A Shout out to my Peep Peeps

Well, we're down to six.

Yesterday Caroline took six peeps to her farm. :) And we found one dead in the coop. :( A victim of SPPDS, it would seem. (Sudden Peep Peep Death Syndrome) He was not attacked. Just not alive.

Still - the peeps are a week old today. I think to only have lost one is pretty amazing.

Equally amazing is the rate at which they grow. The keets have more than doubled in size in just seven days. Insane. They are still ridiculously cute. The new favorite thing is picking up big bits of grass and running at full speed so a sibling won't get it. Them peeps is wacky.

Today we let them out to go forage with their mom and two dads. I'll add a photo later on if I can get around to it. Let's hope they all come back from their big adventure.

Pinch Hitters

Many of you know that FOF Caroline has set us up with quite a few of her goats for the milking season. Without them we would probably sell out of cheese in five minutes and only be able to do one market a week.

Since they are temps, they do not have their own bios on our website, so I'll go ahead and introduce them here.

Limerick
Limmie is the only goat at BHF that doesn't have the white ears and muzzle. I think her brown mouth makes it look like she is always smiling. Christian has to turn the radio station to classical music when she comes in to milk. I guess Air America agitates her.

Thyme
Thyme is a big sweetie. We call her "Big Thyme". She is one of the girls who needs to be pet every time you see her. She took a while to get used to the milking machine, but now she's an old pro. Dig her giant cud.

Donna Beth
DB has the most amazing markings. She is a beauty. In the milk parlor? Well, did I mention she's pretty? Donna is a pro at massaging you with her head, so I insist we keep her around.

Pepper
Pepper's real name is Peppermint Schnapps. And she does look kinda drunk in this photo. Pepper is big on tilting her head up at you and showing her teeth. I love Pepper's smiles.

Primrose and Plum

Both of these goats' mamas are part of our original herd. Primrose looks just like her mom, Peggy Sue. And she has the same voice, too....maaaaaaaaaa. Plum's mama is Challenge, and other than the look of her face, there is not much similarity. Challenge is not a needy, "pet-me" goat, but Plum-bob looks for scratchings every day. She is a sweet thing.

We've got two more of Caroline's goats that I will put up when I get better photos. Poor Jakarta looked retarded in the last one I took. And somehow I missed getting a shot at all of Ellie Mae.

We are not a poultry farm

I know anyone new to the blog wouldn't understand that we are a dairy. I am on a bit of a bird kick at the mo'.

I realized I have never talked about our Muscovy ducks. We got three ducklings back on Easter. We named them the Marx brothers: Groucho, Harpo and Karl. One of them - we'll go ahead and say Groucho - met with some unknown disaster that ended in a badly broken leg and had to be euthanized, but the other two have grown to be entertaining little residents.

It would seem that Harpo is a girl and Karl is a big beefy stud. They have been mating a lot recently. I am very hopeful that we will have ducklings some day.

Here is Karl. Pretty boy.



We liked these guys so much that we got three more females last week. They arrived the same day as Dory, and TOD was so excited that he tried to mount one of them. They have been hiding under the barn ever since. Stupid TOD.

Last night they ventured out into the open for a few hours, so I expect them to relax and blend in soon. When they do, I'll take photos. We got a black one, a grey one and then another tan like the Marx twins.

In Peep Peep news, all 13 are still alive and are growing fast. They are also becoming more independent. Though they still prefer to follow Dawn around, some will linger at the feed or the water when she moves on. So adorable. I caught two drinking today.




In chicken news, only Frenda seems to be laying now, at least that we can verify. Christian thinks we'll find a ton of old stinky eggs somewhere if we dare to look. The other day I cracked open one of her eggs and found our first double yolker. I was so excited I took a photo. It's the egg on the bottom half of the pan. How cool is that?

And finally, because I am obsessed, here is another shot of TOD. It's hard to hate him when he is just so darned fabulous.

I am obsessed with peep peeps

I go out and look at them, like, 20 times a day. I need help.

But seriously - could you resist? Look at this!

OMG -- 13 Peep Peeps!!!!!!!!!!!

After milk chores I went to check on Dawn and she had left the nest with her brood. I snapped a couple pics in the grass and then we gathered up the keets and put them in a cooler. We slowly walked the cooler over to the coop and she followed like a champ.

They are all in there now and we'll leave them for a few days - maybe a week - to keep the cats from having snacks. Then we'll free range 'em and hope for the best. I do not expect all of them to make it, but we'll see.

In total we found 13 keets, saw one unhatched egg that looked to have been kicked out of the nest ages ago and that only leaves one unaccounted for. Much better than the last go 'round.

Two of the little guys are whites like their mama and the rest look like they'll be some kind of color. What's interesting is that it looks like we may have a third coloring - other than the Dads' lavender. Look at the difference in the heads and bodies on the darker ones. It will be interesting to see what they turn out to be.

We are so jazzed.

Here are a few piccies. Eeeeeeeee!







A funny note. When Christian came in this morning to announce hatching, I had just received a pop-up reminder from our Outlook calendar, "Look for Peep Peeps" - due in 17 hours. I was pretty close on that. And super dorky to use Outlook to track incubation.

Breaking news -- We have Peep Peeps!

The hatching has begun. We think there are at least two out - maybe more. Dawn still has them under the truck and this time she seems to be trying to hatch them all. Or at least more than one.

We'll give them a little more time and when she does get up we are going to try to shepherd them all into the coop with mama and leave them there for a while. We are worried that cats might eat peeps.

Yaaaaaaaaaaay, Dawn!

I hope a few make it this time.

A New Girlfriend for TOD

At our last Home Sweet Farm Market we met some nice people who overheard me talking about TOD and his need to kill me. When I mentioned I thought it might have something to do with having lost his mate, they came over to tell us that they had a female whose mate had been killed by raccoons. They said she was lonely and after I promised we wouldn't eat her, they agreed to bring her to Blue Heron Farm in the interest of happy turkeys all around.

This is Dory. (Her old mate was Nemo)She is about a month or two younger than TOD, but since she got here he has not stopped trying to impress her. He walks around all puffed up. Very proud. She thinks he's OK, but she's more interested in grass and bugs right now.



Oh, and he still wants to to kill me. It had nothing to do with chicks.