A dog's duty at The Deer Diner

Woody and Cyrus think that it is their sworn duty to clean up any messes on the property, even though it isn't our property.

The Husband recently started walking Cyrus off the leash for the driveway part of his morning walks. He can do this now that the chickens are safe behind the fence, or still in the coop. Husband reports they are doing very well.

When we first got Woody, I would let him wander freely while I walked Sophie, who was deaf at the time, on the leash. He had days where he would stray for hours, but he always managed to come back. Twice he came back a bit bloody from minor injuries, but he always came back.

I would have liked to keep training Woody to be off the leash, but when we got Cyrus, there just wasn't an easy way for me to walk them both. Since then, I have walked them separately, both on the leash.

But now that the chickens are safe from Cyrus the chicken killer; and now that the ground is snow-covered and usually slippery and icy under the snow; and now that it is more and more difficult to convince myself to walk the boys in the icy, snowy, freezing, often windy conditions—I have started letting them out together for a romp in the back 40.

It went well for a day or 2, until Woody discovered a dead doe under the snow on the neighboring property. Since then, the 2 of them hustle back there happy as can be, and set about dismantling the poor deer. This photo is of the deer deposit spot, about 50 feet from where she was found. Other bits were carried by my favorite hound dog and carefully stashed back by the house.

Luckily, there is not much left of her, although I suspect when the snow melts, there will be more to find.

Oh my.

Bad boys in the house and the coop

This is what we do every day when we think mom has been spending too much time on the computer. We tear all the blankets off the sofa, and then, when confronted with a camera, we act so innocent.

As I have no recent pictures of the chickens, I thought I would post these with a chicken update: I pretty much figured out that my basement chicken was injured by one or both of the 2 young roosters. I separated one of the young roosters in a crate in the coop, which calmed things down for awhile, but then the remaining youngster was still beating up my Big Roo.

So yesterday I sold both young whipper snappers to a gentleman who said his 12YO daughter wanted to add some roosters to her flock of egg-laying hens. I warned him of their questionable behavior, but he did not seem concerned.

I received a whole $7 as payment for the bad boys. Watch out dog boys, I bet there's somebody out there who would pay at least that much for the 2 of you!

Common Redpolls, Berkshires and Yorkshires

Sun and snow this morning, but the bench is standing proud and saying bring me some spring.

New birds are visiting, so it gives me hope there is an end to this long strange winter. MonkeyCat drew my attention to these little gray and white birds with a red spot on their heads. It turned out (after much discussion on facebook) they are Common Redpolls, a kind of finch.

We get a lot of interesting bird species here in Upstate NY, ones which may be in South Jersey as well, but not as easily spotted in suburbia with all those manicured, sprayed and fertilized lawns. We have no shortage of weed seeds for the birdies' dining pleasure.

Another interesting adventure today—we went in search of a bred sow. My Husband The Farmer has this idea he wants a litter of piglets this year. Instead of buying piglets as "feeder pigs" and raising them to slaughter, we will get a sow who is already bred and have her deliver a litter here. Then we can sell all the piglets and make back our money, or keep one or two for us.

As I prefer "pigs of color" I vote for the Berkshires, the black pigs. At the farm we visited today, his pigs are all Berkshire/Yorkshire crosses, but if we get a black female, even if she is bred to a Yorkshire sow, she will have some color in all of her litter (we think). Very nice older gentleman, also named Tim, who moved up here from Manhattan to raise beef cattle, but settled for pigs, and a goat, a sheep, a donkey, a coupla chickens...

Who knew we moved here from South Jersey to be farmers? Who knew? Not me.

A litter of Yorkies mostly grown up

Between winter and spring

There is a battle going in my kitchen window—the poinsettia and paper whites are still blooming from Christmas, and the daffodils are trying to say spring is on its way. It might be hard to see the snowstorm beginning in the background, but it has begun. The storm says spring isn't starting any time soon, no matter what Phil and the daffodils have to say.

Hen in the house, trouble in the coop

Three roosters are too many roosters: 2 troublesome young ones in the front, Big Roo in the shadows.

One of our young hens went lame starting in early January. I left her in the coop for awhile, but then a real cold spell came through, and she was often wet from knocking over her water bowl, so I brought her inside in the basement.

5 weeks of spa treatment and not much has changed. She he is still eating and drinking, but her comb is really pale which is a sign she is not well. I am getting to the point where I have  to decide what to do with her.

I had read that one of the possible causes of lameness in chickens is Marek's disease, which is contagious to other chickens and not curable. The only way to tell if they have it is to do a necropsy after they die. I was almost to the point of taking her to the vet to end her life and have her tested, but then yesterday I found a dead hen on the floor of the coop. Whatever happened to this one was sudden, no limping or lameness, just dead. So now I am thinking that large black and white rooster in the pic above could be the killer, not a disease.

I suspected we would have problems having 3 roosters at a time. Previous experience with multiple boys in the house led to full blown cockfights. Poor Big Roo, the oldest and most well behaved rooster, was chased from the coop by one youngster the last time we had more than one. And the last black and white roo was attacking the 2 of us instead of the other roosters.

