Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Thursday, March 18, 2010

Farm notes.... Goose & Duck eggs and Skip Poppers....

Pardon the double post but I have a few farm notes from today:

1. Cindy Lou the Goose (toulouse x roman) laid her first egg today! Must work on goose house to make sure Cindy and Penny have separate nests.
2. Either Miss Duck or Miss Dash laid an egg today!  Must have been Miss Dash - as she also shook off her babies for the first time. Her young duck hens were a little nervous.... I just adore Puddles, Iris, and Daisy.
Young hens from a week or so ago.. Puddles, Iris, Daisy

3. Runner is still setting .... but without Miss Duck sitting ON her today (duck on a turkey?? for heavens sakes)
4. The Skip Poppers... the baby goats are going full tilt...until its nap time then they flop over and sleep.
5. Debbie had good milk this morning. Kids are on her full time but in a few days I'll separate them at night and  milk her out in the morning. She looks good and her milk is coming on.
6. Little Nibbles was in distress yesterday, but was perfectly fine today. Neighbor kids said she had a kind of false labor from being uncomfortable. I'm keeping her food rationed over the course of the day so she doesn't get too full at one time. Kids think she has 3 babies which will be hard for her to carry to term with as little as she is....still 22 days out.
7. Spectacular blue sky day - chain sawing and goat house cleaning.

And a goat note for my buddy, Drew on the goat milking:  Debbie will need most of her milk for the babies for a couple weeks.. but since dairy animal produce "on demand" she will be able to keep up when I milk her out in the mornings. I'll do this to make sure she gets up to full milking capacity -- by mid-summer she will be easily giving over a gallon a day!

However, we'll have to (carefully) worm her next week -- and the milk withholding period can be up to 30 days depending on the chemical wormer we use.  Normally we use an herbal product but we have to be careful with the babies.  This milk will go to hens and dogs who get the by product of the wormer... so it all works out.

2 comments:

Drew @ Cook Like Your Grandmother said...

That's cool. Dose the goat and the dogs get wormed for free.

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Its all part of 'farm-o-nomics'... everything works together in a happy little way.
:-)

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