Marie's near death experience!

This morning was very scary! I usually hook the goats up with leashes by their boxes(where they get grain) so they won't steal each others food. After feeding and hooking them up, I went to take care of the chickens and other barn chores. When I went back in Marie had stood up against the wall then jumped back down and got the leash tangled on her chest. It was choking her! I dropped the stuff I was carrying and ran over. Unfortunately, you need slack to unhook the leash. She had spun around so it was pulling really tight. I tried to unclasp her collar but it wouldn't work. She started to fall to her knees and couldn't stand anymore. I grabbed and picked her up(she's really heavy by the way) as fast as I could and spun her around to loosen the leash. Then I finally got it unhooked. (The whole time Lucy stood by just watching.) Marie and I were both really scared and our hearts were pounding. As I was giving them hay and water in their pen she would not stop following me and got really upset when I would leave. She just wanted to snuggle so I spent some time sitting with her. The poor thing.

Our attempts at catching the weasel aren't working. We set a live animal trap, but just ended up catching 3 ground squirrels. Haha! The trap is still set so we'll just wait and see.

Daisy is doing amazing. She now has 6 eggs and has been moved to the vacant chick pen in a cardboard box. We're not sure if she's been getting up herself to eat, so we take her out sometimes and make her eat and drink. Her eggs are from different dates ranging from the 16th to the 19th. So they'll hatch on July 7th to the 10th. You guys get here the 9th I think so hopefully you'll get to witness it all. :) Yay!!! The chicks will be different breeds(I don't think any of the eggs are Daisy's). The rooster is an Ameraucana and we're not sure what the mothers all were since a lot of the eggs look alike. There is one Ameraucana egg so it'll be a pure Ameraucana if it hatches. There's no telling how many will actually hatch though. Some may not have been fertilized or maybe Daisy let one slip out from under her and get too cold. You never know. It's all very exciting!

kk

New name! Your opinion?

So, I've come up with a name for the new boy I think... Raziel! It's the name of an angel in a book I've been reading and I think the little guy looks like a tiny white angel. At first I was trying to think of something really cool. I got Balthazar, Nehemiah, or something. What do you guys think?

Raziel
Balthazar
Nehemiah(or some other cool Bible name)

Actually, why don't you guys decide? So, ask Lauren, Matt, and Uncle Attic, please!

kk

Weasel?!?!

Yesterday, my little brother went out to see the chicks and found a dead white Wyandotte lying on the ground, it's intestines all around it. :( We think the murderer is a weasel. We've seen how hawks kill and this was definitely not a hawk. I'll spare you all the details. We've suspected that a weasel lives in our barn for a while after my mom and sister spotted something odd that looked like one. Weasels eat small mammals, rodents, and sometimes poultry and birds. So, until we catch the assailant the chicks will remain inside their stall.

Daisy is broody!!!* I know I've said that before and then she stopped, but this time I am so positive. She's been sitting there for about three days straight. We had some complications with her eggs though. First Cara took them all and put them in the fridge, then Ethan did the same, then another chicken tried to get in the box with Daisy and crushed her egg. Now, I've moved her to a box the others won't mess with and she has three marked eggs.

One of the white Wyandotte's is a boy I think.* Wonderful... Not! It has a really big comb, that's why I think it's a boy, however I've been wrong before so we'll see. that would make a total of 8 boys, Veratess, Ravinar, Blue, Green, Conrad, Stanley, the white Wyandotte, and James.

My videos still won't work. My parents need to update the computer. So sorry!

Oh, and I got pooped on this morning. Ethan brought his chick, Cherry, in the house to show Brenna this morning. While I was holding her, she pooped all over my leg. Ew!

** I've posted some pics. Check them out at "BarnyardPics".

kk

A boy? and RiverRockGoods!

Hey there! Since I haven't been on in a while there is a lot of stuff I want to post.

We(my sister and I) went to a poultry meeting last night. We took 9 chickens for the "chicken man" to check out for us. We took Mim, Gwen, Pink, Blue, Green, Angie, Ravinar, Sayna, and Veratess. Here's what we found out.

Veratess is a boy! Unfortunately, he's not a very pretty one. His comb and crest are not very good and his toe spacing it awful. Silkies have 5 not 4 toes and the spacing is very important.

I was right about my Buff Brahma bantams' genders. Pink is a girl. Blue and Green are boys. They all have really good pea combs though. And Pink has a really good Asiatic head shape.

Gwen is a splash. Splash is a variety. When you breed for blue chickens there is a black, a blue, and a splash gene. You want blue, black is fine, splash is the most undesired. She can still show in Barnyard mix though.

Angie might be a boy. That would be awful, so I hope not. The "chicken man" says maybe. She's an Ancona and they have such large combs that you can't really tell yet.

Mim is fine. She's still going to get new feathers twice more since she's so young.

*I know a lot of this is confusing Auntie, but if you have any questions about all this chicken talk, post them on "Chick-a-doodle".

Yesterday morning we went to a 4h Marketplace meeting(it was 5 hours though!). At fair my sister and I will have a booth to sell our products for an hour. Other kids will do this too. We came up with our logo and slogan for. I'll post a picture later. We came up with, "RiverRockGoods!" written really cool as our name/logo. Our slogan is "Maa! Cluck! You're in luck!" What do you think? We'll be selling my goat milk soap and eggs. And maybe cross stitches of chickens and goats and painted river rocks. The "chicken man" also wants us to sell little day old chicks, but we're still working on the details.

We're working on buying a goat share so we'll have some goat milk. I can't wait to start making soap!

Have a great day!
kk