All I have to say is….”Somebody LIED to me!!!!”
So you may have guessed by the post More Goat issues. We had another traumatic goat problem. Our new goat “Larry” died, and were pretty sure it was from exposure. I.e. Hypothermia. AGAIN!!!!
I’d left the evening chores for Chris to do when he came home from work.
He walks in the kitchen looks at me and says, “So how long has Larry been dead?”
I was so mad I could barely respond to him.
Partially at him for stating it so abruptly, for thinking that I may have known and left this discovery for him to find and deal with…but mostly I was pissed at the goat, at us, at the situation, again.
Let me say that in most of my travels, readings and seeking of “expert opinions” the one common theme is that goats have very minimal shelter requirements. The lady we bought most of the goats from told me she’d had 2 small bucks stay in a large doghouse all winter.
So why is my goat frozen stiff in my barn?
That’s right, he was inside this time. In the barn and frozen.
Most articles I’ve read say that a lot of the time goats require only a 3-sided shelter. They need only a place to escape the rain, snow and wind. Yet here I am with the barn that we went out of our way to patch up, insulate and repair, and it’s not enough?!?!?
What the heck is going on?
I swear there is no other time I have been so close to throwing up my hands, admitting we don’t have a clue what were doing and putting this place up for sale.
There is nothing like losing 2 animals, quite literally within a month of each other to the same thing? I wanted to scream. I wanted to sell the rest of the goats, because we may be unfit goat owners.
On closer examination of Larry, we realized he had a completely unfit coat for our weather. The rest of our goats have their beautiful goats, and if you lift the hair they have an undercoat of hair as well. They look shaggy. They are warm. They are Alpines that seem to be able to survive in our severe climate.
Although I think Larry had some Alpine in him, his floppy ears were a dead give away that he was a cross. And whatever he was crossed with must not produce the same kind of undercoat that the other goats do. You stuck your hand through his coat and you touched skin. It was like sending someone outside in –28 degree C weather in a spring jacket.
Chris had mentioned before that Larry wasn’t as shaggy as the others. I wrote it off. Maybe he’d been a total inside goat his whole life. Just let him adjust to the cold he’ll grow a thicker coat like the others if he needs it!
What was I thinking?
I should have gone out there and put the “goat coat” on that animal.
I didn’t know.
And my ignorance has cost us yet again.
I’m stumbling blindly right now. There are so many things I don’t even know where you’d find the “answers” to when you don’t even know to ask the question. The worst-case scenarios could be endless.
I don’t know right now what the next step is. I don’t know where were headed from here.
Do we try again with another male goat?
If we do it will be a purebred Alpine, or something equally hardy.
Do we sell Romeo?
He can’t continue to bunk with the girls, but no companion in his own barn and own field may kill him too.
Do we sell them all?
Admitting maybe goats are harder to figure out than we thought.
Right now I don’t know…
Showing posts with label stuff I wish I'd known. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stuff I wish I'd known. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Friday, November 5, 2010
My top 5 problems with chicks
It's been just over a month since our chickens all went to their final resting place. Our freezer.
And to be quite honest I'm not really missing the work they created.
I have a good friend who bought a few acres of land down in New Mexico recently and is thinking about raising chickens next year. She's asked for my "expert" chicken advice on a few things, which has made me think about the things I wish I'd known before I jumped in.
Don't get me wrong I did do some research before I order 26 peeping chicks. But considering 26 chickens arrived and 18 Chickens are in the freezer, I'd say there was some learning curve there.
I read a lot of articles in hobby farm type magazines that lead me to believe that raising chickens was so easy pretty much anyone could do it. Shelter. Water. Food. not hard right?
Let me state for the record.
Chickens may be low maintenance for theses sorts of things. But raising them from day old chicks requires a little more finese than the basics.
All the chicks that we lost (8 of them) we lost as chicks. And after the reading and research I've done since I'm kind of surprised we didn't lose more.
So here would be my Top 5 things I wish I'd known before getting Chicks.
(and the things I'd do differently if we raise them again)
1) Temperature is VERY Important- Get a Brooder Thermometer.
Although I had the proper infra red heat lamps for the chicks, and raised or lowered them depending on how the chicks were acting. I've since learned that chicks have no ability to regulate their own body temperature for the first 2 weeks. Therefore~ The brooder house needs to be a consistent 95 degrees for the first week. You can then lower the temperature ( raise the heat lamp) by 5 degree each week until you reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Since I didn't have a thermometer I can't tell you the exact temperature I kept the chicks at. But I can bet between, weather. drafts and water it was not consistent.
2) Have an Adequate Brooder pen
Adequate doesn't have to mean expensive or even bought from a hatchery.The most important aspect to this is a Round chicken pen. Since chicks tend to gather together especially for heat, it's important that they can't squish each other or trap themselves in a corner. Many Hatcheries sell a Brooder guard which is basically just corrugated cardboard that can form about an 8 foot circle.I used my kids old plastic swimming pool and had I made one small modification (drainage holes) it would have worked perfectly. Next year I'll be drilling holes in the bottom of the pool to make sure that there is a way for water to escape instead of collecting in the bottom of the pool, under the straw. Which leads me to...
