A cheeky little chick

He must be a boy.  We have a hen, a wonderful mother, an Ameraucana who hatched a large batch of chicks last summer and was very attentive to them all for longer than usual.  She was a great mom.  Her own Mom looks identical to her, and right now that Mom is tenderly caring for 5 chicks that are about 5 weeks old.  This year we even have 2 more look-a-likes---slate gray feathers, "puffy" cheeks, greenish legs.  Hopefully they'll be good mothers, too. This particular gray hen sat on a batch of 13 eggs, refusing to get up off the nest, even when 2 rotten eggs were stinking up the whole barn.  I thought she'd replay her great mothering from last year IF any of the eggs had survived. I forcibly moved her, scooped out the soggy smelly mess that had been her nest, replaced the nest material with fresh clean straw, and checked the remaining 6 eggs to make sure none were rotten. The next day, one little black chick was peeking out from under her feathers, and boy, was she mad that I dared to look at him! I left her to hatch out any others, but 2 days later, she had abandoned her nest.  She was hunched protectively over little Junior, and if any imagined danger came her way, she was flying at the cat, challenging the nearly full-grown turkey, watching my legs to make sure I wasn't too close. She made the mistake of letting Junior  decide where to explore, letting him lead the way. I was surprised yesterday, when I saw only one hen in the far corner of the pasture.  They usually stay together for safety.  Not this mama hen.  Junior had led her to the very farthest place he could explore.  She had merely followed. Instead of waiting for her to lovingly cluck as she found a choice bit of food for him, he was rummaging in the grass and not paying any attention to her.  When I brought them some water that was shallow enough that he wouldn't drown, he turned his little beak up at it and dashed away, even though mama was clucking urgently for him to come and take a sip. Jeff and I saw them later in the cow pen.  Mama was walking and Junior came tumbling off of her back.  He was taking a ride!  Mama proceeded to follow him all over the place, trying in vain to be the mother that she wanted to be.  He wouldn't have anything to do with being dependent.  Foolish chick! I remarked to Jeff "I'll be surprised if they're in the barn when we close up tonight." Too true.  Mama and Junior were nowhere to be found--in the barn, in the cow pen, in the back acre, under bushes, outside the fence, no-where.  My comment?  "Well, we'll never see THEM again." And sure enough, they were nowhere to be seen this morning.  I had just the tiniest hope that she'd show up with Junior outside the barn door, waiting to be let in.  No sign of them.  Jeff had even gone looking while we waited to get everyone into the car. I'm sorry to say I wasn't sad.  A little curious to know what had happened, but we're way past being sad when one of many chickens is gone with no explanation...... But wait!  I came home this afternoon, and decided to look for the feathers for a clue to what had happened.  I was sure they'd been outside the fence, in the soybean rows last night.  So that's where I searched, walking slowly along the fenceline.  And lo and behold, I came across a tussled gray bundle of feathers, with a tiny black fluffball next to it.  Sunning themselves on a pile of manure, just barely inside the fence.  Like two little statues, with obviously no thought to the danger that they'd avoided the night before. Mama clucked at me and Junior dodged outside the fence again.  Sigh. That wasn't the end of their adventures for the day.  Ruby was curious, and then playful as mama hen ruffled up her feathers and charged at Ruby's nose and legs.  I heard the commotion as I was painting and looked around to watch. Ruby was prancing around, trying to play.  Mama hen was angry, and in full attack mode, protecting her little chick. Well, Ruby has a protective mama, too.  Enter Bessie the milk cow, trotting quickly, ears pricked forward toward the screeching hen, positioning herself between the incredibly dangerous chicken and Bessie's own precious calf.  And there was a stand-off.  Right there.  Between a 5 pound hen fluffed up to look about 10 pounds (maybe), and a 1000 pound black and white angry mama cow.  Junior was paying no attention and hopped in and out of the fence while his mother tried to keep him safe by taking on the huge cow.  Finally, it was too much for her, and she squeezed through the fence to attempt to keep him safe in the big wild soybean field. The soybean field.....and the sun was going down.  An hour later, mama hen was protectively huddled over Junior again.  In the soybean field.  Where coyotes, foxes, coons, possums, hawks, owls, even a big rat could have a wonderful feast if they came across her and her little Junior. Time to intervene and stop letting Junior call all the shots.  Jeremy went out into the soybean field, careful to not step on the dry soybeans waiting to be harvested.  He circled far outside of where she was, taking care to direct her back to the fenceline.  When she got there, she was so flustered that she couldn't think of how she had squeezed OUT, and couldn't squeeze back IN, even though Junior was in and out, in and out, time and again and causing her such anxiety.  