This video shows you typical duckling and gosling behavior!
Sometimes we let the little buggers (literally, bug hunters!) out for a chance to roam free. We still have to keep an eye on them because they are small enough to be hurt by a larger chicken or taken by a hawk (especially the ducklings). Today they got a solid 2 hours of freedom out in the yard, where they enjoyed chasing bugs, sun bathing, chowing down on seed heads, and drinking from random puddles of water!
.:.
Nothing makes our day more than having kids come visit us at the homestead. Beginning some time next month, we will be hosting a homestead tour so all interested kids and adults can come see the animals for themselves. But in the meantime, let these videos of our friend Meredith and her lovely kids, Emi and Teddy, make you smile.
.:.
Our 4 goslings.
If you’ve been following us on Facebook, you know that we recently received our Embden goslings in the mail. You also know that even though we ordered 10, we were only shipped 4. Sad news for us!
We ordered a “straight run” from Murray McMurray Hatchery which means that they were not sexed to determine how many males and females were in the bunch. Ordering them this way is cheaper, and since we only wanted to keep 2 males and 2 females to add to our breeding flock (and eat the rest), we figured that ordering 10 would ensure that we got what we wanted. Unfortunately, now that we only have 4 (apparently the hatchery has experienced lower hatch rates than expected and they will not send us the other 6), we are going to have to just wait around and hope that we have at least 2 males in the bunch. The 4 geese that we have now (only one of which is an Embden) are all females, a fact that we weren’t certain of until recently!
This is our second time this year that our shipments of birds were delayed or altered (beginning with our turkeys). Although the whole thing is disappointing, we’re just going to have to make due with what we’ve got!
So now we have another goose quartet, this time one that is filled with lots of fuzzy cuteness. Goslings are by far our favorite babies (I honestly enjoy them more than the piglets, to be honest)! They have such personality even at a few days old, and the fact that they imprint on the animal nearest them when they are born, makes me excited to hatch our own future geese and have them be best friends and adventure partners to our children! Geese are super loud and can flog any animal with such intensity that I am inclined to think them just as protective as dogs.
Our goslings are already “fussing” at us when we come over to visit them, just as adult geese do–bending down and stretching their necks out at you while honking.
The “fussing” posture!
We’ve let them out in the yard (supervised, of course) to roam around and they enjoy eating grass and seed pods. What self-sufficient little marvels!
They will probably outgrow their current home in a few weeks, and then they will probably get to go live with the other geese and ducks. We’ll see!
.:.
This video is a fun one, but it doesn’t even show half of the hilarious antics that our piglets engage in!
Both litters of piglets sped most of their day squeezing out of their pen (although a few are getting to fat to make it through) and exploring the world. They started close to their mother’s pen but have since started going all around the yard, fearlessly visiting ducks, Gandalf and the teenage pigs, and even exploring the blackberry bushes.
They usually run when we approach, and the sight of 7 little pig butts high-tailing it really is one of the best sights you can see out here.
Here is a video (although it is a bit shaky since I am chasing them) that shows you what I mean…
Our newest addition to the homestead, our Hybrid Layer and Cayuga ducklings, finally got to explore the outside world for the first time! When they are a little bit older, we plan to keep them in their newly finished shed/house during the night, and every morning usher them out to a pen so they can enjoy the world and the sun!
We tried our hand at herding them for the first time the other day, to see if they would be easier to herd than our Khaki Campbell ducks. They did super well, and were so excited to leave their cage and find new bugs to eat and rocks to peck at!
We herded them to a small, exposed space with one of the kiddie pools inside. It was filled with water, and the ones that could figure out how to get inside had a great time… Diving under and splashing water everywhere.
Check out this video for the full experience… Beginning with their first glimpse of beyond the cage and ending with wet and sloppy babies!
.:.
A couple new goose updates here on the homestead:
1. First of all, we decided that utterly free-ranging geese was no longer something we wanted. Too much goose poop in random places (i.e. the carport or even the front porch) that always made me want to scream and then chase them around the yard in frustration. Also, the quartet was often found standing in the road and I don’t need to explain to you just how dangerous that is!
