Piglet will be moving to a new home

I'm happy to report that Piglet will be moving to a new home.  He has the good luck to be moving to an orchard.  Did you know pigs like to eat apples, other fruits and vegetables?  I'm sure he will be well fed in his new home!

Vacation

AI am lucky enough to be heading to Hawaii to visit a friend for the week so I may not post very often and most likely I won't be able to focus on my farm animals.  We'll see what kind of sea and land life I find!  Yesterday I tried to give Penny some special time because she will probably miss me more than anyone else!

Why do Roosters Fight?

I wish all my chickens and roosters could get along but sometimes I see roosters fighting or hens being a little mean to each other.  Why do roosters fight?

They look really mean don't they?  Roosters protect their hens and their territory from strangers.  In this case, the rooster with the yellow feathers is not usually walking around the chicken yard.  The rooster on the right wants to protect his area and his hens.

It is best to have one rooster for every 10 hens but in my world, I have too many roosters.  If the birds all grow up together and live together, they can usually get along but there will still be some small fights.  The rooster is naturally the leader of his flock (a group of roosters and hens)  and within that flock, there will be a pecking order.  If there are two or more roosters, they will have fights to decide who is the boss.  They don't really want to hurt each other- just to be the boss- so usually one rooster will back down and let the other rooster claim to be the leader.  Then they will get along with each other.

The hens will do the same thing but they don't usually fight.  Sometimes I will see a higher ranking hen chase another hen away from food. 

Autumn Leaves

Why do leave fall from trees each fall? 

Last night we had a big freeze and all the leave are falling like snow! Click the link to watch!
 ginkgo leaves falling

In the fall, the tree prepares to sleep or go into dormancy for the winter by saving nutrients in its trunk.  When you see the leaves turn colors and start to fall, the tree is preparing to sleep for the winter.  The leaves on some trees such as our Ginkgo trees fall off right after the first very cold night we have.  It's really beautiful to watch!

Yes, chickens take baths!

It's true..chickens take baths.  In the afternoon on a warm day you can often see chickens in a sunny place rolling and resting in the dirt.

 

Chickens and roosters will loosen the dirt and then roll around flapping their wings and sometimes resting.  I always say the chickens are having a spa day!  In fact, they try to get the dirt between their feathers.  It helps to keep the feathers healthy and to get rid of parasites on the chicken.  When they are finished they ruffle their feathers and flap their wings again to get the dirt off of their feathers. 

Chickens take baths?

Sometimes when people come to our house, they see chickens next to the driveway and worry they are dead.  They lie still in odd positions covered in dirt.  In fact there is nothing to worry about!  The chickens - like all birds- are taking dirt baths.

Why do you think chickens take baths? Come back tomorrow and we'll answer the question!

Couple updates

Remember poor Blanca molting?  She has her feathers back!  They are still growing but she looks much better doesn't she?

 

 I can't say the same thing for this little Narragansett hen...she doesn't even have a tail!  In a week she will have her new feathers too.  Maybe you have figured this out but a female turkey is called a hen!

And just for fun, here are my chickens waking up this morning. 

 

And here they were getting ready to go to sleep last night!

 

Are turkeys stupid?

Have you heard that turkeys aren't very smart?  Many of us have heard stories about how turkeys are so stupid, they will keep their heads turned up to the rain with their mouths open until they drown.  Do you believe this? 
Here is my turkey, Cherokee.  What do you think he's doing?

He's making me laugh for one thing!  He knows that his feed is kept in this can and as soon as I open it,  he is trying to get in to get as much food as he can.  When I picked him up and took him out of this can his mouth was so full of food he couldn't swallow.  Probably hard to eat upside down!  Often, I will find him lingering around the can during the day sometimes trying to open it.

Check out this video of my four Tom turkeys.  When I let them out of their house, they have a habit of running down our driveway to cross the road.  Why do turkeys cross the road?  That I can't figure out.  But I do know that as soon as I call 'Gobble Gobble' in a loud voice, they come running!

My turkeys all respond to my 'Gobble Gobble' call because I have said this everytime I've fed them since they were little.  If you come to the farm and yell 'Gobble Gobble' they will often all answer back. 