Finally I scooped him up, and that was what it took to cause her enough panic to squeeze through and face the danger that had her baby up off the ground. Still, Junior dashed here and there near the barn, with mama trying to direct him into the barn.  It took a rake and a bit more chasing to get them both in there.  They're safe, at least for tonight.  Without any siblings, Junior has a 1 in 2 chance of growing up to adulthood (our chicks seem to have a 50% mortality rate, whether from the respiratory illness or from other mishaps).  He could still hop boldly into a water bowl and get in over his head.  He could wander far from safety and get scooped up by a hawk.  Or he could stay healthy and make it through the winter, learning to crow and roost with the big chickens. I feel bad for his mother.  She should have taken the appropriate control from the beginning.  She'll never catch up, now that Junior has discovered that she'll meekly follow him wherever his adventurous little mind decides to go. Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Milk victory, and other updates

Bessie stood still and gave almost 2 gallons this morning.  What changed? Bessie wasn't so antsy, for one. I didn't give her time to fill up on clover hay like the past few days, for 2.  (Note to myself here---it's probably more efficient to give them the whole bale in the morning, instead of half-a-bale, but if Bess is filling up on clover hay before coming in for milking, she might be too full to stand still long enough....so we'll go back to half-a-bale to get them out of the barn so that I can set up for milking, then half-a-bale later.) I mixed some concentrated hay "cubes" in with the grain mix, to keep Bessie content to munch a bit longer.  These are actually little cubes of hay, compressed into squares about 1 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch.  The hay cubes are a bit awkward for the cows to chew, so it kept her attention longer. I didn't give baby Ruby any grain, but only a bit of "calf-starter", which is pellets, molasses, and some rolled grain as part of that mix.  So Bess didn't smell more of the good stuff over in Ruby's stall and get selfish about wanting it. I started by milking the back quarter that I usually left part-way full for Ruby.  That way, I didn't unintentionally signal Bess that milking was over.  Her "teats" are part of the routine, and she KNOWS which ones I work with first.  Routine, always the routine! I had both buckets uncovered, and in place for easy switching out.  No "lid's been put on the bucket, we must be done milking" signals to over-sensitive Bess.  And I made sure to not even stop the flow of milk between buckets, but sacrificed a few squirts down into the straw bedding to keep her aware that we weren't stopping. Or, it might have been something as simple as this:  certain parts of each hay bale are different quality than the rest of the bale.  Maybe the mower went through a coarse patch of grass or the alfalfa in one section was already flowering when it was cut and left to dry.  The cows pick through any bale for the sections they want.  MAYBE the last 2 days, Bess was given a section of the alfalfa bale that didn't meet her high standards, and she turned her nose up at it. Or this:  The past few days, she had shifted around in the stanchion and I have had to adjust the milk crate that I sit on to be able to reach her.  Usually, the routine is---I sit firmly in place and don't move around unless I'm done.  Routine, again. Today, too, I remembered something from reading about how to get a calf used to being led with halter and "lead".  You pull a bit on the lead, and the calf will pull right back.  You don't give an inch until the calf lets up on the pressure she's using to pull against you.  The calf gets the idea that it's more pleasant to work with the lead, and not to fight against it. So....apply that to milking the big cow:  Bessie was starting to think she could back right out when SHE wanted to be done with the milking.  I knew that she was already done with the grain mix, and that she was starting to get antsy.  It was a hard choice for a Dutch girl, but.....I stopped milking before all the milk was in the bucket, and also before she could decide that SHE was stopping the milking.  Kind of the reverse of the calf-on-a-lead, but I think it still reinforces that I'm the one that gets to make the decisions, thank-you-very-much! Too many things to really pin-point one, but the victory today was that almost 2 gallons of milk are now in the frig.  I had 30 minutes of milking to think all the options through....no wonder it got to be a long list of possibilities. It's a constant problem-solving life, isn't it?  Maybe I'm finally learning that things will keep changing no matter what I had thought was "ideal", and I'm adjusting to that constant change?  For someone who likes to get things in order and have them STAY that way, that's a big adjustment. In other updates: Lucy should have been showing signs of heat this week, and so far, there's no hint that she is going through her cycle again.  So.....maybe the artificial insemination took on the first try?  I remember praying a little bit desperately at the time that it would take.  