Amazing Turkey Story

We have three Bourbon Red hens and a tom. I had the suspicion that someone was trying to have babies as one of the hens had disappeared . Well last week the mother hen came out with one chick (poult). One. Sad sate of affairs to only have one baby! I wondered if some chicks may have gotten lost in the grass and found the nest. There was one empty shell and 2 eggs that had chicks in them, one of which had a hole pecked in it. 5 were very rotten eggs. (One can tell that they are rotten as they are light and there is liquid inside the egg.) I thought well maybe she know that those 2 wouldn't hatch (dead), but brought them in and put them in the incubator any way.

Oh, her one chick was not a "newborn" as he already had wing feathers.

Well the "dead" chick was alive after spending a couple hours warming up in the incubator. He was having trouble getting out so after leaving him for 2 or 3 hours with no progress we decided to help him. After he was out of the shell, dried and rested it was very apparent that he was not "right". He could not get up and kept flipping over and twisting when he tried. It is not very uncommon to have a chick with that kind of problem (it's caused by being in the shell in a funny way and a variety of other factors.) My mom and I did not want to put him down so we decided to wait and see what he was like the next day. (Chicks don't need to eat right after they hatch as just before they hatch the last of the egg yolk is absorbed by them.)

By morning he was still not "right". I have him a medicine dropper of sugar water and a tiny piece of boiled egg yolk in his beak (old farmer remedy for weak or stressed chicks. ) I would take him out and work with him several times a day. He still wanted to stand but, one of his legs kept going to the side and not working. I kept pushing his leg back to the right position each time. After two days he started getting weak and could not hold his head up. On Sunday morning I decided to give him propylene glycol in a medicine dropper. It worked he was stronger again . When we got back from church he was up and walking! Out to his mom who was locked up in a pen with her one chick he went. He was not sure what do do at first, but got the hang of it and at night both chicks were tucked up under her wing. I checked them on Monday morning and he was as wild as ever and fast! He hid under her tail when I came.

The other egg never hatched and was discarded after it started oozing.

Well all's well that ends well and the mom turkey has two babies! Yeah the hard work payed off.

Door County and new ram

I need to cull my Bluefaced Leicester ram as he has very bad pasterns. I really like the Shetland/BFL crosses fleeces and mothering/milk production, but was very disappointed in the fleece weights. The Shetland/BFL fleeces were only 2# and it cost the same $$ to feed a ewe with a 2# fleece as one with a 6-8# fleece. I also want a good fleece for handspinning. I may also get a Coopworth ram for crossing. I really like Coopworth wool too.

This is my new crossing sire, Windham, a purebred Corriedale. He is an Australian type ram out of an AI ram with a 20# (unskirted) fleece. His sire is shorter and stockier than the show type Corriedales. Whitefish Bay Farm also grazes their flock. They use 2 strands of tape for sub-dividing! (I don't know if my sheep would stay in, but I never tried it.) Oh and they noticed that the woollier faced sheep have about 1/2# more wool than the less woolly ones.

I am planning to keep some ewe lambs out of him for commercial ewes.
Fleece shot-I love the bold crimp. His fleece was the most lustrous/silky of all the ram lambs. They also had some SUPER (with about 3x the crimp) fine colored ram lambs, but I did not want a colored one. All their fleeces are much nicer than the show type Corriedale fleeces. I have a ball of roving from a show type fleece and it has been sitting for over a year-it is very Dorset like. I can't wait until I get to shear him and spin some.



There was a 15-20 acre field of sunflowers-so breath taking.


I also got to see the bridges lift up for a sail boat.

I got some good Door County cherries and some blueberries, but they got eaten up before I could get any pictures! I also got some frozen cherries so we can have them in the winter.

Rainbows!

double rainbow and rain coming down


We did not get any more rain, but it was fun to see the rain coming down on farms east of us. The rainbows are so pretty-we even got a double rainbow!

It rained!!!

This is field on the way home-it looked so cool because of the way the sun was shining.

I was at work, at Hidden Valley woolen mil, and there was thunder in the distance, but no rain. About half way home there were a few drops of rain. Then about 30 seconds later the road was soaked and there were big puddles. When I got home they said it rained for about an hr. , we got 2 in. ! 5 min. in the other direction didn't get any either. I guess we got it all! We have not had a good rain for a long time-some of my pasture is dry like hay so it was badly needed .



My little sister, Lydia, works on an organic dairy farm picking rocks and pulling weeds. The farmers had a cow give birth to TRIPLET heifer calves. (If they had been heifer and bull calves the heifers wouldn't have been able to breed. The male hormones interfere and the heifers are then infertile.) The last heifer calf was stillborn. These calves are so tiny-they are probably about 30-40# and the normal birth weight is about 90#. 1 cow in 105, 000 births will have triplets! (Twins are 1 in 200 cow births.)

*Edit-both calves are doing fine.

Grass flowers and Alfalfa blossoms

iTimothy grass "flowers"-they are kind of cool.


I love Alfalfa blossoms and the color variations they come in!

Cool fog

Last night it rained after being very hot. Then it got foggy in patches. It was soo pretty!
It looked waaay better in real life. Pictures just don't do scenery justice! (Click pictures to "biggify")

What's hiding in the grass?

A baby Bunny! I found it running in the sheep pasture and got a few shots of the cute thing.

Silly Birds!

Turkey on the sky watch. ( This is the first one to get up to the top of the barn.)

Riding the sheep.
Some chickens lay shell-less eggs! Usually they lay these eggs when under stress.

Spring is coming!!!!

The spring time "rivers" going to the spring time "pond"
The "pond" Cattails grow here in the summer-it is wetter in this spot. On the other side of the driveway we have a mini spring fed pond.
I can see grass!

Sunrise

Chickens and turkeys!!!

Banti Americaunas
chickens and turkeys in the day
Bourbon Red hen
Bourbon Red Tom
Americana hen
Black Australorp hens
more Black Australorp hens