I tried taking videos on my new camera for the first time. I chose the best subject in the world - goat kids at play. The twins are six days old in these clips. The little brown buck is four days old. Enjoy!
April 29, 2022
April 25, 2022
Kidding Round 2
So, we remained on kid watch after the first set of twins was born. A couple days later, Caroline lost interest in going out with the rest of the herd. It was early, but she looked so big and uncomfortable, that I wasn't surprised. Multiples usually come early and we figured twins, at least.
This was her first, so a longer labor wasn't unexpected. After hours of waiting and watching, she finally got down to serious pushing and feet presented. This is normal, so usually, we just stand by to welcome the newcomer. But progress was slow, so I tried to grab the front legs and pull. I say tried, because the little bugger would pull them back in every time I tried to get hold!
I could tell he was big, and after a lot of pushing on Caroline's part and pulling on mine, she finally delivered a handsome baby boy.
Seems pleased with himself for making his appearance. |
So, there was my third buck for my waiting list. Then, we waited and waited, but that was it. She was done. Just one big boy. One big stubborn boy.
The next morning he was nursing on his own and getting around very well.
Kids always love to sleep in the hay feeder trough. |
April 23, 2022
Kidding Has Commenced!
Well, we didn't have to wait long! Up first. . .
Can you guess how many? |
Twin bucklings, just a few minutes old. |
Early the next morning. |
First buckling. |
Number 2. |
April 22, 2022
Watch This Space
Due April 24 |
UPDATED: Due |
Due April 29 |
Announcements coming soon.
April 18, 2022
Alternative Feeds for Chickens
Trying to make the food budget balance with rising food prices has become a bit of a challenge these days. It's caused me to analyze and re-evaluate our diet (which isn't a bad thing), because now, I have to ask myself what my price limits are for the things I usually buy.
Vintage USDA Poster |
I'm very thankful to have a garden, fruit trees, and smallholding livestock. But there's a concern too, because some of the heftiest price jumps have been for livestock feed. So I'm analyzing their diets too, and asking, what are the alternatives for feeding our animals?
Well, how much food does a chicken need? There are various answers to that question because it depends on the age and type of chicken. Production estimates are usually around 4 to 6 ounces per chicken per day if the chickens are getting all their nutritional needs met by commercial feed. But what about chickens that free range and supplement their own diet? How does that factor in? I don't know a formula to calculate that, but I can tell you that because of our alternative feeding methods, our chickens eat very little pelleted food. In fact, they much prefer the other things we offer them.
So here's what we do to help cut the feed bill. As a heads up, you won't find that it conforms to what a lot of the experts say. But we have healthy, happy chickens and feed them for practically free. So these things definitely work. The links will take you to my blog posts for more information.
- chicken tractor
- fencing portions of the pasture with electric netting
- portable chicken runs
- enlarge the chicken yard and rotate where they're allowed access
Grazing beds. We grow fresh grass in these beds, which the chickens trim enthusiastically.
Any grass seed will do; chickens just love fresh greens. Occasionally, we move the bed to a new location, and let the chickens scratch up whatever they can find in the dirt.
Gathered greens and herbs. Sometimes I take my hand sickle and trim tall grass for them. Also, I gather weeds and herbs: chickweed (a favorite), clover, parsley, dandelion, plantain, purslane, bee balm, wood sorrel, basil, borage, marjoram, chervil, chives, cilantro, mint, echinacea, dill, comfrey, lemon balm, marigold flowers, hyssop, lemongrass, oregano, stinging nettles, nasturtium, purple deadnettle, rose, smartweed, sage, yarrow, tarragon, thyme, raspberry leaves, thyme.
Root crops. Hang a turnip, carrot, beet, sweet potato, etc. where the chickens can peck it, and it will amuse them for quite awhile.
Winter squash. These are easy to feed. I cut them in sections and let the chickens peck out the seeds and flesh.
Surplus melons and overgrown cucumbers. These can be fed the same way.
Compost. Moving our compost bins into the chicken yard was one of the best things we ever did.
It's less work for us and they love scratching through it. What's especially amazing, is that there appears to be some sort of symbiotic relationship between chickens and compost. With only minimal turning on our part, our compost works up much more quickly than chickenless compost piles. It's almost like magic. (In fact, my How To Compost With Chickens is one of my most popular eBooks. See cover below, or follow that link for details.)
Do we do anything special about what goes into the chicken compost pile? No. They eat what they want and ignore what they don't want. So all kitchen and canning scraps go into the compost, including dried, crushed eggshells, moldy cheese, and meat scraps. Shockingly, we don't separate out coffee grounds and onion skins (big no-nos in the chicken expert world) because the chickens don't consider them food and leave them to decompose on their own.
Eggshells, dried and crushed instead of oyster shells for calcium. As mentioned above, these are fed via the compost. I know some people worry this will cause chickens to become egg eaters, but I've never had a chicken yet who was smart enough to look at a jigsaw puzzle of crushed egg shells and mentally figure out the pieces could be reconstructed into eggs.
Cooked eggs (scrambled or hard boiled). Extra eggs can be fed back to omnivorous livestock! We especially seem to end up with an excess of duck eggs, which I hardboil, then chop shell and all into small pieces for the chickens.
Surplus dairy. Apparently, chickens can't digest milk, but they can eat cheese, yogurt, kefir, curds, and whey. Since we have goats, we often have surplus milk, so this is an excellent way for it to not go to waste.
Homegrown grains and sunflower seeds. The thing about grain for chickens, is that it doesn't have to be processed. Wheat for example. Toss some wheat heads into the chicken yard, and they know exactly what to do with it. Growing grain for chickens is much less labor intensive than growing it for humans. Ditto for sunflower seeds, set a head out and they'll take care of the processing.
Besides grass grains (wheat, oats, barley), small grains such as amaranth or sorghum are easy to grow and easy to feed. I toss whole seed heads into the chicken yard and they do the rest. Corn usually needs to be cracked to make it eating size for chickens.
Sprouted grains and fodder. Both of these can stretch the feed budget a lot. Also, they're very healthy. We feed sprouted grains when the root tails are about half-an-inch.
Sprouted mix of wheat, oats, and black oil sunflower seeds. |
We feed fodder when the grass has grown about three inches tall. They eat grass, grain, and roots.
Same mix as above, allowed to grow into grass. |
I'm not sure how much it decreases the feed bill, but it definitely boosts nutrition. And the chickens love it.
Grubs. Any time I dig anywhere, I keep a small bucket handy to toss grubs into. The chickens adore these, and I hope it helps keep our insect population down as well.Earthworms. The chickens find these in the compost, but for anyone practicing vermiculture for castings, this is a great way to manage the earthworm population.
Other insects and insect larvae. Some people raise mealworms or solder fly larvae for chicken feed. I've never tried either. If we ever find a cache of larvae, we scoop it into a bucket and take it to them. They also love crickets, but these aren't easy to catch and transport!
How do I know they're getting a proper diet? How do I know it's properly balanced? Well, they get protein, carbohydrates, fats, fresh fruits and vegetables, and all from zero to minimally processed sources. They are bright eyed, interested in life, have good weight, shiny feathers and firm egg shells. We still keep free choice commercial feed available, but every single chicken (and the Muscovies) prefer the goodies I've listed above.
If you're interested in learning how to mix your own feed rations, I have another little eBook that will teach you how to do that, How To Mix Feed Rations With the Pearson Square. It includes a lot of information on self-sufficient livestock feeding for a variety of species.
These are the book mentioned above. Their titles link them to their individual webpages (and where to find them) or you can visit Kikobian.com for a complete list of titles. |
Prepper's Livestock Handbook is another of my books that emphasizes alternative feeds for self-sufficiency. The link is to its webpage, where you can find more information.
Alternative Feeds for Chickens © April 2022 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com
April 14, 2022
Silvopasture
Pasture improvement is something we are always striving toward. Ideally, it should be a self-sustaining perennial system, but in reality, this is not an easy goal to reach. In observing how our pastures grow, I noticed early on that when trees create light shade from a high canopy, our pasture forage does better than parts of the pasture that are in full sun. Lightly shaded parts of the pasture survive summer's hot dry spells, continuing to provide forage for the goats. Because of that, silvopasture makes a lot of sense.
Silvopasture. Silva is Latin for forest and, of course, pasture is where livestock graze, so silvopasture is a system which integrates forest, forage, and livestock in a mutually beneficial way. Our wooded goat browse areas are a ready-made location for establishing silvopasture.
Our 2020 Master Plan Hmm. Needs updating. |
Silvopasture has been on the master plan for a couple of years, but it took awhile to get to a point where we could actually do something. Mostly because of
this |
this |
and this. |
They're all mature pine trees, most of which either uprooted and fell, or broke mid-trunk and fell. Some of them Dan took down because for awhile, it didn't seem safe in our woods, especially when it was windy.
Our tractor and PTO chipper in the background. |
Silvopasture beginnings. |
April 9, 2022
Spring Planting & Growing: Early Edition
- turnips
- kale
- carrots
- parsnips
- mangels
- sprouted pantry potatoes
- beets
- lettuce
- snow peas
- salsify
- pink dandelion
- cultivated burdock
- mizuna
- bloody dock
These collard plants are several years old. I don't get huge leaves from them anymore, but the small ones are tasty too. |
One of just a few fall planted kale plants that made it. |
Fall planted garlic, multiplier onions, and volunteer potato plant (the sprouted pantry potatoes haven't emerged yet.) |
More garlic |
Our fall planted wheat. Yellow from ??? |
It's still going to seed. |
Snow peas. No flowers yet! |
Lettuce and volunteer dandelion; both salad favorites. |
Mangels. These make great livestock feed (both leaves and roots). |
Mizuna and violets (of which the flowers are edible) |
Now that the swale is in and working well, I'm hoping my hoop house will be more useful in summer. Its raised beds dry out quickly in summer, so that I tend to plant there as a last resort. What I've decided to use them for is perennials, where the raised bordered beds can keep them under control.
Cultivated burdock and volunteer chickweed. |
Swale berm planted with herbs and edibles. |
Seed mix sprouting on the swale berm. |
My few asparagus plants were taken over by blackberries and daffodils, so I liberated them. |
Strawberries are thriving. My competition for those is slugs, birds, and chipmunks. |
Red raspberries are leafing out. |
Horseradish. Young leaves are good in a steamed greens mix. |
Pear tree, garlic, & comfrey; swale berm in the background. |
Pear blossoms. Pears seem to be our most reliable tree fruit. |
Cherry blossoms. If I can beat the birds to them, I might get some! |