Her new owners are eager to have her join their own farm-family, and although I'm not eager to see her go, I AM eager to protect the hay-supply and not need to scrape up more money half-way through the winter for more.  She was "bred" 3 weeks ago on Saturday.  My job this morning (like almost every morning!)?  Shovel manure.  But I'll also be keeping a close eye on the interaction between the big cows, to see if there's any sign of Bessie or Lucy exhibiting "heat' behaviors. The cow-shelter:  We've started nailing up the plywood panels on the side of the barn (remember the photos of the rat-damage?!!!) and they have their first coat of paint.  Jeff has done a good job of cutting the wood to fit around weird angles, or to fit up into a space where a bit of siding needed to be replaced above where we're working.  My parents brought some salvaged windows from their house in Wisconsin, and Jeff is adjusting the space in the barn wall to install one of their windows (It was 1 1/2 inches wider than the space between the wall-studs, but Jeff determined that the stud he needed to move wasn't a load-bearing board.  Plus, although it is cedar, it was rotten and gnawed-through by rats, and it made sense to take that one out and replace it.)  The barn is not "square" (no surprise after 100 years and a cracked foundation), so it will take a bit more adjusting to get the window to fit.  After the window---we'll need to mark where we want the support posts and start digging, keeping curious (nosy?) cows out of the way somehow. The turkey:  Has stayed past his welcome.  He is not my favorite, because he has killed 2 young chicks and tried to kill another.  In his defense, these were chicks who were sick enough to probably die on their own.  But it bothered me that he seemed to be taking delight in bloodying them.  (To explain:  He struts around each morning, "courting" the geese.  His neck and head become brilliant blue, with bright red splotches on the bumpy parts, and the little knob above his nose elongates and hangs down a few inches.  His feathers are fluffed and his tail is fanned out.  That must mean "sexy" to turkey hens.  When he killed the chicks, his colors were up and he was acting excited.  The look in his eyes made me think of a vulture.  Anything on the farm that kill something and takes delight in it is NOT going to be my favorite!)  Anyway, we've all started talking about him as "Thanksgiving dinner". And on that happy note, have a good day, everyone! Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

The milk war goes on.....

Photo:  Mama Bessie and baby Ruby, plotting against me   ;) I thought it was figured out.  Bessie was giving milk with no problem this morning....one gallon....a gallon and a half....it was going smoothly.  So I thought to myself, "The problem yesterday must have been that I was using 2 buckets instead of one big one.  When Bessie heard me change out the first bucket yesterday, she (routine-cow that she is) thought she was done."  Problem solved, or so I thought. Then, she finished the grain mix and started backing out, just like yesterday.  So I thought, "It's just that she is finishing her grain faster than usual.  Maybe the sweet feed mixed in is giving her a quicker snack, and I need to give more grain again instead of the pellets."  Problem solved.....? She backed out ALL the way, looked me straight in the eye, and called to her baby.  I thought, "She knows that Ruby has grain mix left over, and Bessie won't finish milking until she gets them....right now....on demand...."  (Not too hard to imagine a stubborn cow figuring that one out.  "There's food, and I want it NOW or I won't cooperate.") Problem NOT solved. So I tested it, and put Ruby's small handful of leftover grain mix in the stanchion.  Sure enough, Bessie came right back in and swiped up what was left with about one lick of her big purple tongue.  I got a few more squirts of milk out of her before she backed out again.  Very pointedly, she looked at Ruby in the stall, looked at me, and moo'd very loudly in Ruby's direction (the same moo she uses when she is calling Ruby to come in from the pasture).  It was as if she was saying "Hey, lady, you've taken your share.  Let my baby get her breakfast before you selfish people take it all!" Not to be outdone by a stubborn cow, I opened the big sliding door and shooed Bessie out, just to shake things up a bit.  That's when little Ruby perked up.  "Hey, the routine isn't supposed to be this way.  I'm SUPPOSED to get my breakfast milk while Mom is still in the stanchion!".  Baby moo's of protest from Ruby.  I let her out of the stall, and she gave a little impudent kick as she trotted out of the barn and towards her mama.  Like mother, like daughter. They had a happy little reunion at the round metal feeder, while I took the bucket of milk inside.  One and a half gallons.  Not 2 gallons, like I planned.  Bessie won another round. Once in a while I've contemplated tying Bess into the stanchion, like it's supposed to work.  She would stand still until I was done (wishful thinking), she would finish her grain and just STAND there calmly (more wishful thinking), and she would only back out when I decided that we were done.  Remember when we first got the cows?  I tried to use the stanchion like it's designed to be used---cow walks in, cow is "contained" (meaning she is not free to waltz out whenever she pleases), person milks the calm cow---and Bessie objected, backed right out, tearing the whole set-up off of the wall and stepping on my foot in the process. Bessie and I are in another mental tug-of-war, one of many, and I am GOING to win!!! Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

The morning's war over milk

Photo:  The 3 ladies:  Bessie, Lucy (behind the tree), and Ruby (snuggled by her aunt like usual)  ;) Cows must be smarter than they look.  Sometimes I forget, and it's a surprise when they remind me. The last few mornings, the routine has been this:  Bring the cows their bale of clover hay to get both Bess and Lucy out of the barn/milking area.  Close the big sliding door to KEEP them out.  Feed little Ruby (not so little any more) some choice hay in her stall while I set up for the milking (this includes scraping cow-pies and muck out of the stanchion area, spreading clean straw, bringing a "flake" of good quality alfalfa and a bucket of grain mix for Bessie, setting up the milk crate that doubles as my stool, getting the iodine dip and paper towels ready to clean the filthy udder, and spending a little bit of time petting Ruby to keep her accustomed to being handled.)  I give Ruby a small amount of grain-mix right before I call Bessie in.  Usually she's moo-ing urgently and sounding a bit demanding right outside the door.   I wouldn't even have to say it, but I call out "Bessie-girl" in a sing-song sort of voice as I slide the big door open. Bess lumbers right in, with her full attention on the grain and hay in the stanchion.  She would plow right through me if I stood in her way.  She doesn't flinch at all when I clean her udder, unless the iodine dip is a little bit cold.  She munches her grain as if it's the best thing she's ever tasted--head raised, eyes half closed, jaw working quietly.  She gets a bit restless when the grain is gone, and noses the hay all around to make sure she hasn't missed a grain of oats or a bit of corn.  By this point, I'm usually about a gallon into it and wanting to get one gallon more.  This is hand-milking, so it takes about 20 minutes or so, sometimes more. And here's where it was different this morning. She USUALLY settles in to munching the hay.  She is always aware that there are a few stray grains leftover in Ruby's feed bucket, and always lifts her head to check out whether there are any she can smell from across the room, but USUALLY knows that she'll get them once Ruby is set free to nurse.  That's the routine, and cows are big on routine. Today she started backing out, and gave a really loud "Moo" in Ruby's direction.  As far as I could tell, Ruby wasn't saying anything in return.  But she was standing very alert watching her mama.  Bessie Moo'd again, and backed all the way out (as usual, I was watching for the point where I would need to rescue the bucket underneath her, and the milk was saved!) I scolded her, swatted her lightly on the butt, but she nosed at the closed sliding door to see if she could escape.  She discovered that on the very first day here--the sliding door will lift up and out if she throws her full weight against it, and then she's free!  Not good for the door or the metal track, that's for sure...... I set the first milk bucket safely inside the main part of the barn, and went to ruffle up the alfalfa which had been left behind at the stanchion.  It worked.  Bessie came back to investigate, started to munch again, and I settled in with the second bucket.  She was restless, and kept moo-ing to Ruby.  Finally, after only half-a-gallon more, I gave in.  Dancing cow hooves don't pair up with a half full milk-bucket very well.  Ruby was set free from the stall, and I stood back as she got Bessie's milk flowing again.  It's kind of painful to watch.  Ruby gathers all her strength and butts upward into Bessie's udder.  Bess braces herself, but you can almost hear her sighing "Ooooph" as the impact hits.  It's not just once, but over and over as Ruby feels that she's not getting enough milk flow.   It works, though, because when Ruby is done, her entire nose is covered in milk and she is smacking her lips, even if I've just gathered the milk for the morning. I've been taking 2 gallons each morning for about a week now.  Bess comfortably gives up a gallon and a half.  Up to a week ago, soft-hearted girl that I am, I'd leave almost one full quarter for Ruby's breakfast (equals more than half-a-gallon of milk).  By taking 2 gallons this week, because milk is in abundant supply, that empties 3 quarters of Bessie's udder and takes a good amount from that last quarter.  Here's what I think:  Bessie somehow knew that I'd reached the "usual" mark of milking, and decided not to stand still for me to get that last amount.  She seemed to be talking to Ruby, who was waiting expectantly for her turn.  It didn't help that the grain was gone when I needed Bess to remain focused in her food.  I think that somehow, the cow and her baby realized that I was taking more of Ruby's breakfast than they thought I should take, and plotted between themselves to thwart my efforts to gather the rest of the milk!  Maybe not, but it makes for an interesting theory, which I'll test over the next few days by tweaking things until I can keep Bess in place for 2 full buckets'-worth of milk, and not just what she and Ruby decide we can have! Always interesting..... Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Tons of chicken feed

