure they were warm enough, and toss some more hay (for my conciouncse)  Rarely do I toss fresh hay into the goat stalls, but I did tonight. It can be a waste of hay. On the plus side, it adds a fresh layer of bedding and the goats don't have to stand out in the cold and blowing snow. The chickens and ducks had wanted outside this morning despite the cold. We had closed their doors earlier in the evening so their coops could start building up heat for the night. As of yet we have still not used any heat lamps this year, just regular light bulbs.

In related news, I mixed a hundred and fifty pounds of chicken feed outside today. I managed to stay warm by moving quickly. Noah even helped. Tomorrow we are having hay delivered to an area close to our driveway. We are getting three nine hundred pound bales of brome hay, second cutting. I have never used this source before but I was clear that my goats are very picky. They prefer green leafy hay. The price is less than we've paid for hay yet this year even with the delivery fee, so we'll see. I hope it doesn't snow more than the one inch forcasted, otherwise it is going to be a chore getting the truck all the way up to the bucks pen.

I took some pictures of our chicken coops a few days ago, so here they are:

This is a view of the entire structure from the north side. Before we had dug out the hillside this was a hovel for my quarter horse. After she moved we built a smaller insulated structure within her stall which became the buck stall. We built another well insulated room on the top making it a two story structure. Outside there is a pen within a pen of woven wire fencing with two strands of electric on the inside. It was designed to keep the bucks in and off the fence. They have since moved to the doe's old stall and pen. Now both structures are poultry housing. The lower coop houses three ducks, four pullets and three roosters. We are about to eat a couple of the roosters. 

 

The space is underused, we had four more pullets in the lower coop but they wanted to be in the upper coop and kept escaping. We moved the birds into this area in late fall and didn't have time to build a roof or taller fence so these birds are rather vulnerable. If the top coop wasn't at max capacity I would probably consolidate all the birds into the top coop. We are thinking of just housing ducks in the lower coop next year. In the picture you can see the gate on the right and some random containers I put water in for the ducks. Below is inside the coop. Perch, nesting boxes above, light, heated waterer, duck jug and feeder.

Below is a view from the south. The top coop is larger, about ten by twelve (I think). It also has a much nicer roofed outer fortress. This summer we felt safe at night leaving the chicken door to the coop open as long as they couldn't get out of their outer pen. We have two doors one on the left and one on the right. We are planning on extending their fenced area with a mesh net roofing out to give them more room to roam. The only big regret I have in this structure is that the stairs into the coop are inside their pen.

The top coop currently houses fifteen hens and two roosters. In the milder months we could put more birds in here but when they are cooped up for days at a time it gets crowded and the less dominant pullets get picked on. Starting in March or April the left side will house chicks and all the adults will be confined to the right side for a couple months.

 

This is the view from the door, of the left side of the coop. Heated waterer, broody box and perch. The woven wire door is to my right.

The door is obnoxious. We've been meaning to take it off as we leave it open all the time except in the spring when we have chicks on the left side. You can see the big feeder in the back, and a little feeder in the front which is for all the less dominant birds that hide on the left side of the coop. To the left of the feeder are laying boxes, You can't quite see them but they are on the back wall.

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And here I am standing with my back to the nesting boxes and facing the chicken door and window. The chicken door is too big. We've been meaning to make it smaller so not as much warm air escapes or cold air enters. But we make do.

Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner and Goat Pictures

In this picture. Xanadu standing in front of her new home. You can see the covered outer area, Now there are feeders on both walls facing eachother. Door enters into a ten by sixteen well insulated structure divided in half with a sliding gate.

So before I begin I have to share that I am drinking a mulled spiced cider rum punch mimosa - for breakfast! Actually I had tea and pumpkin bread a while ago but it is our general breakfast time. So my reasoning for this lavish start to my day; the punch was already made and the champagne leftover from last night, and it would be a shame to waste it. Yesterday we hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner for close friends. We often get invited to Thanksgiving dinner at friends but always decline and spend the day with my family. I think we have begun a tradition of having a dinner with friends as well. We have spent the last few days cooking and cleaning, so today our house is cleaner than usual and we have lots of yummy leftovers in the fridge. This entire week and really now until the New Year is going to be filled with extra special meals and treats. So let the festivities begin.

