Eggcellent

Wow, so today we got 9 eggs!The hens must have noticed the warmer temps. It was suppose to have gotton up to 70 today, but with all the cloud cover I doubt it was that warm. It was much warmer than here lately so I am not complaining! We have 3 or 4 more non freezing day so I am hoping egg production will be up! Good job chickens!!!

MARY

Goodbye Bacon, Yum Yum & Porky

Today was a very sad day here at the farm. Woke up to notes on our door from the neighbors and discovering that our 3 pigs were killed by the neighbors dog.I am still so sad about it 10 hours later! I loved those silly pigs so much (still crying). Neighbor was sorry. He did pay us for our pigs & offer to help us with our fence. Which is now our top priority. We have 2 sides of our 5 acres that is not fenced. Between the huge costs & us not owning a truck I imagine it will take 3 to 4 months to get the fence done.

Daryl says we will get more pigs in spring. After we have the fence fully finished. Pigs were really fun to have and in spring there should be a decent selection out there. I will never forget our piggies even when we get new ones! They were special!

MARY

muffin

This Muffin, who's going through a molt.

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chicken in the morning

Here are our chicks eating cake and muffin wrappers

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Freezing

So will are having lots of cold weather already. Down in the 20s at night and some day temps only in 40s! Today I added more wood chips to 2 months olds coop & I stapled feed bags to block wind in our rooster run. I am just hoping we do not bust anymore water lines. Oh I miss summer! I bet the animals do too!

MARY

Polish Roos

So last night the polish roosters all started to fight. It was like all the sudden they realized they were all roosters and beat each other up. (They are about 5 months old) So last night Daryl went out & seperated & blue coted them. They will all be ok, they just needed to be seperated. He left a few in there with the hens too. With all the rain yesterday and it being late it was kinda hard to tell the roosters from the hens. By tomorrow they outta be all the way fluffed up again and we can make sure we didn't leave tooo many roosters in the polish area.

I have no plans on selling the extra roosters quite yet. I plan on hatching eggs after the polish hens start laying and make trios for selling. It will take time, but maybe it will be worth it to sell a trio instead of just a roo by himself.

MARY

Christmas

So we gave the animals a very Merry Christmas too! Rabbits had carrots, chickens & turkeys had bread & pigs had leftovers and rib bones. All animals were thrilled!

MARY

Bacon in the morning

Here's Bacon, one of our feeder pigs.

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Mary

Here is Mary and Mary.

Daryl

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Tom's Thankful!

So tom is thankful to still be strutting around this morning! We had no plans on eating him. Now....who knows about next year! depends how many Toms we end up having.

All the animals enjoyed a buffett of pie and table scraps and the pigs had turkey bone & loved it! We all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

MARY

Not a cat.

Yep, that is not a cat eating cat food. Bad chicken. Hahaha.

Daryl

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Chickens

So we sold a few of the EE laying hens the other day. Didn't have any ads out for laying hens. This guy saw we had chicks posted on Craigslist a few weeks back & knew we must have laying hens. So I let him know that he could only have yellow hens. I had like 5 yellows so I could let a few go. I admit...I was sad to sell them, but I do have my next flock all hatched out. They are a month old and 2 weeks old now. I have to remind myself sometimes that the idea is to sell chickens and make money! haha! I just love them all so much!

So we have the month old EE chicks now moved into their "forever" home over with my favorite rooster Zaxby. In a few weeks the 2 week olds will be over there too. Daryl has a red light in there & has the end of the coop they are in fenced off so they can't get out, but Zaxby can get in and out. Looks pretty good! The plan is to keep them there a few months. I want them to free range when they get older too, but I hope this way I am trainning them where home is.

So it is official...EVERY hen in the chicken house is on strike! HAHAHA! We have frizzles, silkies in there that were laying and 1 more group of each frizzles & polish that should be laying soon. Maybe our slight change in temps affected the hens. This is Florida though and not like we had a huge drop in temperature! Silly hens! EE hens still laying good! Hope they keep up the good laying! I do have paying customers!

So we also put a few hens in a enclosed coop with Grew (Americanna blue rooster) in hopes that he will make some fertile eggs with the hens. And for the 1st time ever I saw him mount a hen yesterday! WOOHOO! Daryl & I read that it takes about a month for the eggs to be fertile so we will wait till then and hatch.

So we are close to narrowing down the brown egg layer! We have always wondered which EE hen it was. Well, it was one of the 2 hens we had in with Grew. We took 1 out now we will see if it is the hen still in with him or the hen we took out and marked with Blue cote. It is exciting to find out. We also gave grew another hen. One of the hens was not laying anyways. The idea is for him to be hatching these later on so I need a hen that feels like laying eggs!

We also have like 8 eggs in the incubator from the small hens. Frizzles & silkes. It was the last eggs they laid for us. The eggs are due December 1st. This will be the smallest batch I have ever hatched. Hope they have a high hatch rate. It would be sad to just hatch a few chicks.

Guess that is all the chicken news! They keep us busy & I love it!

MARY

Three little pigs.

Yes, Mary is excited about her pigs. Here is another pic of our pigs.

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Porky the pig.

Here is Porky, our new pig, along with Bacon, Yum-Yum and Mary. His is the white with black spots.

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baby rabbits

This afternoon we saw that we have baby rabbits living under the chicken house. And they are adorable! To me they look about 5 or 6 weeks old.  Daryl & I saw 2 of them. We aren't sure which of our free range mamas they belong to. They are fat fluffy cutie pies though, mama did great! Just gonna hope they stay safe now that they are older and braver. I do have a cat & my woods are full of animals. Funny....I didn't even know these rabbits existed till this afternoon and now I am worried about them.

MARY

New pig

So we get the new pig, Porky, on Tuesday! Plans changed and now we will meet the guy in Bluntstown on Tuesday. I am excited to get him. Really hoping Porky gets along ok with the 2 pigs we have now.

MARY

Eggs

So yesterday's eggs did not hatch. daryl & I think we just had the incubator open too much. So we are starting a new hatch  ;)  I saved 3 eggs today.

We had 6 of the 8 EEs make it that hatched. They seem to be doing good. Keeping the light on in the chicken house cause we have a few nights in the 30s! BURRRRR!

MARY

Baby chicks

Well after trying the new hatcher and stressing and putting the eggs back in the incubator. We had a total of 8 chicks hatched. The last one was about two days late, not sure but hopefully it will be ok. The next bunch of eggs are due today.
Daryl

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Easter Eggers are here!

After being very worried about our little ee's, they are finally hatching.
Daryl

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Eggs Peeping!

So a hour before Daryl got home from work I saw it...............a pip in a egg! I was so eggcited! After Daryl got here we decided to go ahead and take out the turning tray and put the EE eggs back in the incubator. As we were moving them we saw 2 more eggs were pipped!WOOHOO! Now we have them all moved and they are peeping. I love it!

MARY

Nothing

So today is hatch day and NOTHING is happening. I am real sad about it too. Like I get soooo excited about this. I wait for this very day and then to have nothing happen is just depressing. We have never had a unsucessful hatch before. Never...not even our 1st hatch. So the reason daryl built this hatcher was because of the new egg turner we installed in the incubator. There is no way to stop the turner to lay the eggs still 3 days before they hatch. I should have not had different eggs with different hatch dates I guess. When we candled the eggs before putting them in the hatcher everything looked GREAT! But now....today is hatch day and no pip, no peeps, nothing at all. I am loosing hope fast. Now I know I have 6 EE chicks in the chicken house already so I could just be happy with them till spring aand with our Florida winter approaching I need to stop hatching soon. I still have 2 small batches in the incubator, frizzles & silkies that I am waiting on. But, all the EEs are in the hatcher so if it has gone wrong so EEs for now. Tonight I plan to have Daryl take out the egg turner so I can finish off the last 2 batches in the incubator and not move anybody to the hatcher. Wish us luck with the last 2 batches. The problem has to be with the hatcher cause 3 days ago we had chicks moving in eggs.

MARY

Incubator & hatcher

So...I am waiting. We have several eggs in daryl's new "Hatcher" and tomorrow is hatch day. So far nothing has happened. I am always worried & wondering the day before. And this time the hatcher is brand new so I am just hoping it works out. It looks like all the eggs we put in there were full of chicks. So now we just wait and see!

