We had a problem this year. Mainly that neighbors dogs broke in and killed most of our chickens and peachicks. Suddenly we were down to 2 chickens, when it was decided 6 were needed to supply the family with enough eggs. What to do.
In comes the wonderful community we have around us. We were given 3 chickens. Happiness.
Then 4 egg laying ducks were given to us. Then a little call duck drake was given to my daughter. Suddenly we had geese. Then yet another egg laying duck was given to us.
There we were, completely without poultry and BAM, plenty of birds meandering the farm.
Now this has had an impact. The pond has been completely free of birds for the year. I had grasses and reeds growing. The pond was actually clear most days. The pigs were enjoying it and digging it out like crazy but otherwise, a healthy ecosystem.
The ducks didn’t make that big of an impact. The initial 4 were young and did not create that much of a mess. The geese, now they were a problem. I did not even consider how quickly and completely they could destroy all green matter around the pond. The grass, pretty much non-existent. All of the plants growing up around the pond, destroyed.
I was a little discouraged by all this. I was thinking about how tasty those geese would be. However, I think they can stay. They’ve started venturing out of the fenced pond area and onto the property as a whole. Our acreage can certainly withstand the appetites of two Sevastopol geese. In fact it was a beautiful morning, looking out the windows and watching our chickens, ducks, geese and peafowl wandering the property finding food.
Look at that fat pig!
Indeed I still haven’t fed anyone. I won’t until all the green on our property is gone. I will feed through the winter only. Even without feeding I have fat animals. Happy animals. Healthy animals. It has been a beautiful season with the animals.
Our bees are doing great. Really great. So great we’ve already had to purchase 3 additional boxes to expand the hive. I am thankful for all of the bee food we’ve been laboriously planting all these years as it’s made bee keeping a breeze. Well, except for how bee like my bees are being.
It turns out my bees really could care less about where they build their comb. My hive has foundation in the first two boxes and I have a lot of cross comb and burr comb happening. I was opening the hive every 2 weeks to cut this out but it matters not, they are still doing it. I know what you bee people are thinking. Is your hive level? Yup. Is it facing the wrong direction? Maybe. I did move it around though in the hopes it would help. It didn’t. My bees are just busy and they don’t care if I can access the hive or not.
So when I put the honey super on I took the foundation out. I really hoped that doing so would encourage the bees to build on the frame better. What did they do? Well they built their comb across every frame. Now I can’t even lift any of those frames out. What a pain!
I wanted to be a “good” bee keeper. I’m finding though, my bees think keeping away from them is as good as it gets. We aren’t planning on harvesting any honey off them anytime soon. In fact if this hive can simply be split to produce other hives, we’d be happy with that. Plus, pollinating the orchard and other plants is a huge plus!
So we are going to go into winter with a strong colony. I hope to either catch them swarming or split them next spring. Stay tuned!
Last years bees didn’t quite work out. Not to be deterred we are trying again. This time we bought a small langstroth hive. When they outgrow it we will move the established colony into the top bar hive I built.
We had a lot of debate about where to put the bees this year. Last year we discovered ants had taken over the bee feeder. I was concerned about that this year as well. I researched the ants, as I had no idea what kind they were, and found they are Formica ants.
This years feeder has the same cage on it, to keep the birds away, but I’ve moated it off from the ants. The bees have the benefit of food and water all in one place as well. I thought it quite brilliant.
I also thought placing the bees in our established tree line was brilliant. I was told by members of the Southeast Wyoming Beekeepers Association that the hive needed morning sun. The wind absolutely howls from the west here and our tree line blocks most of it. Placing the hive up against our thickest line of trees for wind protection was brilliant. Elevating it above the lilac bushes in front, even better. We screwed a nice pallet into the spool we placed so that we are able to strap the hive down, keeping the lid from blowing off and the whole hive from blowing over. It also left a nice space for the feed/water. I’m tall so getting into the hive isn’t a problem. I did prop a nice pallet up for stairs should I need to get all the way up there. All in all I am extremely pleased with the set up this year.
Installation went much smoother this year as well. The only issue I had was the marshmallow falling out the second I turned the queen box over. I just quickly dumped half the bees on top and closed the lid. It took a few hours for everyone to make their way inside but it has been several days and they are still there. I’d consider that a success.
We don’t have much food available for the bees at the moment. Just some dandelions that I haven’t seen a single bee on.
The lilac are close to blooming and all indications point to a bumper crop of sweet clover, so they’ll be overwhelmed with food options soon.
All in all, a hopeful start to this years bee keeping.
As with most small holdings, chicks seem to be a never ending job. In the fall we killed every single bird we had, chicken, duck and turkey. The turkeys were fated for the table anyway. The ducks and chickens got themselves into that situation on their own. You see, the chickens were eating their eggs. We couldn’t figure out who was doing it so they all were culled. The ducks were laying their eggs in the pond and only the pond. I’d see them float to the top after they’d rotted. Not what I was keeping ducks for so they were also culled. At the moment we have pigs and peacocks and that’s it. Well that was it until yesterday.
I decided we needed to be more practical. No more random chick purchases and no more allowing the hens to hatch eggs (we had one hen that could hatch out 2 nests a year). We really only need 6 chickens for our personal egg consumption. I did not want to waste money getting a rooster either. So off to the feed store to pick up 6 red sex linked chicks.
