Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Introducing Black Jersey Giants

In our goal to have all meat products grown on our property we bought chickens again.  Our feed store had 8 Black Jersey Giant’s and we brought home all of them.  
They spent their first few nights in Stick Boy’s room but they outgrew the aquarium we had them in quickly. 
I let them into my fenced in garden a few afternoons to give them freedom from the aquarium and get them used to us and Oakley and Luca.  
Then we moved them into the chicken coop with the old TV cabinet so I could keep them warm with a heat lamp.  


They grew wonderfully but on the third day I let them out I forgot 2 things: Oakley is still a 1 year old puppy and not to be trusted, and I am easily distracted.  I did not check on them often enough.  
That night when I went to put them up I could only find 3 of the 8 chickens.  The turkey and hen were fine but after an hour of looking I could only find 3 and unfortunately 1 of them had been in Oakleys mouth, it was unharmed but still not how Oakley is supposed to take care of the chickens.  I never found any feathers of the others.  The next day one of the chickens came home and gave me hope that more would come home but still we have not found any of the 4 missing chickens. 


Sunday, April 26, 2015

Good Bye Onyx

In the beginning……

We never wanted to have cattle or any farm animals…..

A friend of my brother-in-law had a cow and her bull calf. 
The cow was loud and lonely and whenever she was lonely or hungry she would moo, the neighborhood kids would throw rocks at her.  My brother-in-law asked if we would keep the cow and calf in our pasture.  We said sure but they had to take care of them, we didn't want animals and the responsibility of caring for them.  We worked together to fix the fencing in the lower pasture and then we started caring for Onyx and Marshal two Lowline Angus Cattle. They were both halter trained and walked on a leash better than my dog does.  Onyx and Marshall had very good blood lines and Marshal would go to different ranches in Central and Southern California to be the herd stud for a while and then come home.  At one point they decided to breed Onyx so they took her from our pasture to their corrals to try to get her to lose some weight.  Then, they sent her to have a vacation with a nice bull.  She came home after a pregnancy test showed she was pregnant.
Two weeks later she had a bull calf but again Onyx mooed every time she was out of food so they brought her back to our pasture and the boys asked to name the calf Hulk the owners thought that was a fun name. 

The owners hoped they would be able to have both Hulk and Marshal continue to be leased out as a stud and breed Onyx every year or so.  They were busy trying to fix up a new piece of property that they could keep their animals on so we took over more and more of the cattle care. Then the market changed and no one wanted Marshal anymore as a stud.
 As Hulk grew we were reminded to be very careful of the names you give animals.  Neighbors were working on their fence and gate across the street from us and Hulk would want a closer look and he would put his head over the fence and start walking.  The fence bent over and Hulk would check out the tool boxes and anything else he wanted.  Sometimes Onyx and Marshal would follow Hulk, sometimes they stayed home.  Their owners and I installed an electric wire to keep them in but Hulk didn’t mind.  One rainy night someone called us saying they thought they saw a cow on the road.  If you have never experienced the joy of looking for a black cow and 2 black bulls at 1am on a cold foggy rainy night on a black road you don’t know what you are missing, then when you hear the running footsteps of said bull as he comes running to you because he hears you calling and shaking the grain – you really haven’t known fear and joy.  Fear that your 1000 lb bull isn't going to stop and slide right into you.  Then the joy of scratching the bull on his chin and walking him, his mom, and brother back into the pasture knowing everyone is safe.  Then there is always the joy of 2am fence repairs. 
We contacted the owners, we were sad but we couldn't keep the bulls any more.  They were busy and without Marshal’s stud fees and with things not going well on their property, they decided to send all 3 to be slaughtered.  We were so sad but we couldn't risk the bulls getting out and damaging something.  The day before the butcher was to come, Teen Son asked if we could keep Onyx, and since then we have had Onyx as a pet.  She lives with the other cows and when we throw the food to the other cattle we will often hand feed Onyx and give her special treats.  When the cattle get out we throw a lead on Onyx and the rest of the cattle will follow her back into the pasture.

Yesterday, Onyx had a difficult childbirth and we had to pull the dead calf from her.  We left her to see how she would recover and she did get up and move about a little but then she laid down again and didn't
get up, she started shaking and acting like she was in pain.  I contacted a vet and he was hours away and after hearing her symptoms he suggested I call the butcher.  Luckily the butcher was able to come and ease her suffering.  The calf’s foot had ruptured her rectum. 
I want to thank Onyx for all the lessons she taught us.  I want to thank her for helping us move from a family living on a large piece of property to a family who grew things on and cared for the property.  I will always think of her with love and fondness. 


Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Lambs

It has been a busy year.  Yesterday was the birthday of the first lamb born on our property.  
We have decided to make some changes. 
I sold some lambs in January and that was a mistake.  Right now we have so much grass we had to mow our lawn for the first time since buying the sheep.  
Hot Rod has become too aggressive.  I love him and have learned a lot from him but he is going to hurt someone so he has gone to become my friends ram.  The most important lesson from Hot Rod is not to give lots of love and affection to any future rams.  Let them grow up afraid of humans.  The reason Hot Rod became so dangerous is he loves to be scratched under his chin and if you do not respond fast enough to his desires he is more than willing to ram you.  
We have decided that our baby born New Years Day will be our new ram.
He is a handsome young ram with a healthy cautious nature when it comes to humans.
Beautiful sweet Blackwell had twin girls this spring.  I thought she was too old but she is a wonderful sweet mother and her girls are fun loving and curious just like she is.  
Blackwell seemed to be suffering heat exhaustion pretty regularly and our winter/spring has been really warm so we decided to shear the sheep early.  
Blackwell after shearing is the the gray sheep.  Her poor babies didn't recognise her so they spent the hour and a half after we finished shearing her running around screaming.  Even hours later they would nurse from her and then look at her and "BAAAAAAAA" they would run around frantically looking for someone who looked like their mom.  
We decided to avoid that with Dot and her baby.  So we decided to have Twenty-Something Daughter hold the baby while I held Dot and Teen Son did the shearing.  It worked really well.  
The lamb is sleeping on the shearers that we only use on the finer hair.
Even young sheep enjoy a good red wagon.
We didn't have time to shear Max and that turned out to be a good thing because she gave birth to twins 2 days later.  Sadly one was stillborn but we have a very healthy young ram lamb.