Big Island Chickens

 Processing Day and More Sheep!  Today is December 23 so todays post is a few days old, well, not quite a week since we processed the  chickens out of the flock. We also have more sheep but more on that later.  Processing day was on the 18th, a Saturday and since we were taking the birds off to a friends to make a day of processing both our and her birds, AND she has a working feather plucker, we loaded up our 19 hens and the 2 roos we decided to cull. Our current flock is in it's third year of hens with a very few that were in their 5th year. With this years particularly hard molt (nation wide if you gauge it by the general tone on the chicken forums online) that saw egg production go from 25 eggs a day to actually zero and the high number of older chickens in the flock we decided a hard cull was in order, saving only the youngest in case they start up again in Spring. That means we are keeping the golden comet hens that have been the dominant layers for us this yea...

 Feeder Results The girls are using the feeder well, of course the goats are wanting to climb into it. Sheep have no such inclination. As long as they can eat, they are happy munching outside the feeder.   As for the chickens, they too tend to hop up and into the feeder. We do feed alfalfa pellets and some occasional grain for the goats and the sheep so they are looking for the left overs that get missed.  Though this is a Chicken Blog, right now we are focusing on our meat flock of goats and sheep. Today's concern is setting up appointments for seeing candidates for two new additions of sheep ewes. We have two farms we are looking to set up go see's for tomorrow. Both on the north end of the Island. WE want Dorper's, but most breeders are ranging their herds so inter breeding and crosses are really all we are going to find here. Still, they are hardy and reasonable fast growers if crossed with Katahdins.  We fell in love with a few on Craig's List that showed ...

  Sheep or Goat Feeder We do more than Chickens here and this project is all about our goats and sheep.  This build takes basic woodworking and basic metalworking skills. If you know how to weld and use a saw, you can do this. I have a table saw, miter saw, metal cut off saw, pneumatic tools, drills, sanders etc., but this can be made with a hand saw, hammer, nails, and a drill.   Design: I started with an image of a shed type of feeder that I found on Google and modified it based on what I felt I wanted for my animals. 1.        Less waste. More feed in the animal is better, right? 2.        Covered area. We like to eat in the shade, why not them? 3.        Raised tray. Eating up off the ground means less chance of parasites. 4.        Holds a full bale. Less feeding time means more for other things. 5.      ...

 What's New A month has gone by and of course by now you know that had Mrs. Sheep delivered a live or dead lamb, I would have been eagerly posting the news. Well, her due date has come and is long gone and we have decided to rent a Ram from a friend to make sure the deed is done and we will be expectant farmers in just a few months.  The Ram has indeed been delivered to the farm, today in fact. His name is Liam and he is a fine hair sheep of the breed St Croix. Looks to be at 100-125 pounds and he hit the ground ready to do his duty. Not so sure about Mrs. Sheep. While her  introduction was not so much seduction, she seemed interested though in tried and true 'hard to get' fashion, her interest was feigned with a distancing dash to the pen. Things look to be busy for the month and I am sure he will get it done. New due date will be 5 months from now or March 12 plus or minus. Rambo of course, is totally confused as to the new occupant of the property and doesn't know wh...

 What's Up? Well, its been a few days and we have had a couple of odd ones. We are running out of time for this pregnancy to actually be a pregnancy. Goats gestational period is 145 days, give or take and she is taking as many as possible. I went to Blackies Suffolk and Veggies site† to use their gestational calculator and found out this: Breeding Date: Since we didn't know exactly when, I used the last possible day it could have happened, the day before we picked her up which was September 6th The calculator spit these out: Due date- 08/30/2021 As early as-08/26/2021 As late as - 09/11/2021 So there is only 5 possible days left until she either is a fattie sheep and I have been over feeding her and it's my fault she is a tubby sheep, not a pregnant sheep OR she is just taking her time and enjoying the ride. As I stated in earlier blog posts, she has had days of what I would call Braxton-Hicks like contractions where it looked like she was in what I have been described as a...

  Mrs. Sheep is on Lamb watch; or not. I have raised sheep before, but never for lambing, only market animals so I have not been exposed to the idiosyncrasies of sheep labor. I am however, confident that barring a breech birth or multiples, I can handle most medical emergencies, including birthing. Handling them and knowing the processes and stages of birthing are completely different areas of expertise so I differ to those that know in the areas I lack. First a bit of background about Mrs. Sheep.  We bought our first ewe sheep off Craig's list. We got two of them the same day- April 7th, 2021. Well, the guy we got them from stated that the sheep we have come to name, Mrs. Sheep might have been bred since she was in a pasture that had a ram running in it, but he wouldn't definitively say yes or no since he was "away for most of the time". Just in case, we fed her like she was expecting and she did get a bigger belly. As time goes by, she gets bigger, and we feed more,...

 Cross Fencing So far, the most we have gotten done on Cross fencing the property is to get a rough idea on where the fence is going to go. I have the materials, but will need to jackhammer the post holes into the lava, and right now I have an injured hand. Banged it up trying to drive posts in for running some temporary fencing to get the sheep and goats out into  a small, but contained area that is larger than their pens alone. We will try to get the posts dugs ASAP, as my hand allows.  In the mean time, I was able to purchase a new Banana variety! It is a Red Tiger,  Musa sikkimensis Grows to about 15 feet in about 2 years and the fruit is said to be a deep, almost blood red. Fruiting occurs at 2-3 years. I prefer the dwarf varieties, but some that are dwarf can still grow over 10 feet.  I am saving my extra cash to buy a really cool variety, known here in the Islands as  A’ea’e.  In Hawaiian it means to climb up,  the leaves are vari...

 Settling in Coco and Vanna are selttling in nicely, though they do cry still right about dark. They are in a 10x10 converted kennel for now, while I finish the property fencing. I have done three of the four sides of our acre, and I am going to be cross fencing the back 1/3 for all the animals to graze eventually. We will allow the chicken, the goats and the sheep to graze, but I am on the fence still on the pigs we are scheduled to get in two months. So, speaking of pigs, we are scheduling getting them on the farm in two months. so pens need to built soon. I am thinking of doing a modified KNF -Korean Natural Farming method of piggery that results in a no smell pen. Yeah, I thought the same thing too. JoAnn and I went through the KNF certification process and when we got the opportunity to visit a piggery with 4 full sized 400 pound sows and found that there wasn't ANY smell other than the animals around them, we were sold. I will need to dig down a bit or find a puka to build a ...

 Big News on the Farm Today is goat baby day! We are heading out at lunch tiime to pick up our newest additions to the farm, Coco and Vanna, twin sister goats that are going to be the Matriarchs and the breeding anchors of our eagerly awaited goat herd.  We are going to be breeding these two to build a small heard of goats with the aim of keeping our freezer full and selling the overflow. Since they are twins, and come from a line that has proven multiple births, we feel pretty confident that we can keep our farm in goats and in the black with sales. Coco and Vanna are the two new additions and will join Mrs. Sheep, our hair sheep ewe, and Rambo, a young ram we found pilaging a neighbors lanscape. We will be holdong on to him until the rightful owner has been found, but we are needing another ewe for the sheep flock as of right now.    In the coming weeks, I will be building a pig pen for or two gilt piggery. And in bigger news, I found a person that not only has Min...