After a mild winter, our goats had full, heavy fleeces that needed to be sheared off before the summer heat. With the milder than normal temperatures, they were able to put less energy into staying warm and more energy into growing longer and thicker fleeces.
The local shearer stopped by earlier in the spring to shear our goats.
Here is a quick look at the start of Ruby’s shearing this spring. He likes to start with the stomach first and then move on to the legs and back. This video shows the first few passes across Ruby’s stomach area.
Click through to see more videos and photos of the spring 2016 shearing.
Three new 1-year-old cows were dropped off last weekend to spend the summer at our farm grazing on our pastures. Just like last summer, these cows are part of a pasture lease and the cows will eat the grass to help them grow to maturity while at the same time reducing our need to mow and maintain the pastures over the summer.
The 3 cows we hosted last summer each gave birth to a calf this spring back at their home farm.
Click through to read more about each of the new cows for summer 2016.
The goats have had free run of the 3 biggest pastures since late September – able to go in and out of the pastures whenever they felt like it. When the new tenant cows arrive this spring, we will need to rotate the goats into different pastures opposite the cows. While this isn’t a problem in terms of the amount of grass they will have available to eat, it does present an issue with trying to feed them a little bit of hay over the summer while the cows are here.
The outer barn has ample space to spread out hay in various locations so all of the goats can feed at once without fighting over it. Once the goats are rotated off of the pasture with the barn to the other pastures, there are many fewer places to spread out the hay. We decided to design and build a new homemade goat feeder to feed them their hay.
Here is a video of the goats testing out the new goat feeder:
Unfortunately, the first test was only partially successful. The goats successfully ate some hay from it and were not able to knock it over or lift up the roof. However, they began to eat pieces of the wood off of the feeder itself around the corners. We had to remove the feeder from service until we can make some small tweaks before trying again.
Click through for a more detailed description of the goat feeder.
A close-up of our baby white bantam cochin chicks.
We are currently raising 3 bantam white cochin hens to add to our flock. Bantams are smaller breeds than typical hens – usually about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of a regular hen. White Cochins are a breed of chicken that has fluffy feathers including feathered legs and feet.
Here is a video of the baby chicks shortly after they arrived home:
Click through for more pictures and information about the baby chicks.
Although there was a cold spell earlier in the week that saw temperatures dip below freezing several nights in a row – spring has mostly arrived!
The clover is in full bloom – see all of the little purple flowers in the fields.
Clover in bloom in the fields.
In addition, the chickens are venturing further out to check for delicious bugs around the property. Two of our hens, Mindy and Sindy, along with our rooster Pineapple recently ventured out of the pastures to the front yard to help dig up the front flower beds in front of the barn.
With the recent warm spell, all of our snow and ice melted in a few days. We decided to hike up to our 35 foot tall waterfall and see what it looked like with what may be the highest water flow rate of the year (and to preemptively answer a question we get asked a lot: yes, the waterfall is on our property).
Our waterfall in the spring.
There was more water coming over the falls than at any of our prior visits to the falls, but even with temperatures having reached over 70 degrees in early March, there was still some ice around the falls.
Click through to see more pictures and a video of the falls.
It is now early March and the weather is very warm. The high temperature was over 70 degrees earlier this week. The average high temperature normally doesn’t reach the 70s until June. Even the deepest snow piles have almost completely disappeared. Instead of mid-winter, maybe this is really an early-summer update.
How have the chickens fared over the winter?
Like the goats, the chickens are doing well! On the coldest days, the chickens remained inside the chicken coop with a space heater to help them keep warm. On days at or above freezing, the chickens would usually venture outside as long as the snow wasn’t too deep. During the recent warm spell, the chickens spend most of their day outside.
The chickens out in the field enjoying the early warm weather.
The chickens are venturing out into the pastures during the warm weather and enjoying the longer days.
Click through for more pictures, including an interesting egg phenomenon.
It is now mid-February and we are approximately half-way through our first winter on the farm. The first part of the winter was very mild with limited snow and high temperatures through the holidays. Late January and early February have been much colder and snowier than the early part of winter. The actual temperature hit -23 degrees a few days ago and it was closer to -30 with the wind chill!
How are the goats doing? The goats are doing well! While they generally don’t mind the normal winter temperatures (as they have thick mohair coats), they usually stay inside while it is snowing or if there is a strong wind.
As the fields are now covered in snow and the goats are unable to graze, we have been providing them with more grain than we do in the summer.
We spread the grain around into multiple feeding bins so each goat can get some grain without having to fight for it or wait their turn. The goats typically spread out to separate bins at the beginning. After a minute or so, one goat will decide that another feeding bin is a better option and attempt to move. This often sets off a chain reaction where the goats switch bins to find the best grains. Here is a video of the goats in action:
