Rooster Dispatch

As my summer chicks have gotten bigger, it has become abundantly clear that all three are, in fact, roosters.  They were cute when they were young but are not so desirable as adult birds.

Beemster in the middle flanked by two young roos.

We are now in the unfortunate situation of having four roosters and twenty hens.  It is typically recommended to have one rooster per ten hens.  That means that we have two times too many roosters.  This ratio is taking a toll on my poor hens.  Almost all of them have bare backs and bums from the frequent amorous encounters required to satisfy four roosters.

Moreover, while spending time with the goats in the evening I have done a fair amount of hen watching and the young roos are very aggressive in their interactions with the hens.  After a mad chase around the hen house with much noisy squawking and flying feathers, the young roosters grab the hens by the scruff of the neck with their beaks and wrench them down into submission in order to climb on their backs.  It does not look very pleasant. This is in marked contrast to Beemster who is super chill.  He sidles up alongside a hen, slowly mounts and does his business. The hens do not even seem to notice that he is around.  Maybe this is because they have been so traumatized by the other roosters.  Regardless, some of these roosters have got to go!

I have dispatched a rooster before, Cornelius, after he blinded Kate my favourite duck by attacking her with his spurs, but for tasks like these I usually enlist Ian's help.

Done and dinner.  Two birds with one stone (or three roosters with one axe, as it were).  Now we only have Beemster left.  As long as he remains docile, he has a home here at Gael Glen Farm.  I do love his energetic crow at sunrise.  There is no better way to start the day.

A Grainy Day

We began the day by feeding the sourdough starter and making cultured butter out of yesterday's homemade creme fraiche.  The boys helped.  The butter turned out nicely.  We waited to try it because I figured it warranted warm homemade bread - a project for the afternoon.

Next our grain was delivered and we filled up all our empty grain bins.

The sheep and donkey get a grain snack of whole oats and corn once a day at bedtime.

The goats get a combination of dairy goat pellets and alfalfa pellets.

All the animals get a mineral too.  Interestingly, the sheep and goats get a different mineral because goats need copper at a level that would be poisonous to sheep.

This is the sheep mineral.

In addition stocking up on animal grain, I had some success with making a beautiful loaf of wholegrain bread for the humans in my family.  Perhaps it was because it was made with my homemade buttermilk, but I think this is my best loaf yet!

All those grain snacks made everyone thirsty.  Time for a long, refreshing drink of water.

This water should taste even better having been lugged by yours truly
from the laundry tub in the mud room
since all of my outdoor taps are STILL frozen.

Getting Cultured

It is funny how the things that kind of gross you out are often the ones that taste really good.  Beer and kombucha are good examples.  Yeasty fermentation and scobies are yucky but the results of working with them are delicious.  So, I am applying the same logic to today's adventure of culturing dairy products.  Leaving milk out of the fridge sounds yucky but I am hoping this produces some delectable outcomes in the form of cultured butter and buttermilk salad dressing and biscuits.

Cultured Buttermilk

1 cup milk + 1/3 cup cultured buttermilk
Leave in a warm spot for a day
Result: Homemade buttermilk
Refrigerate

Creme Fraiche

1 cup whipping cream + 1 tbs buttermilk
Leave in a warm spot for a day
Result: Homemade cultured cream
Whip into cultured butter

Wild Yeast Capture

1 cup whole wheat flour + 3/4 cup water
Leave in a warm spot for 12 hours and feed every 12 hours thereafter
Result: Sourdough starter
Make into homemade bread without having to use store bought bread yeast

I will keep you posted on the progress of these culinary experiments.  The sourdough starter sounds quite involved with the twice daily feedings but it might be exciting to see something edible grow and bubble from just combining flour and water.  Its longevity depends on the quality of bread it produces.  I should probably look up how to make sourdough bread in the bread machine....just to be prepared in case this actually works out well.

Borscht, Brays, and Bounces

Today's project was making a batch of Gael Glen Farm borscht to use up the last of the beets from our 2017 garden.  I washed these beets after picking but they still had their skins on and had frozen solid in our garage fridge.

Beets are messy.

In combination with few jars of our canned tomatoes, a package of Sandy's stewing meat, some homemade turkey broth and a bunch of miscellaneous vegetables, our old beets made a delicious, hearty winter stew.

Coupled with a slice of rustic rye molasses bread warm out of the bread machine and voila - dinner!

One of the best things about cooking with lots of vegetables, aside from the health benefits, of course, is that all of the kitchen scraps make fantastic treats for the farm animals.

Today Charlie and the sheep were the happy recipients of beet, sweet potato, and white potato skins.