2. We started incubating 14 goose eggs a few weeks ago, but we’re not sure how things will go with them… (Explanation of why we’re unsure is below)
3. The goose nest that we once discovered was abandoned by all of the geese, so that’s a no-go!
4. We’ve built a new fence for keeping the geese confined. The fence moves every few days (just like their old home that now houses the pigs) and is lower (about 2.5 feet tall). The fence is made of cut cattle panels, that are able to be “stepped in” to the ground so we can change the shape and layout of their area whenever we come across any garden beds or plants that we need to avoid having in their space.
5. During the beginning of their renewed confinement, Audo somehow learned how to climb/fly over the short fence (which was weird since he is the heaviest one) and would escape any time he wanted. After clearing a couple of their favorite yard-nest spots of eggs, and after a few days of only Audo roaming around outside the fence, we discovered that Audo was laying eggs!!!!!!!!!
Which, of course, means that Audo is a female!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, we’ve been operating with the information that Audo was male this entire time, understanding that the rest were females.And now it seem that we might not even have a male at all! There are ways to tell that I will not go into here, but Google it and prepare to be freaked out if you are interested in knowing more about sexing a goose (yes, I did just write those words).
Audo’s femaleness might mean that all of our incubating is for naught, unless another goose has been a male all along!
6. The last goose update was actually meant to be the sole subject of this post, but I got a little bit carried away…
In order to keep Audo inside the fence, we had to clip her wings so she can’t catch enough wind to lift herself over the wire. Clipping a bird’s wings of is not what it might sound like to you (a horrible inhumane act that hurts the bird). Instead, it only involves catching the bird and trimming her feathers, not hurting her at all.
This video is a bit funny, actually, since we hadn’t clipped goose feathers before and we weren’t sure how Audo would respond. Watch and see how we did it…
Jason held her and I did the clipping of just one wing to keep her off balance and to make sure that her flying would be crooked if she ever tried to fly over the fence again. If you try this yourself, be sure to have tin snips to use as scissors, since the heavy duty shears and scissors I used really weren’t tough enough for goose wings!
.:.
This video features our ducklings again!
Also included is an explanation of their house and bedding…
.:.
Today the new ducklings arrived at the post office, and we went to get them!
They were fantastic when they emerged from the box and very quickly started eating and drinking. They are very relaxed and literally the cutest things I have ever seen!
This video explains a little bit about them and the breeds we have…
We put together a short video of our morning homestead chores.
Emma feeds, waters, and lets the chickens out (both the laying flock and the teenage cockerels), while Jason feeds, waters and checks on the ducklings and the pot belly pigs.
The geese are okay until the afternoon, when they get some food, fresh water, and maybe a paddock shift.
Our morning routine is going to change somewhat when our batch of heritage turkey poults arrive, and also when our ducks graduate form the brooder to their new shelter.
*Don’t forget to pre-order your GMO Free Heritage Turkey for Thanksgiving!
I want to share some amazing videos that Emma and I watched the other night. It’s a mini web series from the Farmstead Meatsmith, an artisanal butcher shop that focuses on the long lost traditions of home butchery, charcuterie and real food.
On the Anatomy of Thrift is a collection of 3 informational yet inspirational videos on pork butchery. It covers (and shows in detail) every part of a hog harvest, from killing to cooking. Brandon Sheard, the farmstead meatsmith, takes the viewer on a mesmerizing trip with stops at evisceration, cooking offal (the perishable organs like hearts, livers, lungs and kidneys), identifying and parting out specific cuts, making old fashioned delicacies (pate, blood sausage, and rilletes), and preserving pork flesh by curing hams and making bacon.
If you, like me, have carnivorous tendencies (and aren’t too squeamish) than I highly suggest you check out these videos. They really are stunning. The production is great, and Brandon’s passion is extremely contagious. Emma and I immediately started day dreaming about making bacon, prosciutto, lard and pate from our future pig production.
I can assure you that we will take Brandon’s techniques and philosophies to heart, and utilize every part of every pig we butcher. To do anything else would be a disservice to the animal, a waste.
*Don’t forget to pre-order your GMO Free Heritage Turkey for Thanksgiving!
© 2024 KW Homestead
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