I've been ordering and picking up feed from a mill in Union, about 25 minutes southwest of here (also where the train museum and Wild West museum are).  Not much else there (in the words of Eddie at the mill, "There are 3 or 4 bars and not much else"). Feed is mixed by the mill, at the mill, and is less expensive than regular feed store bags (50 pounds, brand-name:  Kent, Prince, Nutrena) with less preservatives.  The ingredients?  Cracked corn, oats, alfalfa meal, soy meal, bone meal (for protein), vitamins and minerals for a laying hen's diet, and oyster shell.  The chickens love it.  I like saving $4 a bag.  It's nice to know how to pronounce all of the ingredients in the mix.....  I buy 500 pounds at a time, equaling 10 bags weighing roughly 50 pounds each.  We tend to go through a bag a day, but I know that some of that is powder that gets lost in the bedding, too.  The downside:  I don't like having to drive that far, although it's not really THAT much farther than going to Harvard, just seems like it.  And the chickens are laying about a dozen LESS eggs a day on the mill-mix, which means that the difference in feed price is not making that much difference in the long run (because if the egg-laying was still at 3 dozen a day, we'd be more than breaking even, but as it is, 24 eggs a day is breaking even despite the lower-price of the feed!) One week I showed up earlier than I'd told them, and we had to kill an hour while they mixed our feed (hence the comment about the bars and "not much else".) Last week was the first real glitch.  I'd called like usual to put in my order 2 days earlier.  I showed up as agreed on to pick up the order.  I walked in the door, and Eddie looked at me and said "Laura!".  I knew something was not quite right.  He went on to explain that the auger inside the mixer (not sure of terms, here) was broken or jammed.  He had other orders that hadn't gotten mixed.  He mentioned to the other customer in the store that so-and-so from someplace-familiar would need to bring his crane to get it fixed.  The other customer seemed to know the code that Eddie was speaking in..... I asked "Don't you have my cell phone number?" Eddie replied "I could have looked it up in caller ID, sure.  I didn't think of it in the commotion of the morning.  I should have called you."  The other guy in the store was pointedly watching both of us to see what the reactions would be. Grrr......  I'd been in the car doing other errands all of that morning, and had driven out of the way to pick up the feed before heading back the OTHER direction to get Jeremy from school.  A wasted trip, probably over an hour of time that could have been spent doing something productive. Anyway, Eddie sold me 5 bags of Kent feed (good stuff, normally $15 a bag) for the price of the mill's laying-hen mix.  A fair suggestion......and the least he could do.....and it might convince me to give the hens half-Kent and half-mill feed, to boost egg production.  Money lost on his part, in the long run, because I'd buy Kent feed from the Harvard store and not from the mill. I asked Eddie as I left if he was sure the mix would be done by noon today if I drive back out there.  He suggested calling first.  I haven't done that yet.  I should have bought 10 bags of Kent feed at the lower price and not bothered with adding another trip to the mill to what I have to do this week. This week I'll need to pick up pasture seed in Harvard, and pick Jeremy up daily at 2:10, and slog through manure to spread it on the field before seeding the field (it's not that hard, because the chickens have nicely scratched it into little dry peat-moss style pieces), and work on the cow-pen's new shelter, and whatever else presents itself as the "task at hand" (maybe getting caught up with laundry or giving a bathroom a thorough cleaning--a novel idea!!!).....and it's Jeff's birthday today, although we're celebrating on Sunday because that's when the older kids can be here. Well, better call Eddie and see what the story is for today.  Shouldn't be a problem if they have it mixed and I DON'T get out there until tomorrow....considering that they have the room to store it AND that other, bigger orders will be filled before mine anyway.  Surprisingly, the chickens have gone through much less feed than when I give them the mill mix, so I might not be saving ANY money in the long run.  Sigh.... There's mozzarella curdling on the stove (I think the correct word is "coagulating"), butter waiting to be made, a kitchen to finish cleaning (the weekend mess was a mess-on-top-of-a-mess, despite my best efforts), and laundry to tame.....and it will all get done, at some point or another, if I just remind myself not to allow that "overwhelmed" feeling to get me down!  Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Chicky characters

