Yesterday morning, I was out feeding animals and planting pumpkins before heading to Wellsville for Amber's Shakespeare play, when I heard Lisa(10) crying. The kids were all panicked and I asked what happened. "The rooster jumped on me," she said, and I could see two places he broke the skin. "That's it," I concluded, "Moroni will have to join Pacumeni in the freezer. I'm calling Ej." So, I contacted our fourteen-year-old neighbor, who willingly came over to kill and gut and pluck our friend, Moroni. It was very sad. He was such a beautiful animal. But he had chased Rachel across the yard a few days ago and I told him that he had one more chance before he would meet the ax. He blew it by jumping on Lisa. He actually scratched her with his claws and pecked her with his beak... and drew blood. I didn't think he was capable of such an act, but now he is in our freezer. Fried chicken, anyone?
Lisa recovered just fine. She put about 10 little bandaids on her leg to cover the "holes." The five hens left are all docile and never aggressive, so we'll still let them out to lay their eggs under the slide and in the hay barn... and to eat all the bugs in the yard. We are getting 4 to 5 eggs a day now and have experienced two double-yokes so far... they are huge!--like a goose egg! It is so fun to go out in the late morning and find three eggs nestled in the grass under the slide, and then look all around the hay in the barn for more. The hens spend the night in the hen house every night, yet they never lay there. Every morning, they are waiting at the door to the chicken run for me to let them out. I'm usually out by 7am and when I open the door, they run out to the compost pile first thing, then scratch all around the yard. In the evening as the sun goes down, they wait at the entrance to the chicken run for me to let them back in, then they climb in their hen house and rest for the night. We get a kick out of those hens. I think they will miss the roosters the most. They really enjoyed having them around. I think the roosters contributed the most to our increase in egg-laying. I wonder if our eggs will decrease... I'll let you know.
We have at least 2 male chicks, so the roosters will soon be replaced by them, but they should be more gentle having been handled by us and being raised in this environment. When I spoke with the previous owner of Moroni and Pacumeni, she was surprised that they attacked children, but agreed that since they did they belong in the freezer. They must have just felt like they needed to "protect" the hens from those dangerous "giants." Anyway, that saga is over now... but there are definitely more adventures to come!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Welcome to D-bar-W Learning Ranch
Welcome to our learning ranch. Our door is always open to all of you, whom we love dearly. Please come and visit anytime. This is what you can expect to find: One hard-working, general contracting, creative building Dad, named David; one "non-conventional" Mom, self-named "Auntie W."(so the neighbor kids don't have to call me the formal, "Sister Radmall")... or "Rad-Mama," as dubbed by a 3-year-old neighbor; A devoted 14-year-old student of "Newton's Universe," Amber; a dependable boy of 11 years, Brigham; A 10-year-old lover of babies and "nurturer" to the core, Lisa; a spunky, inventive 7-year-old boy, intensely involved in tractors and dirt, Isaac; an independent 4.5-year-old cutie pie, who wants to do "whatever I want," Rachel; a 4 year-old brown mini horse mare, expecting to foal any day, "Pennie"; a gentle, but spunky 3-year-old white mini horse stallion, named "Mighty Mouse" or "Mighty" for short; 3 female cats, "Colors", "Blackie", and "Socksie"; 4 cute kittens, "Galileo" et al; 5 brown hens, "Bertha and Company"; 1 noisy rooster, "Moroni"; 5 bunnies, "Leonardo Davinci"--"Leo" for short, "Buddy", "Bubbles", "Alfred"--"Fred" for short, after Grandpa Big John's Dog, and "Snowball"; 2 "teenager" chicks--one month old, "Fluffy" and "Lucky"; 14 baby chicks, see other post for names; and 8 fuzzy ducklings, named "Bob", "Ducky" et al.
All of these people and animals you can expect to see running around our 5 acre "learning ranch" surrounded by our neighbors' 200 + acres of farm and wetlands. Our closest neighbors live 1/2 mile in either direction and our normal bike route to our last home is 1.3 miles away, passing 8 houses on one side of the road, and 4 houses on the other, besides the barns and fields. We often take bike rides to Trenton Park, about 4.5 miles away, passing just one more house until we reach the center of town--then just 8 more houses until the park.
Trenton is a great place to live because of the people, the space, and the lovely views. Every year on the 24th of July, the town puts on a fabulous celebration, including a parade--that circles the town twice (in case you missed it the first time), a "lawn-mower race", a carnival for the kids, family games, sand volleyball tournament--pretty competetive, entertainment, an afternoon of "foam" and water--the fire men provide the water hose to spray over the ball field, lunch for a bargain, dinner and fireworks on the sod farm. This is an event you have got to experience at least once in your lifetime! ...anyone want to come this year???
We, the Radmall family, began our adventures in Trenton 13.5 years ago, when on October 1, 1995, we moved into a 528 square foot bungalow on 17.5 acres, which we dubbed our "love shack," because it was just the two of us and Amber, age 1, and we couldn't lose anyone in that home. Since that time, we have built 3 homes over 2400 square feet within a 1-mile radius of one another, moved 4 times, and added 4 more kids plus litters of kittens, a few horses, and all you see above. I will attempt to chronicle our story of living here in Trenton through this blog, along with all the lessons we have learned along the way.
I hope you enjoy the posts.
Sincerely,
Wendee
All of these people and animals you can expect to see running around our 5 acre "learning ranch" surrounded by our neighbors' 200 + acres of farm and wetlands. Our closest neighbors live 1/2 mile in either direction and our normal bike route to our last home is 1.3 miles away, passing 8 houses on one side of the road, and 4 houses on the other, besides the barns and fields. We often take bike rides to Trenton Park, about 4.5 miles away, passing just one more house until we reach the center of town--then just 8 more houses until the park.
Trenton is a great place to live because of the people, the space, and the lovely views. Every year on the 24th of July, the town puts on a fabulous celebration, including a parade--that circles the town twice (in case you missed it the first time), a "lawn-mower race", a carnival for the kids, family games, sand volleyball tournament--pretty competetive, entertainment, an afternoon of "foam" and water--the fire men provide the water hose to spray over the ball field, lunch for a bargain, dinner and fireworks on the sod farm. This is an event you have got to experience at least once in your lifetime! ...anyone want to come this year???
We, the Radmall family, began our adventures in Trenton 13.5 years ago, when on October 1, 1995, we moved into a 528 square foot bungalow on 17.5 acres, which we dubbed our "love shack," because it was just the two of us and Amber, age 1, and we couldn't lose anyone in that home. Since that time, we have built 3 homes over 2400 square feet within a 1-mile radius of one another, moved 4 times, and added 4 more kids plus litters of kittens, a few horses, and all you see above. I will attempt to chronicle our story of living here in Trenton through this blog, along with all the lessons we have learned along the way.
I hope you enjoy the posts.
Sincerely,
Wendee
Our first set of baby chicks arrived May 6, 2009... by U.S. Postal Service!
Having ordered 15 baby chicks, 8 ducklings, and 2 quail from Dunlap Hatchery in March, we anticipated our first set with eagerness. It was scheduled to be shipped May 5th. My 11-year-old son couldn't wait, so he purchased two straight run "assorted" chicks from Cal-Ranch in April and we got started building our "Chick Nursery." My darling husband, having incredible skills with a hammer and any material that is laying around, built our "Chick/duckling/bunny Condo" with three sections, which were separated by 2 removable walls so they could all access the "outlet hole" leading to a ramp down to the chicken run we had previously built for the hens. (We purchased the hens fully grown from an nearby egg farm in March and built their hen house and run then.) This Chick Condo is more like a mansion for the animals and we spent only $12 on the plastic mesh that lines part of the sides and all of the bottom for the excrement to fall through.
So on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, the baby chicks and ducklings were boxed up and shipped and Wednesday morning, May 6th, at 7am we received a call from the Trenton Post Office that our chicks had arrived. We immediately drove the 4.5 miles to pick them up and bring them home to our waking kids and warm fire. I brought a baby chick upstairs, cheeping all the way, and nuzzled it against each child's face to arouse him or her. Of course they wanted to hold, feed, water and watch the birds for hours. We set them in a bigger box next to our wood burning stove, wherein we had a fire crackling. The chicks were snuggling with each other and the ducklings were waddling around in the pan of water we placed for them. All 15 chicks and 8 ducklings made it safe and sound, though we never did receive the quail. Pity, they would have been a cute addition to the bunch.
The ducks consist of 4 mallard straight run and 4 "assorted straight run" whatever that means... maybe we'll be able to identify their breeds as time progresses. We live near many ponds where ducks and geese and Sandhill Cranes abound, mate, and nest. We plan to dig a pond nearer our yard where our ducks can settle. Our water table is about four feet down, so we haven't far to go to reach that goal.
We ordered several different breeds of chicks, mostly pullets, but straight run on the Rhode Island Red, hoping for at least one Beautiful Rooster. The other breeds were Auracanas (The "easter egg" layers), Buff Orpington (one of the best brown egg layers), Brown Sexlink (another good layer), and some others that I don't remember right now, but will share later on.
