We had a good time at the "Discover the Farm" 2 day event in Swift Current last weekend. Friday was the day for the display and we had about 150 school kids come through and do tours. E was the presenter for the poultry section and he did a good job of it. The hit was the incubator that was hatching chicks in it. Most of the eggs were just pipped on the Friday and didn't complete the hatch until Sat. but the kids were still impresed and E had them all lined up to climb up the stepladder and take a peek. Most of them had to be removed by their teacher or they would still be standing there looking in!
A couple who have Alpacas were there and the lady did a great demo, spinning the wool and telling the kids about the things she hand knits and felts while her husband let people lead around his pet alpacas who have the softest eyes I have ever seen. The kids were also really interested in a lady who crafts the cutest animals out of wool. Hope she forgives me for twisting her arm to get her there...you really have a neat talent Denise!
R enjoyed leading around the bottle fed Katahdin lambs and of course he loved the bunnies....
We had made display boards for the Buckeyes, Dominiques and White Chanteclers, also the Sebrights and Old English Games as those are the mature pairs we brought to display. Overall it was really well received, the place was full on Saturday for the market sale and lots of people mentioned that they had no idea there were more than two kinds of chickens...brown and white!
I think people can't help but notice the difference between purchasing animals at this type of sale where they have time to view the animals and talk directly to the breeders/owners compared to the noisy animal auctions where you don't always know what you are buying or where they came from.
We sold about half of what we had for sale including some hatching eggs at the prices we wanted. Noone complained about the prices but I think it is still very much a new idea for people to raise and preserve heritage breeds of poultry. However, I think a seed may have been planted for many.
Lots of people came in the afternoon with their kids and grandkids mainly to look and that was great to see.
E was tickled because he won the grand raffle prize after buying 3 tickets for $5. It was a small chicken tractor that had been donated.
Our friends from MC were kind enough to haul it to their place for us so we just have to pick it up from there.
Plans are in place for next year and all in all a great event!
We have had lots of chicks hatching each week, we just keep cycling through the different brooders. I have one box on the porch w/ 2 -100 watt heat lamps in it and small wire openings in the lid that they live in for first 2 weeks, then they go to the shed to a similar box w/ much larger openings in the lid and sometimes just a wire top. After 4 weeks they go into one side of the big wire brooder which has an auxilliary heat lamp in it. Then into the other side w/out the heat lamp, it only has the brooder element on the top. The next step is vaccinating them for ILT, they get a drop in one eye and changing up the leg bands.
Then I put them into a big metal stock tank wrapped w/ foil bubble wrap and 65 watt yellow heat lamp. Then it is time for a booster drop of ILT vaccine and sizing up of bands as needed.
Hopefully then after a week or so in there the weather will be decent enough they can go out to the old shed we moved into the trees which doesn't have any power but this year I plan to put in a solar shed light that comes on at dusk to prevent some piling at night. Then I can open the pop door to let them out into a pen during the day.
Whew....Only 3 more pens/stages to move to and then the keepers will be ready for the main hen house and the eating stock will be eaten!
We had some very hot weather last week and we were steady busy riding every day to bring in all the cows and heifers from the big winter pasture.
I have been riding Moonshine, Spud and Pokey Joe in turn.
We cut out the heifers at the gate and bring them into the pasture closer to home where we can feed them better and keep a closer eye on them as they calve.
The cows get chased out onto the calving ground pasture because they are expected to calve on their own with just daily checks. Brought in a neighbour's stray.
Still have cows w/calves out in the Rastadt pasture but we will wait until their calves are a little older to move them as they don't cooperate too well at this stage!
Just got spit on yesterday, tiny rain in evening but this morning some drizzling
down....one heavy sounding shower when I was in the metal shed, rain sounds 10 x
as good as it really is when you are in there!
Hoping for lots more, we are
in sand country so the more the merrier (but you can keep the s***)
You can just about hear the grass growing because
around here that is sometimes all the moisture we get in the Spring and the
grass has to make do with whatever it gets!
I am happy with my new hatcher, had a pretty good hatch of chicks last week and now I put 13 duck eggs into it. They are due to hatch Sunday or Monday.
I am thinking about putting another 2 1/2 dozen duck eggs in my big incubator that I was going to sell, hmm do I really need ducklings running round end of May? Tempting ,but ducklings are messy little critters.
Nice thing is they are so much less work than chicks because they don't need heat except for first two weeks so maybe I will do it....
Stilll kind of drizzly out there, I think a day making buns will be a good choice!
