The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Every day has it's challenges, some days can be pretty good one minute and the next everything comes crashing down.  Yesterday was one of those days.  For my Valentine's Day gift from my husband, he told me I could get the materials for breeding pens.  It has been something I have wanted for quite awhile.  So I went with him and dropped him off at work on Saturday.  I had to go to town and had someone interested in hatching eggs, so I took them with me and they met me to pick them up.  That went off without a hitch, but my trip for the materials, not so much.

When you live in a tiny town and have to drive 30 plus miles to pick up specific things for a decent price, you make the most of it.  I picked up a few grocery items, then went to the Home Improvement store for wood.  Saturday's are usually awful shopping for anything and the weather has been so nice, everyone was out in hordes.  I could not get anyone to help me pull and load the wood, except customers who saw me struggling with the plywood...well, not at first anyway.  I loaded raidient barrier decking by myself, an older gentleman helped me and so did another lady with the plywood.  I pulled everything else except the 2"x4"x8' that there were not enough of on the shelves.  It took a long time going through the line, they opened a lane and the man behind me ran to it...they said credit cards only...that guy misunderstood, but had cash but it took time to sort it all out because the register did not have any cash in it for change.  After a lot of back and forth and trying to come up with the proper cash, it was my turn.  I could not pull my carts through the line so they took the price gun and scanned everything and told me they would load everything for me, because they would have to pull the 2"x4"s from out front.

I paid and went and got my truck and moved it close to the loading area.  Another man backed in before I had the chance, so I had to wait my turn.  He had a large load and no help to load it.  It looked like he was completely redoing a bathroom or two with all the tile, toilet, sinks and cabinetry and wood, either that or building one from scratch.  It took awhile, once he moved it had been about half an hour, I checked the time and it was almost 1:30pm...I was suppose to pick my husband up at 2:00.  I called him and told him I was waiting for my stuff to be loaded and I would be late picking him up.  I pulled in and the guy who had told me they would come load my truck was no where to be found.  I pulled and shoved my carts to the loading area and started unloading the smaller wood into my truck.  I am kind of a stickler keeping things neat and tidy doing this, trying to fill the bed of the truck so the load would not shift.  After I had unloaded about half of it, the man who had checked me out ran by, went and got carts and took them into the store, then came back out to help me.  We got everything loaded but the 2"x4"s and he told me to drive and follow him.  I backed up to the pile and he started loading them in...I got out and started helping, one reason I like to do the loading is I get to select the wood...and I pick wood that has the fewest knots and no splits...and straight...he did not, so I was loading as fast as I could.

Here is were things start getting bad.  I had the tailgate down and left it down because I had 12 foot lengths of wood.  I went and got red flags to put on the ends but they had nails to put them on with.  I didn't bring a hammer with me.  The wood was wet, so I tried pushing them in with my thumbs, it hurt, so I grabbed some paper and folded it several times and shoved those nails at least an inch and a half into the ends of the wood.  I got the tie down straps and tried to tie the wood down the best I could, as tight as I could.  I thought the load was pretty evenly balanced and the weight was really heavy so it should hold everything down well the way it was stacked, no side to side movement either...I was so wrong.  There is a little hill to get out of the parking lot...and bed liners are super slick.  I am so glad there was no one behind me when it happened.  I heard a noise felt jolt, the truck bounced and then I heard a loud crash...I lost my entire load, one big neatly stacked pile slid right out of my truck onto the driveway in the parking lot.  A man drove up, I am not sure if he saw what happened, but he asked me if I could use a hand...just seconds before, I was feeling like crying and wondering how the heck was I going to get all that wood back into my truck by myself?

There are many good people in this world, a man his wife and two daughters also stopped to help.  It was chaotic wood going everywhere and to make sure the wood stayed in the truck, we put the tail gate up and just piled everything in, it ended up being a hap hazard mess, but it was reloaded and the second man even when and got additional tie straps out of his truck and he and his wife tied the load down for me.  I thanked them all and asked if I could mail the tie down straps back to him and he said it was not necessary, he had a lot of them and always bought more on sale...not to worry about it.  I did not inspect the load, they wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall out so I slowly drove out of the parking lot, nothing shifted but once I got on the highway I was worried, the truck shimmied in the wind really badly.  It was not evenly loaded and the front of the truck was lighter than the back.  I drove slowly back to pick up my husband...I was an hour late.