On the afternoon of May 6th, we introduced all of the new ducklings and chicks to their new home in the Chick Condo. Their neighbors were five month-old bunnies and the two "teen-age" chicks. We kept them separated at first, with the chicks and ducks all in the portion with the lamp, but we soon discovered that the bunnies were harmless and kept the chicks warm at night, because they all like to snuggle. So we have kept the Condo free of walls and allow free roam into the chicken run during the day.
The ducklings have taken to the water in the long, skinny "trough" we have placed in the chicken run. They climb in and swim back and forth. We can't keep enough water in the Chick Condo for them, so I am thinking to leave the door open to the chicken run at night. I might have to build another door for the hen house, since theirs is always open and they seem to peck at the little chicks still.
We let the hens and our rooster, which we picked up free from a fellow home schooler in the valley, out of the chicken run every day to find the bugs in the yard and the food in the compost heap. They scratch through that so well that I will never have to "turn" it! The hens were pretty battered when we received them March 18th. None of them had more than 20 feathers, including the down. They had been used as "battery hens" at the egg farm for about 18 months and sat in a one-foot cubicle all day and night, expected to lay an egg a day, that would drop to a conveyor belt and be carried away for sorting. They were fed in a trough in front of their box. (The reason I know this is that we were allowed to walk in the hen house for a minute when we picked up our batch of 6 "old hens." Actually, they are pretty young, since most "free range" chickens live for 6 to 8 years. They were just not producing enough and the egg farm "rotates" their chickens about every six months to keep up with production. It was pretty sad to see those chickens at first. We watched with eagerness to see how they liked their new home and chicken run, but they just huddled in the corner and wouldn't go outside for a week at least. They had never seen the light of day and were afraid then. Because of the change in environment, we got 5 eggs the first day, but then about one per week until now. This month we have found at least 2 eggs hiding somewhere in the yard. Lately they have found their favorite "nests" under our slide where the grass grows tall and in the hay barn, which is near the compost pile, their favorite "hang-out" spot. They are waiting each morning at the door of the chicken run around 6am to be let out, and every evening as the sun sets, they find their way back to the hen house to rest. We lock them up at night mostly to protect from predators.
When we brought home two beautiful roosters in April, we immediately put them in the chicken run with the hens. I named the white rooster, "Moroni," after a brave Nephite captain in the Book of Mormon, and the darker rooster, "Pacumeni," after another character in the Book of Mormon, who contends for the judgement seat. Pacumeni had a beautiful "black and brownish read "head dress" and reminded me of a Lamanite, though I couldn't think of an appropriate Lamanite name for him, so Pacumeni stuck. I thought the names were very fitting. Upon their entrance into the chicken run, one hen, which I had dubbed "Bertha," because she seemed the older and wiser "alpha" hen, if there is such a thing, cornered both roosters in about 1 minute. They looked scared and she looked mad, clucking away at them. We watched as she chased them around for a while, then they calmed down a bit and all seemed well. Later on we saw blood on her beak and feathers missing from the Pacumeni's beautiful tail. Hmmm... foul play??? Within a day, Pacumeni's tail was gone, exposing his naked bottom underneath. I felt for the poor thing, but he still strutted around like he was the king, only usually he would stay close to the other rooster for protection. However, this same rooster would watch when I was working in the garden, wait until my back was turned, then run over as fast as he could and try to peck me before I turned around. After warding him off 5 times with a shovel, I decided he was not a safe pet to have roaming my yard... and so, thinking of my defenseless children, last Monday when he tried to attack me again, I immediately called our 14-year-old neighbor boy, who loves to hunt and butcher animals for food. He said he could come over first thing in the morning, and so poor Pacumeni is now in our freezer, and his beautiful feathers are scattered to the wind. Fortunately, Moroni is living up to his name and just attacks to protect his "family" from harm. Until he attacks without a warrant to do so, we'll keep him around.
Our "teenage" chicks are adding white feathers every day and venturing out into the chicken run daily. They look a little scraggly right now, but it won't be long before they have all their feathers and can join the other chickens in the yard during the day. I think one is named "Fluffy" and the other "Lucky," though I can't tell them apart.
