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Showing posts from January, 2017

Ducks on the roof!!!

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We raise a breed of duck that happens to enjoy flying! They fly to the pond. They fly over the fence into the animal pens. They fly on top of the roof of the house. They fly to the neighbors pond. They are quite comical and I enjoy watching them fly across the pasture to the pond. The rooftop however is rather annoying since there apparently are lots of bugs and good things to eat up there and they like to walk around and search for those bugs in the wee morning hours when I'm trying to catch my last few minutes of sleep. They don't lay too many eggs but they make excellent mothers and are a good breed for eating as they grow fast and have lots of meat, males especially. The are Muscovy ducks. The are native to Central and South America and are extremely hardy birds. In some parts of the United States they are considered a pest because they reproduce so much. However, they make an excellent choice for the small farmer who likes duck meat since they grow quick and are ef

Kidding Season!

We are currently in the middle of goat kidding season and I wanted to give a few tips on that subject. Most often the doe doesn't need any help at all with delivering her babies but sometimes things go wrong and you need to give assistance, especially when there are multiple babies being born in one belly-load. First of all, you need to know when she is in labor. If you watched them breed in the fall then you probably have a good idea of when the due date is. There are plenty of pregnancy charts out there to plug in the breeding date and get the estimated kidding date. If you let them pasture breed, then you will have to use your powers of observation, which I've found vary in efficacy from person to person. Some of the signs of impending birth are: loose ligaments, which basically means that when you squeeze or touch the goat around her tail area it feels very mushy and loose, with no muscle tone or anything. This is all the body preparing to open up for the babies to be bor