(Photos:  Chicks from the preschool hatch in May--as new arrivals at the farm and half-way through the summer.  "Chump" is one of the smaller brown ones in the last photo.) It's funny.  I'm not writing about leaves changing color, or cooler weather, but about the sound of little chicken feet running on and eagerly scratching in dry leaves on the ground.  For the past few years, that's been a new feature of autumn.....for me anyway.  In Palatine, I would have the patio door open and could hear the little "scritch, scritch, scritch" of chicken claws digging through the dry leaves.  Here I have the French doors open to bring some of the delightful cooler air into the house, and it caught me by surprise---the same chicken-scratching noise that I had forgotten.  The ones I'm hearing now are from Marlene's preschool hatch in May.  They are 4 months old or so, about half-way grown, and still small enough to hop through the livestock fence and run wild through the acre surrounding our house and garage (and it's truly a WILD area--overgrown where I haven't gotten to ripping weeds out or taming wild blackberry thickets.  They have plenty of places to forage, and plenty of places to hide in the case of a hawk flying overhead).  Sometimes guests will pull into the driveway and announce "Do you know that your chickens are right next to the road?!!!"  Usually that means that the younger group is in the ditch, scratching for whatever yummy stuff they can find there.  I don't panic anymore when I hear how close to the traffic they are...... Back to the story:  It's one thing to hear them scratching in wood chips or on dry ground or gravel when they aren't supposed to be out, but it is totally endearing to hear them in the dry leaves, scratching here and there for little bugs or bits of food.  Doesn't really make sense, does it? One other little guy is fun to watch each morning.  He's a Rhode Island White or maybe a White Plymouth Rock (they came in the same batch of eggs from E-bay, and hatched together in late May/early June).  Every morning when I go out to milk Bessie, he is right there ready to eat all the sleepy flies that aren't moving quickly yet.  He hops up to where Bess is munching her grain and steals bits of oats or corn, picks flies off of Ruby's stall with no effort at all, or stands on tiptoe to peck a fly off of Bessie's leg while I'm milking her.  Today he even pecked a few times at my jeans, and I knew that there must have been a fly or two that landed on me (hopefully he got them!)  Bess doesn't pay any attention to him, but little Ruby gets a bit frisky and tries to play.  A big calf playing with a little white chicken isn't a fair match, and the little guy usually gives a baby-style squawk and hurries out of Ruby's stall.  The cows accept this little one, but Bess snorts in annoyance if any other chicken tries to steal her feed at milking time.  It's too bad that the "he" is not a "she", because the fate of all the boy chicks is pretty much sealed, no matter how cute or endearing they may be..... One boy chick that we may make an exception for (although all the existing chickens on the farm have a short life-span expectancy because of the respiratory sickness they all seem to be carrying) is called "Chump".  He is from Marlene's hatch and runs with the laugh-in-the-face-of-traffic-danger crowd.  Chump is always very brave and comes right up for either a bit of sandwich or whatever else we were eating, or to peck at my toenail polish or at a red mosquito bite on anyone's leg....he made a real pest of himself when a church group was here last Saturday and he was overly bold in demanding people-food.  Sometimes it's obvious which chicks were hatched in a classroom and handled a lot!  Chump was hopping on one foot at the end of summer, and we caught him to find out why.  One leg was grossly swollen and purple, and he couldn't put any weight on his foot.  His leg-joint was completely swollen and bruised.  That was enough for us to make a pet out of him.  Jeremy was able to scoop him up easily for about a week after that, and we would set him on the picnic table or on a hay bale and feed him the choice bits of grain or bread, while the other chickens had to scratch in the straw or grass for theirs.  Jeremy would make nests of hay for him, and he'd snuggle down and sleep in comfort while he was recovering.  I called him "Hop-a-long", but the name "Chump" stuck instead. Gradually the swelling went down, but his leg still seemed to bend at an odd angle for a few weeks more if he stepped on it wrong.  No idea how he was injured, but now his leg seems to be healed.  He is still bold, and comes up to beg with urgent little cheeps when I'm scooping cow feed.  I'm soft-hearted enough to toss some grain out to the other chickens and then furtively give him a little pile where the others can't see, and he's tame enough to wait for that special ration and gobble it up before the others know what is happening. Again, he's a male.....Jeremy has asked if we could keep him....we'll see how long that lasts.  It's just too bad that the young hens aren't the ones that we get attached to! Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

House(s) and farm update

