Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Frustrating Farm Life

You never know what's going to happen from day to day when the weather, animals, plants, and kids have a say in it.

A few weeks ago, I thought things were going so well. The greenhouse was doing well, the goose and the chicken were sitting on eggs, we had the quail (well, they had their struggles).... Well, I told you we lost one goose and I sold the gander. (What's the point of having a gander if there's no goose and he's too old to eat?) The chicken ran away for a couple days, so I was incubating goose and chicken eggs, both had been set on for a while, but I wasn't sure exactly how long. I gave up on the goose eggs when I knew it had been at least a week past their guestimated hatching date. I gave up on the chickens too. Later the next night, I decided to stay up late and low and behold, there was chirping coming from those chicken eggs. I quickly turned the incubator back on. We had 4 hatch! Pretty good since I'd given up on them.

We acquired peacocks of varying ages and ducks this summer. We had a regular farm going. Well, since, white flies have taken over the greenhouse. I refuse to spray anything on my plants, "organic" or otherwise. They've left the tomatoes alone this year and they're not really bothering the herbs, strawberries, peppers, or sweet potatoes, but everything else is struggling. Yesterday, we lost 3 baby peacocks (2 to heat, 1 was too young) and one more today (from a chicken attack yesterday). Earlier last week, we lost our new buck rabbit, probably because of heat.

We have 2 miniature mares. One is doing really well and the other hasn't been able to keep weight on. We've "wormed" her a few times and she's still struggling. After talking to several people, the consensus is she may be pregnant. It is possible and if so, she should foal in the next month. After a struggle with the kids yesterday, I decided I've just had it. I'm done! We found a buyer for the rabbits. We found a buyer for the 4 chicks. We'll keep the horses for now and we've changed the feed schedule to see if it helps. If she foals, we'll keep her, if not, we'll find a new home for them. We'll keep the peacocks and chickens and ducks because they're easy. We hardly even feed the ducks, they keep the pond clean and get plenty to eat on their own. The quail have laid 12 eggs in the past two days, if we can sell their eggs for $3/doz and they continue to lay a dozen every 1-2 days, they'll pay for their own food and they can stay.

I hate to get rid of animals, but when we spend so much time taking care of them and so much (even though it's not that much, it adds up) to feed them compared to what we get from them, it just doesn't seem worth keeping them. I like storing food "on the hoof," as it's called, but it's a lot of time. We will probably get more rabbits later, when it's cooler, but if we get rid of the horses, we'll be done with horses. Besides, who really wants to eat a horse?

Just thought I'd share a little farm life. I wish it were more uplifting. I enjoy the security in knowing that we have them. I enjoy seeing life's miracles when we have animals and plants producing, I just wish it were as easy as opening a box.

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