At least it missed the tractor

As if I didn’t have enough going on we had a tree go down over night. It just missed the tractor.

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All the chicks are now hatched from the incubator that are going to hatch. Very low percentage of success this time around. I had a hard time maintaining a constant temperature. It never got off to much but maybe enough to prevent a good hatch. We ended up with two turkey chicks. Praying they are hens because Lisa is already making pets out of them. We also got five easter egg chicks from blue eggs. There is still 3 goose eggs in the incubator that I don’t think will do anything but I will give them a few more days just in case. Goose eggs take a few more days and since the temp was bouncing around it might even take them longer than normal. Everything else was a day or so off.

We fought to save one little turkey chick but lost that battle. It had trouble freeing itself from the shell and never stood up even when we were hand feeding it medicated water. It finally lost it battle some time after 11:00 last night. I was staying up late to feed it and Lisa was getting up a couple times at night and even took it to work so she could feed it over the last couple days. Most wouldn’t have spent that much effort for one chick but if nothing else we can honestly say that everything gets a fighting chance on the farm. Most of the time at the expense of money, time and sleep. I feel like a zombie today. I’ll be calling it an early night tonight.

The puppies are growing fast. All are spoken for except for two white males and one gray male and someone is interested in two of them. Born on March 19th they all will be ready to go to to new homes after the first week in May.

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We don’t need another dog but have decided to keep one of the gray males. His name will be Teddy. We took him for a visit and he got to play in the grass for the first time. He dove into it and swam through it like it was water.

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Last Saturday, April 14th, Rosie gave us a little heifer calf. I knew she was due any day and last Friday right at dark I saw her heading for the back of the property when everyone else was coming to the barn. Saturday morning I found them safe and healthy.

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We got some unusual eggs from the hens last week. One was from a very young hen and was not much bigger than a nickel if that. The other didn’t have a shell.

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Here is a good picture of Mike next to the water tank. He is a good bull. We got lucky with him. If Bobbie Jo has a heifer in another month Mike will have sired four heifers and two bulls in two years. I’ll take anything 50% or better any day. The fact that he is also nice doesn’t hurt either. I’ve never been afraid of him. I don’t let my guard down either because he could still hurt me if he ever took a mind to. At which point he would probably be burger.

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A hen with nine chicks helping me milk. Olive spills a lot and they clean up.

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Great Pyrenees / Anatolian Shepherd Puppies

The puppies are 3 weeks old and will be ready for new homes soon. We are asking $100.

The mother (Winnie) is GP and the father (Otis) is half GP and half AS. They are excellent livestock guard dogs.

We have 8 total. 2 females (already spoken for), 6 males. There are white males with badger markings and 3 brownish gray with badger markings. One of the gray males is also spoken for.

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Billie Jo has moved on.

Well Billie Jo has gone to her new home. She now lives in Arkansas with a small herd of Lowline cattle. Thank you Dewayne and Cindy and I hope she makes you a nice little homestead milk cow.
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The only real downside to selling her so soon is now I have to milk Olive twice a day. Bobbie Jo, our other midsize Jersey should be giving us a calf in the next month or so. It will be her first. Assuming all goes well I will milk her and give Olive and me a break. Olive didn’t get dried off as long as I would have liked so she could use the extra time to put on some weight until the next calf.

I have some eggs in the incubator. I started a few goose and turkey eggs and then a week later I added some chicken eggs. The turkey and chicken chicks should start hatching about the same time with the goose a couple of days later.

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Bees! Mom had a huge swarm in one of the oak trees in her backyard. It was too high for me to reach and the limb was too small to climb out on. I set the swarm trap up neat the swarm but once the storm ended and the sun came out they left. I’ll have to move the trap to it’s usual location. I probably should have put it there in the first place but I was hoping closer would be better. Guess I was wrong.

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The storm I mentioned hit Thursday night and it dumped between 5 and 6 inches of water on us in a short time. I didn’t notice it until Sunday afternoon but it washed out my fence along the power line. I have know idea how the horses, hogs, and dogs didn’t find it and go roaming. Just lucky I guess.

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While I was repairing the fence I noticed that one of my 2 remaining hives did not have bees coming and going. I opened it up and it was empty. No pile of dead bees or any sign of problems. They just left. I wonder if they were the swarm I saw last week. Looks like I now have 4 boxes to fill. The last hive is full of bees or nearly so. I might try to do a split. That is something I have never done. I’ll need to check and see if they are making queen cells. If they are I can move about half of the bees into another box along with the queen. The existing hive should raise a new queen and the new hive should continue on as if it had swarmed into the new box. In theory that’s the way it is supposed to work. Well see if my bees read the book.

We also lost 6 chicks to the flood. A hen hatched 10 chicks 2 days before. She hadn’t set up for the night in the same place twice and unfortunately the night of the storm her resting place flooded. Fortunately for her and 4 chicks there was a board laying next to her and they were able to get up onto it. Sad way to find things first thing in the morning but you can’t be everywhere all the time. I don’t think anyone expected that much rain either.

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