3) Chicks do NOT like to be WET!
I talked a little bit about my concerns of having wet chicks in a post soon after we got the chicks. I am absolutely convinced that being wet is what killed most of our chicks. We had a combination of a leaky waterer and no drainage. which meant that the chicks stood in (and ultimately played in) water in the bottom of the pool. Unfortunately it was hard to detect the water underneath all the straw until things got really soggy.
4) Seal drafts
Although this may seem obvious. Do everything you can to make sure your barn or chicken coop is protected from the weather outside. I thought getting our Chicks at the end of April would mean that the worst of the winter weather was behind us, and weather wouldn't be a major challenge. BUT. We got Wind. Snow.and Rain within the first few weeks. and the Chicken coop was simply not air tight around doors and windows. Allowing too much fluctuation in temperature. And drafts of cold winds on wet chick. Which inevitably is a bad combination.
5) Have proper waterers -and check them first
Our biggest downfall was having the waterer leaking into the bottom of the pool. The people that use to live here had left a couple of chicken waterers behind. Thinking that I could save some money on equipment, I used them without properly checking to make sure they weren't leaking. This caused the major issues that led to most of the deaths in our coop. If your using hand-me-down equipment, make sure to check it's in proper working condition first. From now on, I'll even be checking new waterers before putting them in a pen. At the end of the day, if a waterer doesn't sit level, or it isn't put together properly, it will leak. Most waterers are designed to stop flowing when they reach a certain level, but this function doesn't work if they are tilted, or have small holes (like ours did in the bottom pan) that lets water escape. and ultimately allows all the water to flow out at once.
I think Honestly, if I had been aware of some of these things, at least some of the chick deaths could have been prevented. If and when I raise chicks again, these are the things I will be doing differently. Some of it may seem like common sense, but I learned these lessons the hard way. By losing chicks that I probably shouldn't have.
The only other thing that I learned was...
Chickens poop a lot and its gross and amazingly sticky.
People will tell you chicken poop smells really, really bad. and it's true. What I didn't know, is that it has to be the stickiest most hard to scrub off substance I have ever seen. Be prepared to spend (lots of) time scrubbing it off of pretty much every surface. We actually had an old snow brush that we used to try and clean all the waterers quicker and easier with the hard bristles (while the brush was long enough that you could keep your hands away from the nasty off spray)
Hey- by no means am I actually a chicken expert. But if sharing my short comings in this little chicken experiment saves anyone the hassle of having to learn these same lessons the hard way...
And to be quite honest I'm not really missing the work they created.
I have a good friend who bought a few acres of land down in New Mexico recently and is thinking about raising chickens next year. She's asked for my "expert" chicken advice on a few things, which has made me think about the things I wish I'd known before I jumped in.
Don't get me wrong I did do some research before I order 26 peeping chicks. But considering 26 chickens arrived and 18 Chickens are in the freezer, I'd say there was some learning curve there.
I read a lot of articles in hobby farm type magazines that lead me to believe that raising chickens was so easy pretty much anyone could do it. Shelter. Water. Food. not hard right?
Let me state for the record.
Chickens may be low maintenance for theses sorts of things. But raising them from day old chicks requires a little more finese than the basics.
All the chicks that we lost (8 of them) we lost as chicks. And after the reading and research I've done since I'm kind of surprised we didn't lose more.
So here would be my Top 5 things I wish I'd known before getting Chicks.
(and the things I'd do differently if we raise them again)
1) Temperature is VERY Important- Get a Brooder Thermometer.
Although I had the proper infra red heat lamps for the chicks, and raised or lowered them depending on how the chicks were acting. I've since learned that chicks have no ability to regulate their own body temperature for the first 2 weeks. Therefore~ The brooder house needs to be a consistent 95 degrees for the first week. You can then lower the temperature ( raise the heat lamp) by 5 degree each week until you reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Since I didn't have a thermometer I can't tell you the exact temperature I kept the chicks at. But I can bet between, weather. drafts and water it was not consistent.
2) Have an Adequate Brooder pen
Adequate doesn't have to mean expensive or even bought from a hatchery.The most important aspect to this is a Round chicken pen. Since chicks tend to gather together especially for heat, it's important that they can't squish each other or trap themselves in a corner. Many Hatcheries sell a Brooder guard which is basically just corrugated cardboard that can form about an 8 foot circle.I used my kids old plastic swimming pool and had I made one small modification (drainage holes) it would have worked perfectly. Next year I'll be drilling holes in the bottom of the pool to make sure that there is a way for water to escape instead of collecting in the bottom of the pool, under the straw. Which leads me to...
3) Chicks do NOT like to be WET!
I talked a little bit about my concerns of having wet chicks in a post soon after we got the chicks. I am absolutely convinced that being wet is what killed most of our chicks. We had a combination of a leaky waterer and no drainage. which meant that the chicks stood in (and ultimately played in) water in the bottom of the pool. Unfortunately it was hard to detect the water underneath all the straw until things got really soggy.