MARY

My first hatcher

I put together my first hatcher yesterday. Same concept as a incubator. Our incubator is very full and needed room for the eggs to hatch. After we candled the eggs, we put all in there except one that didn't make it.

Daryl

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Free range hens

So this morning we were worried cause 4 of the free range hens were missing. By the afternoon we spotted them all except a young hen that had slept in the tree last night. If you taste like chicken it is not a good idea to sleep in trees, on the ground or anywhere that is not your coop. Sad, but true :( We plan to raise and keep a 2nd flock of Easter Eggers so they will start laying in Spring. I think that they only lay really well for a few years so soon I will need my backup flock. I really need a larger incubator too. I just don't hatch enough at a time. This batch I have now I plan to keep for myself and not post for sale anywhere. It will be fun to raise a new batch of keepers  ;)

MARY

Pigs

The pigs are doing very well. They have gotton pretty friendly. I can pet & scratch their heads and backs now for like 30 seconds before they run off. And they are actually eating corn, veggies and I think (not 100% sure) the pig food! So I am thrilled with the quick progress of them.

We are also getting a 3rd pig. Should get it the 2nd week in November. The guy is actually gonna be driving right by us so I can just meet him off the highway and pick up my piggy! We are getting a unclipped male pig to go with Yum Yum so we can breed pigs later on. The guy is suppose to be sending me pics of the pics and I will just pick the one I want. That is fun! He was a few hours away so this is saving us on gas too, but I was willing to drive to get the 3rd pig! Oh and the pigs name will be Porky. :)

Mary and Swiffer.

Swiffer is a mix between a frizzle and silkie. So he is a sizzle. He is a keeper.

Daryl

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Graceville Auction

Last night we took 7 roosters to the Graceville livestock auction. They were extras that we had. We took polish, frizzles and a black mixed rooster. We learned if you match them up with hens you do much better! Our polish sold for $5.00 each, but the other polish that was there with 2 hens went for $25 each! So all that means is I need to do some more hatching--haha!

MARY

Picky Pigs

So this is not easy, but I am trying to get the pigs to eat the pig food. Daryl had read about wetting it so we are making pig mush with the pig food & corn. Today is day 2 of trying to get them to eat the pig food. They sqush the food around, but not sure if they are eating too much. I do wanta get some good pork from the pigs so I know they need to eat well. Wonder if my pigs will taste ok if I end up feeding them dog food?

MARY

Kits

Sad to report that the kits did not make it. I really tried with many feedings, but they just weren't even trying to take the milk. We even tried to give the kits to the other mama with no luck. At least I feel like we tried.

MARY

PIGS

So they pigs are doing really well. You know... they won't just eat anything. Actually the only things they want are chicken & rib bones, dog food and dog biscuits. They will not eat veggies! No slop either. I saved bags of stuff for them and they sniff it and walk away. Maybe when they get older.

The female pig, Yum Yum, is so friendly! I can pet her nose now! I can hand feed her the dog biscuits too. The boy pig, Bacon, still stands back from me. I bet he will come around though. It is fun to feed them....I do with they'd eat some slop though!

E-lop kits

4 days ago, Tay, our English lop doe gave birth to 8 adorable kits. We were so excited. We have just 3 left now. I am unsure if her milk just didn't come in or she just took no intrest in them. Either way it is just sad. So yesterday I watched a few Youtube videos and decided I was gonna give it a try. I feed them kitten milk a few times a day. It is not easy. They squirm around so much and barely get anything. And now I think it is not going well. They look thinner despite all my feedings. I really gave it my all so if they do not make it I will try and not feel too bad. This was just out 1st litter of E-lop and I was so excited.

MARY

Our baby chicks

Here are three of our baby ee's. We hatched them in our incubator. They are cute and just get prettier.

Daryl

Our 1st farm blog

Hi there! my name is Mary & my husband is Daryl. We own a small family farm in Fountain, Florida. We keep a active facebook account, but we decided a blog would be nice too!

We own a rabbitry, many flocks of chickens & recently brought pigs home! I used to keep a personal blog here years ago and always thought it was pretty fun! So now we will share our farm life...ups & down with anyone interested!

MARY