So, are turkeys stupid?  I don't think so.  As for the rumor about drowning in the rain, I have read many theories.  One that makes sense is that sometimes, in spite of their coat of waterproof feathers, a turkey will get cold in the rain and actually die of hypothermia and not from drowning. 

We'll talk more about turkeys this month!

Horse has an itch!

What do you do when your back itches? 
Sassy, our quarter horse, has an itch and is enjoying a roll in the dirt.

chickens!

Some fun chicken pictures.  I have mentioned before that when it starts to get colder outside and the days get shorter, chickens 'molt' or lose all their feathers a few at a time to replace them with new feathers.  My poor little hen looks so unhappy with her bald head and naked back.  She will have feathers back soon!  Look at the blue color of the feathers growing in on her back!

Also at this time of year when the days are shorter and they chickens are molting, the hens lay far fewer eggs.  Growing new feathers takes alot of energy!  Here is where our eggs come from:

 

 

The hens go into the little boxes to lay their eggs.  They make alot of noise when they are laying eggs!  Different hens lay different eggs.  You can tell what color egg a chicken will lay by looking at the feathers on their ears.  We'll look at some pictures of this on another day!

And lastly, everybody in the chicken house does perch to go to sleep.  These hens and roosters are awake.  They are probably wondering why I am in their house as evening is coming. 

Autumn leaves falling

On our farm, we have many trees that are over 100 years old.  Do you know what tree these leaves are from: 

These leaves are from the Gingko tree.  The shape of the leaves can vary a bit but they often have a fan shape.  Once you recognize the leaves, you will notice this tree all over.  In the fall, the leaves turn a bright yellow color and, my favorite thing, often the leaves all fall off the tree in a very short time period.  Look at my video below and you can see the leaves falling like snow flakes.  If you listen to the sound, you can hear them as they hit the ground.  This often happens just after the first frost of the season.  They call the Gingko tree a living fossil because fossil records of the Gingko tree date back 270 million years.  They trees are native to China.

The dogs you see in this video include our lab, Belle, and our two Briards, Costaud and Clara.

Hello Piglet!

It has been awhile since we visited mama pig (a sow) and her piglet, Piglet!  He is doing well and growing every day.  We have two breeds of pigs on the farm.  These are mulefoot hogs.  They have hooves like a mule or horse instead of having what looks like two toes.  Our pigs are very friendly with people.  Piglet is about 10 weeks old. 

Love of animals- This is how it started

I have always loved animals and laugh at some of the early pictures of me.  Here I am with my first dog, Muffy, a minature poodle.  Muffy put up with alot. 

 That brings us to today.  I had to pick up dog food and a walking harness for our newly adopted dog, Dicky.  I can't resist browsing at all the birds and animals at the pet store.  I think I could spend hours looking at the hamsters running on their wheels, rats, fish... Check out this Parakeet.  I've never seen one that was robin egg blue.  Such pretty birds. 

Donkey

It is a beautiful fall day here.  I went to another farm today and spent some time admiring Peppy the Donkey.  I love his big furry rabbit ears.  Do you know that donkeys are sometimes companions for horses?  They help keep the horse calm and happy because a horse naturally likes to have company. 

Saturday mornings on the farm

It's 930am and finally, I am sitting to eat breakfast.  Many things happen on our farm by 930am.  Here is some of what I happend this morning:

Happy dogs!

A ground hog visitor!

Visitors to the farm meeting 5 month old Buttercup!

Traveler meeting new friends!

And lastly, a check on Blanca the turkey who must have been cold last night as so many feathers are just starting to grow!  Can you see all the short spikes coming out of her pink skin?  All in neat rows.  They are new feathers starting to grow.  A chicken, turkey or duck loses feathers in the fall and then a new set of feathers grows back.  This is molting and we talked about it earlier this week.

Have a great weekend and we'll see you next week!

turkeys! More importantly, baby Cherokee!

Early this summer, I was able to hatch just one little turkey.   We named him Cherokee and somehow he is now called PopTart.  Here he is just a day old.  How cute is he?

He is five months old now and he loves people and likes to ride around on my shoulder.  He finds my hat and rubberbands interesting! 

Chickens and Turkeys molting

Meet my pretty hen Turkey, Blanca.