Last night we cooked up our first duck and two of our own chickens, both about seven pound cornish cross meat birds. The duck was fresh and I'm guessing about four pounds. It was a male Khaki Campbell, a laying breed and not very meaty. What meat there was, was very good. I rubbed all the birds with course sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, tangerine zest and fresh thyme and sage. Then they sat for about twenty-four hours, the duck in the fridge uncovered and the chickens on ice in a cooler. The duck was slow cooked for a couple hours at 325. We cut many shallow slits in the bird to let the fat out . We also had the bird up off the bottom of the pan so it wouldn't sit in it's own fat. There was a layer of fat under the skin but I just peeled it off as I carved the bird. The meat was very good and not greasy at all, just tasted like quality moist dark meat, yum. The chickens were great as well. Luckily I have double ovens so the chickens cooked at the same time as the duck, but at 425. My ovens are small though so I could only fit one chicken at a time.

I made a wonderful cranberry chutney from our own cranberries both fresh and dried. We had stuffing, sweet potatoes and rolls, (the sweet potatoes were not local and I recently finished up the last of my local celery and onions so we bought those. I did make the rolls from scratch and they had a cup of goat milk in them.) I also made yukon gold smashed potatoes from our own garden and gravy from the scrapings and our own canned chicken broth. I had cooked a large Sweet Meat winter squash last week and made two pies, four loaves of pumpkin bread and some muffins. The pies were for dinners last weekend. I had however, saved two loaves of pumpkin (squash) bread for last night. As an appetizer I filled endive spears with a little goat cheese mixed with pecans, cherries, thyme and garlic. The dinner was a potluck but I tried to cover all the essentials, I thought someone would bring a green salad or casserole type dish but everyone brought dessert. So we were missing out on green beans or brussel sprouts. However dessert was not lacking, we had: a fabulous pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling, sweet potato crisp, rum cake, apple pie, cherry pie and ice cream.

To drink everyone brought wine and beer. I made mulled spiced cider for the kids with a bottle of rum on the side for adults. I was in the mood for something cold and sparkly, as the house was toasty. We happened to have a bottle of champagne on hand so I made some apple juice ice cubes and cooled some of the mulled spiced cider. Right as everyone was showing up I added the apple cubes, Sailor Jerry's spiced rum and champagne to the cider. It was fabulous. But I was the only one that even tried it, as much as I tried to force it upon others (bunch of beer drinkers!) So last night I set the bowl of punch outside and this morning it was slushy, would have been frozen solid if not for the alcohol. There was still some champagne in the fridge. I thought about saving it for tonight but thought it would have more fizz now. This is going to be my new holiday party drink and next time I make it I will measure and share the recipe.

So in other notes, here are a few pictures of the goats in there new home. These pictures were taken about five weeks ago. Now the ground has about five inches of snow on it and the trees are all frosty. So to read more about the new goat structure you can go back a few posts, I'd promised some pictures so here they are.


Zuri, my pride and joy. She is the sweetest, most affectionate doeling yet...and the spitting image of her dam who we lost this summer.

Here is the herd exploring their new home. Heated waterer to the left. Noah watching from outside the pen.

View of goat pen from our front door. Much improved.

And one final picture of the last of our indoor ripened tomatoes. We finished these off making salsa and tomato dishes daily before we left on our vacation.

New home for goats

Today we moved the does from their stall and pen of three years to a new home. Their previous home was a good hundred yards or more up a pretty steep hill from the house. May not sound very far but trudging up the hill with a babe on the back and pulling one in a sled along with a milk pail and tote....or running up and down the hill mid winter when a doe is kidding, whew! Their new home is built onto the low side of our new addition. I've forgotten the exact measurements but it is ten feet wide and about twenty feet long. However, the main room is divided in half, each room about eight by ten, and then their is a roofed outer area with three walls, but it is not completely enclosed. The floor is dirt and the ceiling is only about six to seven feet tall. The area is designed very nicely. We can get a wheelbarrow/ cart into both areas easily. The covered area will have feeders on opposite walls. We can toss hay into the feeders from outside the gate. We've really been talking realistically about how many does we want to keep maximum as we already have six, three 3 yr olds, a dry yearling and two kids. The top number is probably ten to twelve max, but that is taking into account kids and dry yearlings. As far as a comfortable number of goats to milk, four to six is a nice number. If we started selling milk shares maybe I could milk eight does or so by hand. Really for our needs a few milkers is just fine. This new structure is over twice as big as their last home and can comfortably house at least a few more goats than we currently have.

