Thursday, October 3, 2013

Goaties, Keets, & Ducks... Oh My!

I never thought I would feel this way, but I kind of miss the winter. Not the mounds of snow that have to be removed, certainly, but the "down" time. The quiet. Days snuggled in with a warm fire in the woodstove and the snippets of the sounds of my family around me in various rooms going about their days. I am certain that when winter comes to Maine, I will have forgotten wanting its quiet. But, right now, when we are so busy preparing for it and finishing all the last details of farming this year, it doesn't sound so bad.

When you are busy time seems to fly by.  At the same time, there never seems to be enough of it. Summer has ended. The Twomblys of North Carolina have returned home. We enjoyed a final showing at the Belfast Art Market. The barn is mostly complete save the doors, filling the hay loft, building larger pens for the bunnies to spend their winter, and building the kidding stalls. Oh, and there is the repair work that now needs to be done thanks to our randy buck, Asher.

This is what happens when an 18 month old goes into his first true "rut" and is desperate to get to some does- any does. That used to be a solid wall sheathed in 1/2 inch OSB.

In addition to these necessary Autumn chores, we also need to get our wood split and stacked and spend some time preparing for our first ever "Open Farm Day". We are tentatively planning to host it on October 26, 2013 from 9am-5pm. I will finalize the date and post a schedule of activities early next week, so be sure to check back.

In the meantime, I polled our farm's Facebook friends about what they would like to see posted. Unfortunately, somehow, I lost the footage of the hen laying an egg. So, for those of you that voted for that option, you'll have to wait a little longer to see that up close and personal. For you others that wanted guinea fowl, ducks, and goats, here you go.

First, a visit with our wayward goat does:


And, then video and footage of the growing Guineas:



We purchased our Guinea Fowl locally in Montville, Maine from Shelagh Delphyne . She has great, healthy stock and I can't recommend her highly enough. Shelagh breeds several varieties of Guinea Fowl. She is very knowledgeable and is quick to share her experience with new Guinea Fowl keepers.  Shelagh, after seeing some pictures we posted on our Facebook page, was also kind enough to point out that wood shavings as bedding can be a problem for Guinea keets. Since I use pine shavings for almost all our littles, I wanted to look into that. Sure enough, I found several sites, such as this- Maguire Farm- warning against using wood shavings since the keets might get confused and attempt to eat them. The information I found at Guinea Fowl International suggested not using wood shavings on keets less than a week old.

Here at Lally Broch Farm, we used shelf liner paper for the keets for the first week or so. Then, we switched over to the pine shavings. We had no issues with our keets using the pine shavings, but I think it is important that new keepers (such as us) are informed of potential hazards. I have seen our keets scratch and peck around in the shavings, but thankfully, ours did not seem inclined to eat any of it.

So, that is what has been happening around here. We are very excited to host an official "Open Farm" Day and hope that we will entertain many friends and new friends that day. If you are interested in coming out for a visit, be sure to check back for a detailed schedule and information.

Thanks for visiting today, Friends. ♥
Sonja ♥

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1 comment:

  1. I completely agree with the autumn chores - I've been crazy busy getting all my barnyard projects finished!

    However, as I write this, big thick snowflakes are falling here in Colorado. Welcome, winter!

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