 Blanca is having a bad feather day.  Do you know why?  In the autumn when the days get shorter and cooler, you may get sweaters out of the closet and go back to school.  Chickens and turkeys have to replace their feathers.  They lose their feathers a few at a time.  During this time when the feathers are falling out and before they grow back, many people think the chickens or turkeys are sick, but they aren't!  All of the feathers grow back so the bird has a new set of feathers before winter starts.  The process of losing feathers and growing them again is called molting.  Blanca will be back to having her warm, water resistant set of feathers in  no time. 

Dogs

It's good to be loved!  Gandolf is a very big puppy with a heart of gold!

Have you seen any of these?

September 27, 2014
It seems the fall weather is coming earlier this year and many predict this will be a cold and snowy winter.  I've already noticed the Red Maples in our area are changing colors and it seems we have more walnuts falling to the ground than we usually see on our farm.

I have also noticed that I have not seen any of the Woolly Bear Caterpillars I talk about below.  Have you seen any of the reddish brown and black caterpillars?  I am only seeing completely black caterpillars.  What do you think that means?

Autumn 2013:  It would be impossible not to notice how cold the weather has been this week in Northern Virginia and I started thinking about this post I wrote back in October.
Do you recognize this caterpillar?

Maybe you see them crawling quickly across the road or sidewalk this time of year.  This is a Woolly Bear Caterpillar.  They hatch from eggs in the fall and then they freeze- completely freeze- over the winter.  In the Spring they slowly come back to life, make a cocoon, and then emerge as a Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella).  Sometimes in very northern regions, the caterpillar can't find enough to eat in one short fall season and will wake and freeze over many winters- sometimes as many as 14 winters! 

The Woolly Bear Caterpillar has two black ends and a brown middle.  Legend tells us that looking at the size of the brown colored middle of the caterpillar can tell us how the coming winter will be- cold and long?  Or short and mild?  What do you think?

UPDATE January 24, 2014:  Maybe there is truth to this legend!  It looks like the middle section of the caterpillar in the picture is LONG which they say tells us the winter will be long and cold!  

Puppy Gandolf

How cute is our puppy Gandolf?  He is about 10 weeks old in this short video.  It is important to remember when you get a cute puppy that they grow up into adult dogs.  Today, Gandolf is seven months old and weighs about 80 lbs.  He is a big guy but still acts like a puppy! 
Gandolf is a Great Pyrenees.
He lives outside and his job is to watch over our animals and protect them from wild animals that might want to hurt them like racoons or foxes. 

Baby Spring

Early this year, a new calf was born on our farm and we named her Spring.  All of our cows (and one Bull) are Dexter Cattle.  The breed is originally from Ireland and the animals are small and friendly.  We were really excited when Spring arrived.  I was really surprised when I walked outside one morning to see a small black animal running so fast in the field with the cows.  It is hard to tell in this video that you're looking at a calf.  I thought a dog like a black Lab was running in the field with the cow!  Did you know that cattle, like horses, deer and many other animals, can run shortly after they are born?  Look how happy Spring is!  She is learning what her body can do!
Do you also notice in the video that the other cow you see, Spring's mom, has horns?  We'll talk about this another time, but yes, cows (females) can have horns.

Have you ever seen horses in a field facing the same direction?

I had to do an errand today that required me to drive by many farms with horses standing in fields.  What seemed odd to me was that many of the horses were just standing with their heads hung down but facing the same direction.  I noticed this at each farm I passed and I mean that all of the horses- not only the horses at one farm- but all of them were faceing the same direction.  Why? 
First, if you start to look for this, you will notice that not ALL horses face the same direction everyday on every farm.  But many do on some days. 

In this case we had a huge rain storm headed our way.  I wondered if the horses were facing away from the oncoming rainstorm.  I also googled this question and found that horses me face the same direction for the following reasons:
To avoid sun in their eyes
To avoid wind in their eyes
and to avoid bad weather coming at them (such as rain or snow). 

Mornings on the farm

I feel so lucky to be able to wake up (early) to the sound of a rooster crowing and watch this peaceful world come alive.  Everyone is happy to stretch, run and have their breakfast.  Gandolf is our Great Pyrenees.  He just turned seven months old but he is a ball of happy energy.  Good morning from Gandolf!