This large youngster is rough having his way with the girls, I have seen him in action. When I removed the dead girl yesterday, he went right over and jumped on top of her. As much as he is a beautiful boy, not a murderer, just a big brute, he might just have to become Joseph's next dinner.

And if the girl in the basement is suffering from broken bones, there is not much I can do for her other than end her life as well.

I am waiting to hear back from a vet tech and the Cornell Cooperative Extension to see if they can shed any light on this, but I don't think there is a happy ending to this one.

Goats today, chickens tomorrow

L to R: Rosie our oldest girl, Bella one of the young ones, Blossom, and Rita, all 4 probably preggers

Elizabeth gets a kiss from Bowie

I will post a chicken update tomorrow, but we had 2 special visitors today who came just to see our goats and took lots of pretty pics while they were here.

(maybe they wanted to see us too, not sure...)

Elizabeth came all the way from Alabama just to kiss a goat. Well that was the first time she visited when David Bowie was still a baby. That's them holding the adorable Bowie boy 3 years ago? I am starting to lose track of who was born when, but I guess that's OK.

Tara and Bowie

We were hoping one of our 7 pregnant goats might have a kid to entertain our guests while they were here, but the girls just aren't ready yet. All 4 in the top photo are probably pregnant, the 3 older ones will most likely have twins, the younger ones probably one kid. I am saying a little prayer we don't have any birthing problems like last year when we lost Lucille.

Jack is our oldest goat now that Lucille is gone. He is still a well behaved and loveable boy. Rosie is the oldest girl, and Rico a year behind her. At some point we have to separate boys and girls, or we will have too many goats! Only The Husband doesn't think there is such a thing as too many goats...

Jack in the front, Rico behind him, Susan, Rita, and Blossom (pooping!)

Rita's closeup

Wicked cold sunny day

What do you do on a wicked cold sunny day but fire up the woodstove and sleep in the sun? We should all be so lucky! I did have to go out and do some chicken and goat chores, and walk my friend's beagle, and pick up the mail at the PO, but otherwise it was a really good day to stay home and work on the computer.

Poor lame hen

I still don't know what's going on with this one young hen. She started limping on January 3 and then went pretty quickly to being totally lame. She seems otherwise healthy, still eating and drinking, but because she uses her wings to move around, she frequently knocks over the water and food in the small crate I have her in. I brought her into the basement because it was getting so cold outside in the coop that she would have frozen to death with her feathers all wet.

Cyrus is still very interested in the noises and smells coming through the cat door (in the basement door). I am pretty sure he would kill her if he had the chance.

Monkey is also very interested in this strange creature. He is not  the murdering type. If she is down there much longer, I think they will become friends.

Super Blood Wolf Moon

How often do you get to use those 4 words together?

I am sure the Super Blood Wolf Moon was spectacular. And I was surprised that the skies cleared enough so that we could actually see it, or could have seen it if we wanted to stay up late and go outside in that frigid air. At about 10 pm the moon was so high over the house that I could barely see it out the window. There was no obvious eclipse starting, so we both just went to bed.

Wicked cold out there today too. 76° in here with the heat and the woodstove on, but I am worried about the chickens in their unheated coop. Even with the door closed it is mighty chilly out there.

One lame chicken in the basement. At least she won't get frostbite, but I am not sure why she went lame. About 2 weeks ago I noticed her limping. Then a few days after that, not walking at all. The vet said they have seen one other case like this, and that vitamins appeared to help, so we are trying the spa treatment in the basement.

Benchmark

I know winter has truly arrived when I start measuring snowfall with my bench. When it is 7° and windy and still snowing, hard to leave the house, and I can take these pics from inside (lazy me!).

The Husband took both dogs out. Cyrus had a party off-leash twice. Woody went straight to the frozen compost heap, poked around a bit, and then back to the front door to come in. He's a southern boy, not a lover of single-digit weather.

Willie was happy to be warm inside trying on his Fire Hose Work Pants.

Weather dogs and holidays

Don's house on the hill on the left, back of the snow-measuring bench, and our living room windows on the right

The 3 hot topics on my blog—weather, dogs, and holidays. Well maybe not the hot topics, more likely the only topics. Best I can do, folks. Barring any bobcat emergencies or goat births, I don't really have that much to talk about.

So here are all 3 topics in one post to start off the new year.

It has been an unusual winter. We get a few inches of snow, then go back to warmer temps and grass, then windy and frigid and more snow. At least the warmer days mixed in make it less painful.

Last weekend I made the trip back to NJ to visit Little Sister and her dog Lucky. We know Lucky's mother was mostly chihuahua, but the rest of her genetics are a mystery other than dad was something larger than chihuahua. The famous Dr. Wolf says husky because of her mask. After realizing she had a spotty chest, I am voting for Australian cattle dog. We will never know for sure unless we get the DNA test, but it is fun arguing with Lester and Sophie's former vet.

Finally, our perfect Christmas tree survived all of the animals in the house, but because I was away on the weekend when I should have taken it down, it was just a bit dry when I finally got around to taking off the lights and ornaments yesterday.

Monkey says it's not his fault, Mom made that mess, not him.