Wow, it's been a long time since I've been on here and so much has happened. I guess I'll start where we left off.
I said that we were attempting to hatch some eggs. We were successful! One hatched but died, two hatched successfully, one got stepped on, one died while hatching, and the other never hatched. The two that survived grew pretty big and both turned out to be cockerels. One was a pure Ameraucana (like James) and the other was an Ameracana/Rhode Island Red mix. We ended up selling them a few months later.
Then came our County Fair 2014!!! It was a very exciting week.
- Our chickens did fairly well, but not as great as the previous years. We took about 20 of them and came home with 4 (Marny, Conrad, Sayna, and Ravinar) and a little frizzle pullet (Dolly) that we bought.
- My sister came in 2nd with Marie in 4H goat Showmanship. Marie also came in 2nd of her Dry Yearling class, coming right behind her sister...
- After winning her age class Lucy ended up becoming Grand Champion Dairy Goat! Basically all the 1st place winners of every class go to a champion round and then that winner is the Grand Champ. The girls also won a couple other awards too.
- We also worked on an entrepreneur project so we sold some feather jewelry at a booth.
Overall we had an awesome time!
After fair we had to travel and the goatie girls went to stay at their home away from home. Then it was pretty uneventful for a bit. And in November we went to a big poultry fair about an hour away. There we bought 6 Ameraucana pullets and an amazing, show quality Buff Brahma Bantam rooster.
The hens weren't very healthy though so we had to work on some beak trimming, taming since they were extremely wild, and fattening up. Unfortunately in January I noticed one that was very lethargic and upon picking her up I realized how skinny she was. Most of the others had gained at least some weight but this one couldn't have been bonier. I brought her inside, bathed her, and after some research assumed she had gleet (a digestive issue) so I fed her some probiotics. She was dead the next morning. :( So long story short, whatever disease she had spread fast and killed 3 more hens. For a while we were treating for gleet but then realized it was something else (probably coryza). We bought some antibiotics and have finally gotten rid of it. Yay!
The most exciting news... Lucy and Marie are both pregnant!!! We took them to our breeder from mid-November to mid-December so they are due April-May. Both are doing really well and are getting pretty chubby. :)
Oh and in September we got an adorable barn kitty. Her name is Eva and we've all fallen in love with her!
Well, I think that's everything. I'll keep you as updated as I can from here on out.
kk
**I'll post pictures of everything, so go check 'em out!
