Bear's Compound

Well,  with the first night of bad rain getting ready to come,  I made sure that Bear,  the Guardian of the Farm,  had a good shelter.   I set up two dog houses,  one for sleeping (yes that is one of our bedroom pillows for her) and one for food (no one likes mushy kibble).  Their backs are to the wind.   There is also a 5 gallon heated water dish,  for later this year and there is the possibility of adding a small heat lamp to the sleeping shelter. I'll plug them both into a thermo cube so they don't come on until it gets really cold and then turn off after it warms up.  
Don't know what a thermo cube is?  More to follow on those.

Red's shelter

Took some time this weekend to improve Red's shelter.   We moved it further downhill other of the wind.   I also had to dig it in on the windy side to level it.  Now hours water is out of the sun,  less chance for growing bad stuff.   Also his feed and sweet feed are in there. Should be good for my shelter shy friend.

Impromptu reason gutter feeder

I made this real quick last night.   It's my answer to spreading feed over muddy and wet ground.   Just an old piece of rain gutter from Mom's house,  some scrap wood under it and some landscape timbers for support.  

Been off-line for a few

Sorry there haven't been a lot of updates lately!  I'm about to catch up the last three weeks.  Here goes...

Comic moment on the farm

Wow.  This just blew my mind.  I'm not sure whether the horse was grooming Bear or being playful or just trying to eat the dog!  Give me your best guess.

Horse eating a dog: http://youtu.be/0dxy-LFEpZU

New arrivals

Well,  after having turkey eggs in the incubator almost 20 days,  it looks liked the first one that will emerge is Henny Penny's little egg that joined late.   I've got the brooder in and ready to set up.   Tomorrow morning we should have a new chicken on the farm!

P.S. don't leave the incubator open for very long when they're coming out.   They need that moisture to keep the membrane loose and easy to get out of.  We're keeping the incubator at 60 plus % rh.

More Birds!

As we wait for word from our incubator...

We picked up another Tom Turkey and a rooster.  The rooster is likely a Black Cockerel, but I'm not sure.  Our friends who are moving had these two poor birds left so they have now joined our flock.

This of course, brought no little disgruntlement from our current rooster and tom turkey!

The current tom quickly put his rival in his place (as of this morning though, they seem friends).

However, this was not the case for "Rusty Rooster" and the new rooster affectionately called Blacky.
Those two locked in battle for a good half hour under our porch trying to pull each others comb off.  At the end of the first battle, Rusty who is maybe 2/3 the size of Blacky seemed victorious and Blacky exiled himself to further down the fence from the roost are of our porch.
Not leaving well enough alone though, Rosty later followed him to his exile and battled him again.  Rusty was pretty badly defeated this time and left on the ground while Blacky moved back up the fence line to the roost area.  When I and Caleb got to Rusty, he was still on his back.  Upon seeing me, Caleb and Bear, Rusty rolled over, got back on his feet and scurried back up the hill.  Coming behind a bush he ambushed Blacky and joined battle with him once more!
Bear, who had made a good effort to stop their previous battle at the porch, this time physically separated them.  I'm guessing Rusty was claiming Bear as his "muscle" and with a loud crowing let Blacky know to leave the roost area again!

At the end of the day, Rusty resumed his dominate place at the top of the enclosure with Henny.  Blacky took a room in the butterfly bush that has been turned into apartments by the bantams and Rhode Island Reds.

This morning, they seem to be coexisting....  (seem)