We lost a Buff Orpington hen to a predator yesterday. I don't think it was a stray dog, because her head was gone but there was no other damage. A weasel or a raccoon probably. I smelled either skunk or fox musk around where I found the carcass so I suppose our neighborhood fox might have grabbed her then got chased off its kill by our Great Pyrenees. Sad though, we've had her almost a year and the people we bought our Buff hens from had them a year.
Have 7 newly hatched Buff Orpington/Rhode Island Red cross chicks in a nest box in the Chicken McMansion, our first hen-brooded and hatched chicks. They are adorable bundles of fluff right now. I really like the Buff/RIR cross chicks we hatched in our incubator earlier this year, they're growing fast and excellent free-rangers. Having more of them is a good thing.
Our 100 chick order from Hoffman Hatchery (that was really only 98 chicks but that's a rant for another post) is down to about 75 chicks now, and most of the casualties have been the Red Cornish Cross cockerels. They just die for no reason I can see. I'm assuming it is heart or organ weakness, the Cornish Crosses are infamous for that and it's been pretty hot here. They have the shade of the chicken tractor, and food and water and can forage as they please so I'd think they'd be in chicken heaven. Well I guess most of them ARE in chicken heaven now, just not the one that does me any good here. :/
I haven't attempted to count the survivors, but we started out with 26 Buff Orpington straight run, 23 RIR straight run, 24 Ameraucana straight run, and 25 Red Cornish cross cockerels. There is one Ameraucana that hatched out here before this order arrived, the sole survivor of 42 eggs in the 'bator during the tornado power outages of April 27-May 1.
I bought four solid white guinea fowl keets from the feed store down the road a few days ago and put them in the chicken tractor with the chicks. No sign of them now. *cries*
We have 22 Ancona duck eggs in the incubator, about 10 days from hatching. I bought 2 dozen but two never started to develop. Looking forward to them hatching and having cute fluffy ducklings, but not looking forward to the extra work that ducklings entail.
Our first goat kid born on the farm is almost 3 weeks old now. Little Bit had a single buckling on June 13th. He's brown with frosted ears, nose and white crown. Hopefully he is sold, to someone that wants a purebred Nubian herd sire.
Sold the two problem children goat kids, Spot and Runty, last week. The barn and goat pens have been so much quieter and calmer since then! The remaining goats don't leave the paddocks even if the electric isn't hooked up. They don't yell all the time or pick fights. Next on the sales list is Missy, the Tennessee Walking Horse mare we bought last year. She's too small for adults to ride and too green for kids to ride, now that my two older sons have gone back to live with their father in South Carolina. So she needs a home with a job.
There's more to write, lots more, but it's 1am and I need to get some sleep. Hopefully more soon.
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