Making it on small acreage

[emilosevich]

QA Good to see you last night and hoping Mt. Hope is going well for you guys!.
Long night at Rogers last night. Wound up with some turkey eggs
There is an asst. batch and then a set of some kind of penciled. I got them for a steal and can't wait to get them in the incubator. DH has some chicken eggs to go in the incubator too. A couple are from my Easter Egger hen from last year. Really like to see what she throws breed back to the brahma rooster. Well off to guild to hopefully get some spinning done

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Good morning, emi!!

I'm loving our new baby! She curled up with Layla last night, and when I took her bottle to her this morning, they were both curled up side by side!

Wish I had taken the camera out with me!

She's so cute, and was trying to leap and romp outside today, but lost her balance a couple times.

She's drinking down about 7 ozs a feeding for me. I've still got a little bit of Mama's milk, so she's getting like 3/4 milk replacer and 1/4 Mama's milk. I started it out half and half yesterday, this morning was 3/4 and 1/4.

I'll post pictures soon!

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

G'day,I came upon this thread this morning and read a few pages,someone mentioned "sheep shearing"and I thought it would be great to know a little more about it from up there.....I read early that you were shearing Angoras.Did they have there own shed or do you take your gear to them?...What sort of "gear' do you use,the motor in the hand-piece or an overhead with a flex down-shaft?...Our shed has a Sunbeam Super Pro with solid down-tube and a Heiniger wide-comb hand-piece,I also use an old Sunbeam wide-comb as a spare.I sharpen our combs and cutters myself on an old(and I mean "really"old grinder).................The post said you were an apprentice "shearer" how long does it take to do the study?.....I am enjoying reading your journal and no doubt you will hear from me again.............regards ,T.O.R...................

 

[emilosevich]

Did they have there own shed or do you take your gear to them?...What sort of "gear' do you use,the motor in the hand-piece or an overhead with a flex down-shaft?

We take our equipment to them. We use a motor and hand piece, because we are doing smaller batches of less than 20 head. Apprenticing for me has been about 10yrs. I am probably good enough by now to shear by myself, but prefer to simply help. It's nice having someone I have worked with that long because we can work without talking. Feel free to ask questions anytime. I hope to be able to take pictures of shearing next weekend. I will try to post them then.

 

[emilosevich]

Had a good time at Spinning Guild on Saturday. I got to watch a lady navajo plying and am going to be trying it sometime in the near future. She offered to let me try on her wheel, but I declined. Now I'm thinking I should've taken her up on it. I thought at the time I would need the privacy of home to vent if it didn't go right Got some roving sold to so it made the gas back for the trip down there and got to meet with a friend I haven't seen in a while.

Today had to work at the day job. On the way home K called and asked if I could go shearing. Called DH and he said go ahead. We shore 2 head at one place and the K said lets go over to this other place and see if they're are home since we're over this way. We stopped and they were home. They decided they were up for shearing. Now fun part the sheep were not locked in. I HATE going to a place were the sheep are not locked in. Well long story short we did get them shorn, but I'm a little worse for the wear and K owes me big time. I hate chasing sheep down and dragging them across a field.

We pulled back up into the driveway and I saw DH had borrowed the neighbors tractor to plow the garden. It's to wet to get the rototiller in. I looked again and my strawberry bed is in ruins. I mean big tractor tire marks everywhere. Needless to say I was steaming mad. I have been waiting for homegrown strawberries for 3 years. I have now been informed that my strawberries were moved and saved from a harsh death. They have been moved to the compost pile to await their new home. I have been looking for a watering tank to put them in, but can't seem to find one in my price range.

We will finally be getting our NPIP status I have waiting for a couple months for the guy to come out and he said he's coming tomorrow night because he will be coming through our area. So happy then we can start selling eggs and turkeys. He said he wanted to get us in before the rates went up. Bless his heart. Now we just gotta go catch some ducks tonight for him to test.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

hey, emi!

how'd the testing go today?

Want to see why it's a good idea to raise out BLRW chicks to feathering before saying, "Oh, that's a splash, they can go".

I would highly recommend anyone raising this color variety of Wyandotte wait at least 2 weeks before culling for color!

This is a 2-3 week old Cockerel:

See how yellow his head is? He hatched out completely yellow, with a black splotchy stripe down his back.

Here is a close up of his breast feathers. See the nice mahogany laced in deep blue? That's what I'm working for in my flock! I'm so glad i didn't sell this guy at Mt. Hope but brought him home instead!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Here's another pic. He looks like he's sleeping, but I think he just didn't like the flash lol

and here's a pic of Lael - she was saying hurry up with my bottle already!

 

[emilosevich]

I love the coloring the the BLRW. There's just something about them. I've never kept them around to actually breed, but just as a different color around the yard. Lael looks so happy. It looks like she has grown already.

The testing went really well and was quick. He was here for about 2hrs though. LOL! We ended up talking about Reds and birds in general. I wanted to take pictures of him doing the turkeys because I've never seen it done before, but I had to hold the vile for the blood because we were having technical difficulties. He ended up having to put quite a few breeds of birds on the test form because of how many we have. We had him out because of the Reds, but you know they have to test an assortment and list breeds present. I have a mixed batch of just about everything for my laying flock so that got to be a long list and then the crossbreds.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

really? he made you list everything??

We've only ever listed what we're actively working with for that year...so this year I have Cochins, BLRW, and Light/Coronation Sussex listed and I think Blue Orps.

And my ducks.

 

[emilosevich]

He started with my Russian Orloff rooster which I told him was only to cross over my easter egger/americauna hens. Once he did that I figured he wanted pretty much everything. I had told him when I called him that we mainly wanted it because DH has some people that wanted the RCRIR eggs and I didn't feel comfortable shipping them without NPIP status.