Photos:  The progress in painting the farmhouse, and--the latest window to be removed from the barn The house in Palatine did not sell.  I must have forgotten to post anything about that.  The inspection resulted in the buyer backing out because of something he didn't like about the windows.  The windows in the house are fine....the buyer was seeming flakier and flakier as time went on.  We were starting to wonder if it would fall through. His mail was already being addressed to our Palatine address, before he even signed the contract.  Jeff took the mail and left it on the kitchen counter, where the prospective buyer would need to have his real estate agent unlock the door for him in order to get it.  Potentially, with our mail still being delivered to OUR address, this buyer would have been going through our mail in our own mailbox to retrieve whatever he thought he needed to have sent there.  I went so far as to have the mail held for us at the post office, but the contract was unraveling by then anyway. When the contract was canceled, we found out that he had only put $1000 down as his deposit.  We wouldn't have agreed to that if our real estate agent had told us the amount.  Doesn't seem like an amount that someone who is serious about buying a house would bother with--if you truly plan to buy the house, you'll be prepared to pay the expected down-payment and not mess around, right? Next, we hired a rental agent, and had 3 contracts to look over by the end of the next weekend.  We went with one family who the agent suggested, and they were going to move in by Sept 15.  Nope....the dad will be in Korea (I think!) for quite a while, unexpectedly....so they don't want to move in after all.  We then found out that they had never signed the contract!  At least they offered (through the rental agent) to pay half of the security deposit that they would have needed to pay, but still.....the other 2 contracts were for families who would have moved in by Sept 1st. So now there are a few more interested renters, according to the rental agent.  He has the incentive to get people in there, because he doesn't get paid unless there are actually renters in the house.  We'll see.... I am SO glad that we didn't decide to try to find and manage renters on our own!!! Farmhouse:  Jeff has been hard at work painting the trim and adding a cheery yellow over the old weathered house-color.  You can see in one of the photos where the new paint contrasts with the old faded paint. Michael has been helping by power-washing the green mildew off of the siding, and blasting the accumulated dirt off of the white trim.  We discovered that at some point, interior paint must have been brushed over the original yellow paint, and it just peels off in sheets, or blasts into paint-splinters under the power-washer's pressure.  It's a much-needed facelift, and just in time to protect the cedar siding from the wetness of winter. Barn:  Jeff shored-up the rat-gnawed supports that I uncovered in the barn wall, and the first sheet of siding is in place.  Then the most incredible storm blew in, and we were very glad that the open side of the barn was covered in tarps for the night.  Jeff is out of town for a few days, so the barn work will be whatever we are able to do while he's away. My parents have some windows that they are bringing this weekend, and, if they are close to the right size, that old window-opening (and others on the front of the barn) will soon have a used but new-to-the-barn window to fill the void. Hay:  Michael and now Jeremy have been hard-at-work moving bales of hay from the first floor to the hay-loft upstairs.  Chris and Michael rigged up a pulley system that hoists a 50+ pound bale of hay up through the hay chute and to the second floor.  It still takes a bit of time, but (with 2 people), it's much faster than heaving bale after bale up the rickety stairs and around the corner to the hay loft! Progress! Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Rat damage over 100 years

We need to make a 3 sided shelter for the cows.  It will be on the most weathered side of the barn--the southwest corner, near the silo. With the milking stanchion and Ruby's stall in the barn add-on on the north side of the silo, there's a real need to keep the cows out of there during the day and even during the night.  Each morning before I can milk Bessie, the cows need to be shooed out and I scrape out the manure from the night.  Because the cows are outside and the barn door is shut, the manure and soggy straw goes in a pile next to the door.  That manure pile, in turn, needs to be shoveled into the wheelbarrow later in the morning and moved out onto the manure pile in the pen.  I COULD bring the wheelbarrow into the barn to put the manure in at first, but then I run the risk of an overly eager-to-be-milked Bessie overturning the steaming mess as she heads into the barn and to the stanchion where her grain waits.  Either way, I'm shoveling it twice. On nice days, they don't go in there very much unless I leave hay inside for them.  Wherever they stand to munch on their hay ration, there will be piles of waste.  Some days, they choose to hang out in there ALL DAY, leaving a soggy stinking fly-infested mess on the floor that again has to be shoveled out before they would sleep on their own manure all night.  (Another reason to shovel again before night-time--Bessie has such a fondness for resting her udder in fresh manure.  If I can eliminate just a small amount of that, the udder-cleaning is SO MUCH EASIER the next day!) So, the idea is.....their barn space is on the north side of the silo.  Their pen extends to the southwest corner of the barn, on the other side of the silo.  The distance from the silo walk-way (which is built in as part of the barn) to the south corner is over 20 feet.  