4) Seal drafts
Although this may seem obvious. Do everything you can to make sure your barn or chicken coop is protected from the weather outside. I thought getting our Chicks at the end of April would mean that the worst of the winter weather was behind us, and weather wouldn't be a major challenge. BUT. We got Wind. Snow.and Rain within the first few weeks. and the Chicken coop was simply not air tight around doors and windows. Allowing too much fluctuation in temperature. And drafts of cold winds on wet chick. Which inevitably is a bad combination.
5) Have proper waterers -and check them first
Our biggest downfall was having the waterer leaking into the bottom of the pool. The people that use to live here had left a couple of chicken waterers behind. Thinking that I could save some money on equipment, I used them without properly checking to make sure they weren't leaking. This caused the major issues that led to most of the deaths in our coop. If your using hand-me-down equipment, make sure to check it's in proper working condition first. From now on, I'll even be checking new waterers before putting them in a pen. At the end of the day, if a waterer doesn't sit level, or it isn't put together properly, it will leak. Most waterers are designed to stop flowing when they reach a certain level, but this function doesn't work if they are tilted, or have small holes (like ours did in the bottom pan) that lets water escape. and ultimately allows all the water to flow out at once.
I think Honestly, if I had been aware of some of these things, at least some of the chick deaths could have been prevented. If and when I raise chicks again, these are the things I will be doing differently. Some of it may seem like common sense, but I learned these lessons the hard way. By losing chicks that I probably shouldn't have.
The only other thing that I learned was...
Chickens poop a lot and its gross and amazingly sticky.
People will tell you chicken poop smells really, really bad. and it's true. What I didn't know, is that it has to be the stickiest most hard to scrub off substance I have ever seen. Be prepared to spend (lots of) time scrubbing it off of pretty much every surface. We actually had an old snow brush that we used to try and clean all the waterers quicker and easier with the hard bristles (while the brush was long enough that you could keep your hands away from the nasty off spray)
Hey- by no means am I actually a chicken expert. But if sharing my short comings in this little chicken experiment saves anyone the hassle of having to learn these same lessons the hard way...
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Where did October Go?
Really?
It's been a hectic stressful month around here. I had some very sick kids 2 trips to the Emergency room within 12 hours kind of sick. And a husband who although technically employed seemed to be on "standby" and thus here all month. Although we (and by that I mean HE- to a large extent) managed to get quite a few projects done. The money issue of staying home and working only on the farm has been a nightmare.
I'll try and get some pictures posted of the work that has gone on. The most noticeable to the whole landscape of the yard was about 100 or so feet of fence that my hubby built and then wired in so we effectively have another goat pen. It leads straight to our "big" field out front, which not only means 3 pen rotation for the goats but also no goats chasing across the front yard when they decide they'd rather go on an adventure then head into the front field.
We also finished the boys barn, insulation, new wood, and about 80% painted. So at least its livable for winter. And obviously their pasture is all enclosed now.
The Girls barn still needs some work, but is getting there. It's comfortable enough for our first snow. but I'm not sure it's -40 proof yet.
Right now our big concern is getting hay.
Although lots of people have it for sale. We're finding a lot of people have no way of loading it. (explain that to me?- yeah here's a 1200 pound hay bale -good luck!?!?)
We've also realized it's going to be quite an engineering feat to unload hay bales once we get them here.
If I could go back in time...
We've learned since buying this place, that most people will write the current tractor into the farm offer. And I can't tell you how many times I've cursed us, for not knowing and not doing that.
As of right now, a tractor, just isn't in the tight budget. So although I'm sure we'll be able to secure hay bales and get them loaded. our adventures getting them off the truck may end up being YOUTUBE worthy!
It's been a hectic stressful month around here. I had some very sick kids 2 trips to the Emergency room within 12 hours kind of sick. And a husband who although technically employed seemed to be on "standby" and thus here all month. Although we (and by that I mean HE- to a large extent) managed to get quite a few projects done. The money issue of staying home and working only on the farm has been a nightmare.
I'll try and get some pictures posted of the work that has gone on. The most noticeable to the whole landscape of the yard was about 100 or so feet of fence that my hubby built and then wired in so we effectively have another goat pen. It leads straight to our "big" field out front, which not only means 3 pen rotation for the goats but also no goats chasing across the front yard when they decide they'd rather go on an adventure then head into the front field.
We also finished the boys barn, insulation, new wood, and about 80% painted. So at least its livable for winter. And obviously their pasture is all enclosed now.
The Girls barn still needs some work, but is getting there. It's comfortable enough for our first snow. but I'm not sure it's -40 proof yet.
Right now our big concern is getting hay.
Although lots of people have it for sale. We're finding a lot of people have no way of loading it. (explain that to me?- yeah here's a 1200 pound hay bale -good luck!?!?)
We've also realized it's going to be quite an engineering feat to unload hay bales once we get them here.
If I could go back in time...
We've learned since buying this place, that most people will write the current tractor into the farm offer. And I can't tell you how many times I've cursed us, for not knowing and not doing that.
As of right now, a tractor, just isn't in the tight budget. So although I'm sure we'll be able to secure hay bales and get them loaded. our adventures getting them off the truck may end up being YOUTUBE worthy!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