Some of the baby chicks are also venturing out down the ramp to the chicken run, where they can attempt to peck at the scratch grains we throw out for the older chickens there. Some of them still prefer to stay under the heat lamp and rest most of the time. One cute chicken leaped right over a bunny's back, so we have adoringly named him "Froggy." Some of the other names the kids have come up with are "Aphrodesiac"--"Afro" for short, who has a yellow tuft on top of his head; "Mo," after Grandpa's beloved blue bird friend, who has died; "Cinnamon"--she's a soft brown color; and "Chicken Little," who died in an unfortunate accident when the "sky fell," literally. (A board attempting to cover the entrance to the hen house fell and squished the poor creature flat.) We have since removed the dumb board.
So now we are down to 14 baby chicks, 2 teenage chickens, 5 hens, and 1 mighty rooster. The chicks are growing bigger every day. The hens feathers have filled out, all except Bertha's bottom, which we can't quite figure out, and Moroni crows his mighty "Cock-a-doodle-doo" every morning as the sun arises, then all day until the sun sets.
We are really proud of our little farm and love to share our animals with others. One of our 3 cats just had 5 kittens a month ago, but we just found them in the neighbor's old camper shell and brought them to our hay barn. One died for some internal reason, but four are still nursing well from their Mom and growing stronger. I don't remember all the names the kids gave them, but Amber's is "Galileo"--she has been taking a Math, Science, and History course, does that explain things? The bunnies were purchased just after Easter--one by each child from our neighbor, who raises white rabbits for meat contracts. He said if we want to, when they get too big for us we can bring them back and "trade" for another little bunny. The kids like that idea, since they're not keen on eating their pets.
Other than all the aforementioned animals we just have two mini horses: a 3 yr old stallion and a 4 yr old mare, due to deliver any day. I'll keep you posted on that exciting adventure we have never experienced before. Lucky for us we have great neighbors who can help us learn. This animal business is more fun than I had anticipated, plus we are receiving eggs!
So on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, the baby chicks and ducklings were boxed up and shipped and Wednesday morning, May 6th, at 7am we received a call from the Trenton Post Office that our chicks had arrived. We immediately drove the 4.5 miles to pick them up and bring them home to our waking kids and warm fire. I brought a baby chick upstairs, cheeping all the way, and nuzzled it against each child's face to arouse him or her. Of course they wanted to hold, feed, water and watch the birds for hours. We set them in a bigger box next to our wood burning stove, wherein we had a fire crackling. The chicks were snuggling with each other and the ducklings were waddling around in the pan of water we placed for them. All 15 chicks and 8 ducklings made it safe and sound, though we never did receive the quail. Pity, they would have been a cute addition to the bunch.
The ducks consist of 4 mallard straight run and 4 "assorted straight run" whatever that means... maybe we'll be able to identify their breeds as time progresses. We live near many ponds where ducks and geese and Sandhill Cranes abound, mate, and nest. We plan to dig a pond nearer our yard where our ducks can settle. Our water table is about four feet down, so we haven't far to go to reach that goal.
We ordered several different breeds of chicks, mostly pullets, but straight run on the Rhode Island Red, hoping for at least one Beautiful Rooster. The other breeds were Auracanas (The "easter egg" layers), Buff Orpington (one of the best brown egg layers), Brown Sexlink (another good layer), and some others that I don't remember right now, but will share later on.
On the afternoon of May 6th, we introduced all of the new ducklings and chicks to their new home in the Chick Condo. Their neighbors were five month-old bunnies and the two "teen-age" chicks. We kept them separated at first, with the chicks and ducks all in the portion with the lamp, but we soon discovered that the bunnies were harmless and kept the chicks warm at night, because they all like to snuggle. So we have kept the Condo free of walls and allow free roam into the chicken run during the day.
The ducklings have taken to the water in the long, skinny "trough" we have placed in the chicken run. They climb in and swim back and forth. We can't keep enough water in the Chick Condo for them, so I am thinking to leave the door open to the chicken run at night. I might have to build another door for the hen house, since theirs is always open and they seem to peck at the little chicks still.
We let the hens and our rooster, which we picked up free from a fellow home schooler in the valley, out of the chicken run every day to find the bugs in the yard and the food in the compost heap. They scratch through that so well that I will never have to "turn" it! The hens were pretty battered when we received them March 18th. None of them had more than 20 feathers, including the down. They had been used as "battery hens" at the egg farm for about 18 months and sat in a one-foot cubicle all day and night, expected to lay an egg a day, that would drop to a conveyor belt and be carried away for sorting. They were fed in a trough in front of their box. (The reason I know this is that we were allowed to walk in the hen house for a minute when we picked up our batch of 6 "old hens." Actually, they are pretty young, since most "free range" chickens live for 6 to 8 years. They were just not producing enough and the egg farm "rotates" their chickens about every six months to keep up with production. It was pretty sad to see those chickens at first. We watched with eagerness to see how they liked their new home and chicken run, but they just huddled in the corner and wouldn't go outside for a week at least. They had never seen the light of day and were afraid then. Because of the change in environment, we got 5 eggs the first day, but then about one per week until now. This month we have found at least 2 eggs hiding somewhere in the yard. Lately they have found their favorite "nests" under our slide where the grass grows tall and in the hay barn, which is near the compost pile, their favorite "hang-out" spot. They are waiting each morning at the door of the chicken run around 6am to be let out, and every evening as the sun sets, they find their way back to the hen house to rest. We lock them up at night mostly to protect from predators.