The goats are a bit antsy/ anxious tonight. By now I'll bet they are all sleeping. The coolest thing is that every time I open my front door they are right there looking up at me. Our kitchen window looks up the hill towards the garden and former doe pen. But the goats have to be running around for me to be able to just barely see them. Having the does closer to the house makes chores significantly easier. We will be storing hay on the side of our driveway just above their pen. We can pump water into their waterer from the truck year round. There is plenty of room for covered grain storage nearby. We are planning on milking in the new addition for this winter. The area is still not completely enclosed but we do have a large wood-stove with the chimney just installed.

So our two bucklings moved into the does old stall and pen. Our Senior buck is to join them soon. He is in full rut at the moment so I'm hoping to do a bit of maintenance to the pen before moving him up. The bucklings have got to be quite impressed with their upward mobility in housing conditions and Xavier doesn't know it yet but he is about to be a very content buck as well once he has company again.

Tomorrow some folks are delivering a winter's supply of brome hay, about a hundred and twenty fifty pound bales. Currently we've got a couple large nine hundred and fity pound square bales and are on the list to pick up a couple twelve hundred pound bales as well. I'm slowly learning not to put all my eggs in one basket. Variety is key.

We have been so fortunate as far as the last couple weeks of weather is concerned. We had been getting cold temperatures and snow for several days. Then we had record breaking warm temperatures in the fifties, reaching low sixties over several days time. It was fabulous. We were so appreciative as Dustin was outside working whether at work or here working on the goat stall. We still have one batch of chickens waiting on Xavier for their winter home which will have a heat lamp and heated waterer. I was transplanting some perennial shrubs, rhubarb and chives as recently as yestereday. The ground is now frozen, I think for good, luckily the holes had been dug for months, just waiting for the right moment. Over the course of time several chickens had died and had all made it into the bottoms of the holes, I have a feeling those plants are just going to take off next summer.

In other news, we are up to eight to ten eggs a day. There are many pullets that are still not laying, just the new sexlinks are laying. Dustin just got the woodstove back in place a few days ago and we've been have wood fires from morning till night. I'm not sure how I ever go without, I enjoy them so. Wood fires bring such a warm feel to an otherwise cool dark time. It almost seems as though I can notice a difference in daylight from one day to the next. We have been losing close to seven minutes of daylight a day, which is huge! The sun isn't coming up until nine-ish and going down around six thirty or so. However, this is a hard time to be on the west side of the hill, as the sun doesn't actually hit our property until noonish. Ouch.

The dehydrator has been running for the last week non stop, drying tomatoes. I've got hot water jars in my outside fridge at the moment trying to keep our carrots and beets from freezing. We are about to move the fridge in, or can a bunch of veggies, hm... And tonight I pulled in a package of ribeyes for dinner two nights from now. We got the best deal on a local beef box. We've been buying or receiving all of our beef locally for the last few years. Dustin stopped by to buy a hundred dollar box from a new slaughterhouse that just opened up. He asked them about how much the box would weigh and they said about thirty pounds. Well he brought it home and weighed it and it is about forty-five pounds of mixed cuts and hamburger. At least three packages of ribeyes and a couple packages of tenderloin. Anyways that turns out to be barely over two dollars a pound which is a great deal. The beef is not organic, but it is local, raised on pasture in the summer months, and I believe hormone/ antibiotic free. To buy "natural"( which doesn't really mean anything) hamburger, it is about five dollars a pound.

I did take some pictures of the goats in their new home today, so I'll try and get those up for the next post. These final days before the imminent and lasting snow fall is so precious, we are scampering around in a frenzy. Our winter vacation is timed just about right. I think we will leave just as all our outside projects are completed and the snow is here to stay. We have a fabulous house-sitter who has gotten to know our house and animals over the last six years or so. Our biggest worry is exposing our kids to all the crazy illnesses while on vacation, not that I'm worried about colds or flus, but it would suck to get sick on vacation. Goodnight and happy fall days.