Everyone got a taste.  I offered some to Martha and Mellie but they were not interested at all.  They were much too preoccupied with meeting Charlie.  They could see her through the fence and were very intrigued.  I captured their very first encounter on video.  With the soundtrack of rooster and duck in the background, you can hear Martha calling out to Charlie with a timid "Hello".  It is impossible to miss Charlie's reply and Mellie's reaction to it all (watch for the poop!).

Once the goats were outside in the balmy -13 degree C weather (ugh), I took them for a some exercise in the paddock.  Martha surprised me with her enthusiasm at being outside.

Here Martha is in mid air as she prances towards Charlie.

She alternated between following me closely and galloping away at top speed until she got too distracted mahh-ing at the sheep and donkey through the fence.  She even did some nifty flips in the air which were impossible to catch on camera.

I have a feeling these goats are going to be a handful!

The Ram Effect

It has been an exciting few days on the farm as we welcomed another new arrival. Following the addition of Martha and Mellie (who are as cute as ever), we added Loki the ram into the mix. Loki is a three year old Shetland ram from Hill Grove Farm. He is our "visiting scholar" at Gael Glen Farm for the next 51 days.  He has work to do!

Loki the ram.

Charlie and the sheep were not sure what to make of Loki's arrival.  He endured a few trial bunts from Abbott.  However, once Abbott realized his horns were a quarter of the size of Loki's and it was (I expect) unpleasant to head butt him, he stopped initiating this particular interaction. 

The sheep were also on the receiving end of a few donkey bites and kicks.  It was Loki's presence that got everyone riled up but Charlie's kicks and bites seemed to be dispersed evenly among all the sheep; whomever happened to be in Charlie's line of fire got it good.

Watch out!

With the arrival of Loki, breeding season on Gael Glen Farm has begun. The introduction of a ram to ewes that have not been in sight or smell of one results in the "ram effect". This is when the ram's pheromones stimulate the onset of estrus, that is, he makes the ewes go into heat.

Loki and Violet.
There was a lot of butt sniffing and tail flagging going on in the farmyard yesterday.

Loki's presence should induce Alice and Violet to ovulate in 3 to 4 days. He arrived yesterday (January 13th), so on January 15th to 16th. This first heat is called a "silent heat" and cannot be detected by the ram. Following this silent heat, there will be two normal estrus peaks, with some ewes cycling around day 18 (January 30th) and the remainder around day 25 (February 6th). Ewes that do not conceive at either of these times may return to heat in another 17 days (February 23rd). It is expected that 60 to 70 percent of the ewes will conceive at the first normal estrus. Of the remaining ewes, 60 to 70 percent should conceive at the second estrus. 

Breeding seasons for sheep are typically the length of two or three heat periods (~34-51 days). After that, a ram is usually separated from the ewes for fear that he might be too aggressive with them during pregnancy.

The average gestation length in sheep is 147 days.  This puts us on track for June or July lambs if all goes as planned.  Farm life is really getting exciting!

Freezing Temperatures Make Strange Bedfellows

To my delight, our farm family grew today.  I would like to offer a warm welcome to our new Nigerian Dwarf doelings, Martha and Mellie.  They were my gift to myself for finally finishing my doctorate and I am not sure there is anything cuter on the planet.

This is Martha.  She was born on June 23, 2017.  Her colouring is called chamoisee.  She was raised by her mother named Scarlett.  She is a bit skittish but loves scratches once you get going.

This is Mellie.  She was born on June 15, 2017.  As you can see, she is black.  Her mother was Luna but she was bottle raised by Lynn, the farmer I adopted her from.  She is incredibly friendly, dog-like almost.  Her tail begins to wag like crazy when you come close in anticipation of scratches.  Mellie loves to eat.  Loves it.  She is much rounder than Martha, because she munches constantly.  This was the best photo I could get since she was so preoccupied with eating hay that I could not get her to look up at me.

These goats are tiny.  They are the same size as Charlotte, our biggest miniature schnauzer.  Because they are so small, I have housed them in the chicken coop for the winter - on the human (now goat) side.  There is a heat lamp in there to keep them warm and they have the company of three dozen birds.

This sounds like a great plan to me, though I am not sure the chickens are entirely on board.  When I put the goats in the coop all the chickens ran out and refused to go back inside.

If I can paraphrase chicken, "What the heck are those things?  Why are they in our coop?  What are they saying?  What is "Mahhhhhh!"?  Is that even a word?  Are they staying?  She expects us to live with them?!  Ugh!  The nerve."

But then it began to ice rain and dropped 16 degrees C in 2 hours.  This seemed to change their tune and everyone filed inside the coop to be warm and protected from the wind.  Freezing temperatures make strange bedfellows.

Done