The shelter will extend from the wall of the silo walk-way to 14 feet along the side of the barn.  Seven or 8 feet out from the side of the barn, 14 feet long along the side of the barn, with rough-cut boards from the 3rd floor of the barn making up the partial siding under the 6 foot high outside edge. The shelter will have a roof coming out from the barn at about 8 feet up, sloping down to 6 feet or so at the outside edge.  There will be an entrance to the south side.    Then, because there are no gutters on any of our buildings, the roof of this shelter will act as a down-spout of sorts, so that the rain running down from the barn roof hits the roof of the shelter and is deposited neatly into a row of rain barrels, which will be strategically placed under the drip-line of the shelter's roof. The purposes of the shelter?  To give the cows some protection from the weather, to keep them out of the stanchion and milking area until I need to let them in, to allow them to bed down on straw which is on dirt rather than concrete (the urine and liquid wastes should soak into the dirt underneath the straw to a certain degree, instead of pooling and soaking all of the bedding on top of concrete) and to give me some space to work and set up the milking items without pushy cows trying to get a mouthful of yummy grain or alfalfa hay while I'm trying to squeeze past them (a recipe for disaster and injury!)  With the straw bedding in the shelter being built up gradually all winter (thanks to Russ for this idea that I filed away to consider later!), the bedding will be back-breakingly shoveled out in the spring, but not every single day or even twice a day. Back to what I was starting to describe with the rats.  We think our barn was built in the 1920's, based on some history I've found and the type of structure and amount of cows it could have handled a hundred years ago.  It was a dairy barn, originally set up for milking a herd of cows, whose milk would be sent to the creamery in Greenwood to be made into butter. The woodworker who lived here 15 or 20 years ago almost certainly re-made quite a bit of the barn, including siding.  He made it into his workshop, complete with dry-walled interior walls, a huge furnace, and a large room on the second floor of what used to be a full-sized hay loft.  He sprayed expanding-foam insulation into the wall spaces of the first floor, between the outside siding and the inside dry-wall (makes sense, if he was going to run a furnace to heat the place). Fast-forward to 15-20 years later, and we are taking out the old barn-siding because of weather damage and replacing it with "reverse board and batten plywood siding" (just the section that the cows' shelter will be next to--the rest will be either traditional board-and-batten or the ship-lap boards like it is now) .  We KNOW that there are rats in the insulation, because I found one in a different barn room last fall and instinctively chopped at it with a shovel before it squeaked and escaped.  (For every rat you see, you should expect that there are at least 20 more---I read that somewhere).  And today, I uncovered a LOT of rat tunnels.  And a LOT of rat damage to the vertical supports in the wall AND the sill boards at the base of the wall.  I have to admit, I don't really know which supports are the most important, like which ones are load-bearing and which ones aren't quite as necessary to keep the whole barn standing.  But when I uncover what used to be a tunnel for a huge rat in the foam insulation (starting at the bottom of the wall and winding up through the expanse of that section), and then find that the tunnel leads up and THROUGH the rotted board at the top of the wall and INTO the floor supporting-boards for the second floor, I'm a little worried.  Some of these rat-sized tunnels are thicker than my arm.  I think the only reason we haven't had the weasels coming in to kill the chickens is that the drywall is still whole and intact inside! In some places, the double or triple sill boards are rotted away to the point that a regular sized brick can just be slid right in, on top of the concrete foundation and under the boards that didn't rot quite so badly.  The rats took full advantage of that soft wood and at one time had quite the colony there, I'm sure.  Luckily, I didn't find any nests or tunnels that had been inhabited lately! Jeff will have to look at things tonight, and we'll need to prioritize which supports or sill boards need to be replaced and which will have to wait until we rip out the dry wall on the inside of the same wall.  When the vet was out on Saturday for Lucy to be bred and dehorning little Ruby, we had a conversation about how things on a farm are a "lesson in constant crisis management".  Well, the newest crisis (100 year old rat damage!) is waiting to be addressed before we can proceed with the planned cow shelter....... Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/ You are invited to view Laura's photo album: 2012-09-04 Rat damage, Sept 2012 2012-09-04 Rat damage, Sept 2012 Sep 3, 2012 by Laura View Album Play slideshow If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=dykstrazoo1&target=ALBUM&id=5784382124951626481&authkey=Gv1sRgCIizuYGj-u_M9AE&feat=email To share your photos or receive notification when your friends share photos, get your own free Picasa Web Albums account.