My husband drove home, the truck continued to shimmy.  It was a bit scary, but we made it...next time, I think I will just go ahead and pay for delivery...I was trying to save money.  We pulled the truck down into the yard and unloaded it close to the area I had planned to build.  We put pallets down first and stacked the wood on top of them.  The ugly...well, the wood was so heavy that it bent the top of the tailgate of the truck, something I had avoided originally by leaving the tailgate down...but that is how I lost my load.  My husband used a rubber mallet and tried to pop the metal back into place, it worked pretty well...not much I can do about it now anyway.  So, I learned another lesson...I am not sure how heavy all that wood really was...but it was wet and a lot of it heavier than usual, and I know I had a heck of a time even moving the carts it was loaded on.  I know what not to do now, no more open tailgate with a load of wood...bedliners are slick and any incline can make them slide...even with tie downs if it is heavy enough it won't stop it from sliding right out.  I also learned it is best not to put a large amount of wood, especially wet wood...stacked on top of your tailgate.  I have no clue how much it actually weighed...but I know it is too much if I can't move the cart made for that purpose.

Oh well, I will be busy next week...building.  I hope I can get the breeding pens completed pretty quickly.  Once I can separate breeds I should be able to sell full breed chicks.  It would be nice to be able to actually make enough money to feed them every week too, now if I can just get rid of 30 or 40 roosters or more, things will start looking up.  I must get busy, I have brooders to clean and a baby goose pipping, incubators to check and laundry to do.  I am sure glad my husband cooks on the weekends, at least I know we will eat good...I don't eat too much during the week sometimes, just get so busy I don't think about it much and time passes by quickly when you are busy.

Letting Go

OK, one of the he hardest things there is for me to do is to let go of my babies.  I have been hatching geese and ducks and have been selling them.  It is not so bad selling eggs, but there is a lot of work involved in all of my poultry endeavors and after collecting the eggs, setting them in the incubator, checking them multiple times a day for humidity and temperature, some hand turning each egg twice a day, candling them and inspecting the growth rate, seeing the small signs of life blooming in the egg, waiting and performing these tasks every day for anywhere from 21 days for chickens to 30 days for geese...waiting for the first pip, trying my best to make sure they all make it...even if it means helping.  It is just hard...I hope it gets easier.

I sold 16 ducklings and 3 goslings this week, I have sold 3 dozen hatching eggs too...but, I have filled all of my egg flats and the fridge I keep eggs in.  I have a lot of eggs.  I have duck eggs and chicken eggs all over my kitchen, I have a few small first turkey eggs and all three geese are laying now...but I keep putting their eggs in the incubator...it is getting full, but it won't be long and I should have a couple more hatching...and I have four reserved and more people wanting some as soon as they are available.  It shouldn't be much longer and my turkey hens should all start laying, the first eggs I have found are about the size of chicken eggs...but should get bigger...then I will hatch them too.

I think chicks are the easiest to hatch and care for, geese don't really move around much the first two days, but their shells are so thick I imagine it takes a lot out of them and they need time to recover.  Ducks recover quicker and generally start scooting around pretty quickly after the break out of the shell.  Waterfowl are extremely messy though, the older they get as babies the worse it gets because once the discover water they start playing in it, drench their bedding numerous times a day, the more they drink and eat the more they poop too...and that is a lot.  I had 17 ducks, I kinda wanted to keep a couple that were not full breed...they had a black diamond shape on their head were gold colored and had a black tail...but after taking care of them for over a week I decided to sell them all...I listed I had 16 for sale, but I had 17 and ended up throwing one in for free so it wouldn't be alone.  I gave that customer a dozen duck eggs too, they said they really liked eating them and I have an over abundance of them, I was just going to pitch them into compost soon if I didn't sell them.

I basically have a waiting list for goslings now, and people want me to call them when I have turkeys available too.  It is easier for me to sell them just after hatching so I don't interact with them much and form attachments...makes it easier to let them go.

Inside Work Today

I hate to think I still overwork my body, but I do.  I just don't realize how bad until the next day.  I mucked out several coops and tilled and my wrists and arms are feeling it today.  I picked up feed buckets yesterday and it hurt my ribs too, so instead of trying to remove all the spent/composted bedding in the run of the big coop, I have been cleaning and organizing some.  I got the pantry done and I am almost done with the laundry room.  I keep egg cartons and containers in there.  I have been throwing things on top of the fridge and freezer in there in plastic bags.  I finally organized all of them and wiped down, dusted a bit...got fifty million grocery sacks out of the pantry too.  So I am not resting...just changing the muscles I am using, well except probably when I vacuumed and mopped.

I have another gosling trying to hatch, it started pipping yesterday.  It is not due to hatch until tomorrow.  It made no progress overnight which concerned me.  I have picked at the shell and removed enough to make sure it can breath and I can add a little water inside the shell every couple of hours.  I won't pick any more shell off until tomorrow, and then only if it has not escaped or made progress.  I have ducks that will need to go on lockdown soon too.  Mercy, Hope and Gracie are all doing well.  Mercy has chewed on her wing stub a bit, I started spraying it with Scarlet Oil more often.  I am just trying to get her to heal up...she will be a keeper.  I tend to get attached to my special needs critters.  Maybe we can hope for a miracle for her and her wing will regenerate?