When we brought home two beautiful roosters in April, we immediately put them in the chicken run with the hens. I named the white rooster, "Moroni," after a brave Nephite captain in the Book of Mormon, and the darker rooster, "Pacumeni," after another character in the Book of Mormon, who contends for the judgement seat. Pacumeni had a beautiful "black and brownish read "head dress" and reminded me of a Lamanite, though I couldn't think of an appropriate Lamanite name for him, so Pacumeni stuck. I thought the names were very fitting. Upon their entrance into the chicken run, one hen, which I had dubbed "Bertha," because she seemed the older and wiser "alpha" hen, if there is such a thing, cornered both roosters in about 1 minute. They looked scared and she looked mad, clucking away at them. We watched as she chased them around for a while, then they calmed down a bit and all seemed well. Later on we saw blood on her beak and feathers missing from the Pacumeni's beautiful tail. Hmmm... foul play??? Within a day, Pacumeni's tail was gone, exposing his naked bottom underneath. I felt for the poor thing, but he still strutted around like he was the king, only usually he would stay close to the other rooster for protection. However, this same rooster would watch when I was working in the garden, wait until my back was turned, then run over as fast as he could and try to peck me before I turned around. After warding him off 5 times with a shovel, I decided he was not a safe pet to have roaming my yard... and so, thinking of my defenseless children, last Monday when he tried to attack me again, I immediately called our 14-year-old neighbor boy, who loves to hunt and butcher animals for food. He said he could come over first thing in the morning, and so poor Pacumeni is now in our freezer, and his beautiful feathers are scattered to the wind. Fortunately, Moroni is living up to his name and just attacks to protect his "family" from harm. Until he attacks without a warrant to do so, we'll keep him around.
Our "teenage" chicks are adding white feathers every day and venturing out into the chicken run daily. They look a little scraggly right now, but it won't be long before they have all their feathers and can join the other chickens in the yard during the day. I think one is named "Fluffy" and the other "Lucky," though I can't tell them apart.
Some of the baby chicks are also venturing out down the ramp to the chicken run, where they can attempt to peck at the scratch grains we throw out for the older chickens there. Some of them still prefer to stay under the heat lamp and rest most of the time. One cute chicken leaped right over a bunny's back, so we have adoringly named him "Froggy." Some of the other names the kids have come up with are "Aphrodesiac"--"Afro" for short, who has a yellow tuft on top of his head; "Mo," after Grandpa's beloved blue bird friend, who has died; "Cinnamon"--she's a soft brown color; and "Chicken Little," who died in an unfortunate accident when the "sky fell," literally. (A board attempting to cover the entrance to the hen house fell and squished the poor creature flat.) We have since removed the dumb board.
So now we are down to 14 baby chicks, 2 teenage chickens, 5 hens, and 1 mighty rooster. The chicks are growing bigger every day. The hens feathers have filled out, all except Bertha's bottom, which we can't quite figure out, and Moroni crows his mighty "Cock-a-doodle-doo" every morning as the sun arises, then all day until the sun sets.
We are really proud of our little farm and love to share our animals with others. One of our 3 cats just had 5 kittens a month ago, but we just found them in the neighbor's old camper shell and brought them to our hay barn. One died for some internal reason, but four are still nursing well from their Mom and growing stronger. I don't remember all the names the kids gave them, but Amber's is "Galileo"--she has been taking a Math, Science, and History course, does that explain things? The bunnies were purchased just after Easter--one by each child from our neighbor, who raises white rabbits for meat contracts. He said if we want to, when they get too big for us we can bring them back and "trade" for another little bunny. The kids like that idea, since they're not keen on eating their pets.
Other than all the aforementioned animals we just have two mini horses: a 3 yr old stallion and a 4 yr old mare, due to deliver any day. I'll keep you posted on that exciting adventure we have never experienced before. Lucky for us we have great neighbors who can help us learn. This animal business is more fun than I had anticipated, plus we are receiving eggs!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)