I’d been checking the feed store for them so you would think I’d have prepped the brooder beforehand. I did not. Everything was a bit dusty and needed a rinse but it took only a few minutes to prep the old kitchen island for it’s newest chicks.
The chicks seem happy!
The island is large enough that even though the heat lamp is pretty close to them they can get away from it when they are hot.
View of the outside of the island here. I removed the drawers on the top and one of the doors for ventilation. I just used molding I already had to keep everything in place. Unfortunately the kids are always pulling the top screening down so they can peak in.
The following pics are of the nonworking brooder in the barn (nonworking as the power is out).
I just modified an over the fridge cabinet by extending half of it (again with things I already had hanging around). The extension is where I put the food and water. The bottom is hardwire cloth so everything just falls through to the barn floor.
I mounted the cabinet but had to use a bit of a prop for the extension I made.
So, if you don’t have any stock tanks or other containers around, old kitchen cupboards can find new life as chick brooders.
Early spring we began losing chickens. Some of them were gone without a trace. Others were found partially eaten. We knew we had a problem, we just weren’t sure what form that problem was taking.
As we have a well fenced run area I felt confident crossing coyotes off the list. They have never made it over the fence before, it is unlikely they learned how now.
That leaves a few possibilities. Ok, tons of possibilities. raccoons, badgers, skunks and weasels to name a few. Raptors were not on our list. We have witnessed great horned owl carnage before and this was nothing like that. There were no holes dug anywhere under the fence so that pretty much crossed badger off the list. I did not think it was a weasel. We had seen a stoat about the property before but it was really small and seemed to be happy killing the ground squirrels we have plenty of. I didn’t think fox because what I understood about foxes is that they’d kill everything just for the pleasure of it. This led me down a raccoon path that was pretty much solidified by a neighbor confirming they had a raccoon family nearby.
So we started baiting a life trap, closing the gate on the barn itself and we bought and placed a trail cam to catch the culprit. The first night we caught a cat. I had wondered if it might have been a cat but I wasn’t confident this cat was our killer. So, after debating it we let the cat go and put the trap out again. The next night we caught…..something. It ripped the door off the trap so we had no real idea what it might have been.
Then we bought the pigs. We were worried, they were small when we purchased them. Still, pigs are ferocious when needed. The killing stopped for a time. I was hoping it had moved on, or the presence of the pigs in the barn was enough to discourage it. It wasn’t to last. Soon we lost a turkey. Our security doubled down. We were trying all different kinds of bait in the trap but never caught anything else. The trail cam never captured any useful photos either.
We went on vacation and I worried we’d come back to nothing. Thankfully everyone was still alive when we returned. We did have some ducks build nests outside of the run though. I had some hog panels I zip tied in a circle around the hens. Everything was going ok. The hens were set to hatch their eggs any day. Then I went out to find a wing and no other trace of the hen. The eggs were also gone. I was devastated but had hopes for the other hen. She was well hidden, it took me weeks to find her myself.
Around this time the peahens also went to brood. I saw them each day as they flew over to eat. Then, one morning, no peahens. My heart dropped and I went in search of them. I found feathers, so many feathers, and eaten eggs. No peahen. She obviously gave her attackers a struggle. We were hoping she was injured and in hiding. We searched everywhere. We’ve never found her. The other duck was also killed the same night. Her body was strewn about in several locations, her eggs eaten. At this point I called game and fish. I didn’t think a raccoon could take a peahen. I’ve seen those girls attack our dogs and win.
Game and fish came out and confirmed it was a coon. They’ve told us to stake it out and shoot it. The chance of trapping it is so slim shooting is our only option. So we have the game cam out, baited, trying to figure out which days and times the coons come around. So far we haven’t caught any pictures of them. We did get an entertaining coyote chase though. You can see the rabbit racing away in one shot and the coyote chasing it in the other.
We are nearly out of chickens at this point. We have a single turkey left. We also only have one peacock left. The male peacock went missing during the night a week ago. The ducks seem ok. Other than the ones who were nesting no ducks have been harmed. I’m guessing it’s their alert state at night that has kept them safe thus far.
I’ve been told a line of electric wire at the top and bottom of the fence may be enough to keep them out. That is our next step.
The 5 acres directly behind our house is where the former owners kept their horses contained the most. It was highly compacted and had almost 0 vegetation. The sainfoin we planted here is doing well. (pictured above) It’s getting taller and it has been self seeding. It is a wall of pink blossoms we are blessed to stare at every day. It has been an incredible pollinator attractant.
It is slowly breaking through our compacted ground.
Areas that are not compacted, well there it’s flourishing. It is taller, thicker, seeding easier, where it does not have to work as hard.
This is sainfoin in a Krater.
Sainfoin in a swale.
The best growing sainfoin in what I thought was the worst faring krater.
I can’t speak to it’s palatability yet. The pigs have wandered through it and didn’t take a bite. The birds don’t seem to be interested in eating it either. I’m undecided on it as a forage. Time will tell.
There we were, completely without poultry and BAM, plenty of birds meandering the farm.
Look at that fat pig!