The nine baby ducks are doing really well, they are cute little boogers, but messy as all get out.  I have changed out their bin twice today because they are playing in the water and pooping up a storm. I am using five layer puppy training pads in the brooder bins and they still got all wet and nasty.  I hate giving them a bath so early in life, but it may end up being a necessity.  It probably doesn't help that Hope the gosling is in with the ducks she is ten days old now, but since we put her in with the ducks we can tell she has grown, in just two days.  I tried putting her back in with Mercy, but Mercy grabbed her by the tail and was tossing Hope around so, I put her back.  She is slightly larger than the ducks now.

I sold 10 dozen eggs today, I know he is going to hatch them.  I didn't wash them or refrigerate them so it was easier on me.  He is going to set more on the 16th and asked me if I would have more then.  I am going to hatch chicks soon, just trying to get some things done first and I would like to have breeding pens built so I can hatch full breed chickens.  My chickens are laying like gangbusters so I will have them, even after selling him 10 dozen I probably have 25 dozen still and I have not gathered eggs today yet.  I have been getting 4 dozen plus eggs a day lately.  Ah well it is about feeding time and I still have to finish my kitchen mess.  I just thought I would write while I am taking a break.

Geese, Ducks and Gardening

We have had two more geese hatch and 9 ducks now, our oldest goose baby we have named Grace or Gracie.  We tried to sex it and the two others, they all looked the same and we think are girls.  I am thinking their names are Grace, Hope and Mercy.  One is very small...she is Hope, because I hope she gets bigger soon!  Lol, she is half the size of the other one born the same day.  I decided on Mercy for the other one, we moved all of the geese together in one brooder...we now know it was a mistake.  My husband put Hope in the brooder with the newly hatched ducks because Grace was picking on her.  We went outside to do some repairs and chores and he heard screaming...I didn't hear them because I was tilling.  But soon after I came in the house to check on them...Mercy was soaking wet cold and her wing tip section was gone...she had a long tendon looking thing hanging off what was left of her wing.  Mercy and Hope are one week old...Grace is three weeks old, she is larger...but we didn't think she would be a cannibal!

I washed Mercy and inspected her, she was shaking so I wrapped her in a towel and held her.  She gradually warmed up, dried and I sprayed scarlet oil on the tendon thing that was left.  I put her in a brooder by herself.  Little did we know she would chew the tendon off!  Geeze, I had no idea these cute fluffy balls of feathers could be so mean and cruel.  The moral to the story is...do not put different sized baby geese together!  Hope has a little damage, some of her down is missing, but no body parts, she and the baby ducks are the same size...so she is safe in with them.  I ended up trimming off what looked like a string with a couple of tiny feathers off of Mercy...she is doing fine this morning.  We moved Grace out to a brooder in the shed, she is by herself, but she has grown so quickly she quickly outgrew the indoor brooder in the house.  She is in a small swimming pool with wire around the edge about 30 inches high.  We tried to sex the 8 week old ducks, we think we might have three girls...I don't know, we really couldn't see any difference.  We will know for sure in another couple of months anyway.

I got another cattle panel coop completed, it has been named The Stadium.  Why you ask?  Well, I made a roost for it that reminds us of stadium seating.  The bottom section is open so the roosters housed in it can run around, dust bathe, and eat without problems.  The "seating" part are 2"x4"s flat side up and stair stepped up with about 18 inches between the levels.  I am hoping so they don't poop on each other...that they are far enough apart so their tail feathers don't get damaged too.  Some of them roost on them a lot to keep from getting attacked by the other roosters.  I have a couple of food dishes that I fill and set on the steps to make sure they get food, it is fermented feed so it has water in it too...in case some of the roosters are protecting the waterer and those aren't getting enough.  I may hang a nipple type waterer high up so they can get to it too.  After the roosters have been been in it awhile, I am hoping I can let them out to range in the yard and they will return to The Stadium.  I can close that yard so hopefully they won't fly out and start trouble with other roosters or gang up on hens.

I also am working on tilling a big garden area in front of the house.  I hate putting it out there, but it may be the only way to actually get any vegetables.  I will have to move some plants and fence the area because of our rabbit issues, and the wild dogs and coyotes, oh and deer.  I will have to move some fencing from other areas, but since the chickens ate my garden last year...I don't want them to be able to see what I plant.  I may plant something specifically for them in my old garden areas...not sure yet.

Well...I must get busy, I need to remove my composted chicken poop from the big run...before it rains again, I need to move it to the front yard too.  My husband got the tiller and the garden tractor out for me yesterday.  I got about a 20 foot by 80 foot garden area tilled yesterday before the tiller had a flat.  I also got Dormant oil sprayed on my fruit trees.  I bought a few more trees from the feed store and need to finish planting them and some blueberries, along with transplanting blueberries, herbs and strawberries to the front area.  Lots to do...