A Greenhorn's Journal

[frustratedearthmother]

If you open very many quail eggs you might consider a quail egg cutter. They make the job a whole lot easier. I've seen them on both ebay and amazon.

 

[Baymule]

I raised quail many many years ago. I broke the tiny eggs into a measuring cup. Fried, there was a yolk in every bite!

 

[Lizzy733]

Daylight savings has hit and we're moving into fall.

I finally have a clutch of eggs in the incubator from my slw cockerel now that it's cooled enough that I don't think they'll end up cooked midday.

Have had a third sheep with the flystrike, but once again, not too severe. A bit of bad news for our first boy to get struck... He seems to have developed partial paralysis in his back legs. He had a flystrike wound on his back which took 'ages' to heal. I'd turned him out in the orchard with a few of the girls and he did well for a while before this started to develop. He was still getting around with the flock until I caught him off on his lonesome recently and moved him to the yard. He got a few days of rest there and the scab on his back finally cleared up, though the site is still looking tender.

I've been making sure he's up on his feet at least once a day and its hard to say whether there's improvement or not, honestly. I think he's been better since moving to the yard. I've since moved him in with the ram and wether for better grass. He's getting around a bit in there, but it's a bit of a steep paddock and he hasn't been keeping to the flats.

100% certain it's sciatic nerve damage, just unsure if he'll come right. His body condition is good, famacha is nice and pink (he was drenched when in for flystrike initially), he's alert and not showing any signs of pain, has a good appetite and can still get himself up on his feet when he tries. His hocks were curling under (not swollen that I could tell), but have straightened out a bit since his time in the yard. He sits up or stands front erect with his back legs bowed in and his rump with a down curve. He's a bit wobbly on his feet, with a wobble in his hips at times and is preferring to stay off his feet for the most part.

Anybody dealt with nerve damage in their flock? I know it 'might' heal, but takes a long time and may never come right.

We've had cyclone weather at the moment, which makes getting out to check on him a bit tricky, but I've been going out with a bit of nut at least once a day.

Any suggestions on how to manage this poor boy or should I just queue him up for slaughter? Anybody had any luck with something like this?

 

[Alaskan]

Any suggestions on how to manage this poor boy or should I just queue him up for slaughter? Anybody had any luck with something like this?

Huh... I would worry that some nasty parasite had crawled into that wound that was open for so long.....

That would be my guess.

In which case... well... you have parasites I probably haven't even heard about... wonder if it could be killed with some kind of medication... or if yeah... he should be sent to slaughter.

 

[Lizzy733]

Huh... I would worry that some nasty parasite had crawled into that wound that was open for so long.....

That would be my guess.

In which case... well... you have parasites I probably haven't even heard about... wonder if it could be killed with some kind of medication... or if yeah... he should be sent to slaughter.

He was treated with both matrix drench and encore pour on when the flystrike was discovered, so I'd be surprised if anything got through those. The injury was scabbed over the whole time, not actively bleeding, but I wonder if he didn't reinjured himself by scraping it on a low branch or something as the area has been wool-less for some time. His flystrike was severe and in several places, but all surface wounds. The one on his back, I initially missed, though the drench took care of the larvae. When I did find it, I treated it with iodine spray to ensure infection wasn't retarding its healing process. One entire leg was scabbed over (this has healed and is now regrowing wool). I'm hoping that now he's scab-free on his back that his motor functions will return as the skin in the area continues to repair. He's a black skinned sheep and the fresh skin is still light grey, so has a fair bit of mending still to do.

Poor guy has had such an uphill battle. Hopefully he'll come right. I have others I'd like to target for cull first, but need to wait for the weather to cool so they can at least be hung overnight and for our offal pits to empty a bit more.

I have one girl that is a full mouth and has an enlarged udder, which I've been told means she's likely has mastitis before and another with a crooked face that 'hates' being penned to the point she jumps 1.2m fences to get away like a psychopath, but will come to a bucket.. odd thing.

We don't really need the meat - haven't even gone through much of our first two culls... Wondering if I should get ahold of the meat works. Still have my ram, though I haven't let him breed. I could maybe throw one girl in with him as a trial run for myself with pregnancy and breeding, but still really want to get an arapawa boy in for the flock's future. We still have 11 girls out in the paddock and 4 boys in the ram's pen. Much less than our starting 22, but still more than I'd like.

 

[Alaskan]

He was treated with both matrix drench and encore pour on when the flystrike was discovered, so I'd be surprised if anything got through those. The injury was scabbed over the whole time, not actively bleeding, but I wonder if he didn't reinjured himself by scraping it on a low branch or something as the area has been wool-less for some time. His flystrike was severe and in several places, but all surface wounds. The one on his back, I initially missed, though the drench took care of the larvae. When I did find it, I treated it with iodine spray to ensure infection wasn't retarding its healing process. One entire leg was scabbed over (this has healed and is now regrowing wool). I'm hoping that now he's scab-free on his back that his motor functions will return as the skin in the area continues to repair. He's a black skinned sheep and the fresh skin is still light grey, so has a fair bit of mending still to do.

Poor guy has had such an uphill battle. Hopefully he'll come right. I have others I'd like to target for cull first, but need to wait for the weather to cool so they can at least be hung overnight and for our offal pits to empty a bit more.

I have one girl that is a full mouth and has an enlarged udder, which I've been told means she's likely has mastitis before and another with a crooked face that 'hates' being penned to the point she jumps 1.2m fences to get away like a psychopath, but will come to a bucket.. odd thing.

We don't really need the meat - haven't even gone through much of our first two culls... Wondering if I should get ahold of the meat works. Still have my ram, though I haven't let him breed. I could maybe throw one girl in with him as a trial run for myself with pregnancy and breeding, but still really want to get an arapawa boy in for the flock's future. We still have 11 girls out in the paddock and 4 boys in the ram's pen. Much less than our starting 22, but still more than I'd like.

Wow... lots of work.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

And sorry I can't be of any help.

 

[Lizzy733]

Goat Yoga

In reality, she was jealous ole Spotty Dotty was getting pats and she wasn't.

 

[Lizzy733]

Long time no post, overdue for a proper update:

The Sheep:
We decided our feral sheep were just way too much, so after culling and selling down to the 6 most mellow of our feral beasties, we are now in the process of slowly rotating out the old flock in favor of bottle-raised Wiltshire. (Hopefully blackshire one day and maybe a dorper or two)

We started with 3 in early September and, after a month of struggle, lost one. She was from a quadruplet birth and had recurrent issues cropping up out of the blue, including a bought with joint-ill and probable septicemia, though our vet couldn't pin down a cause for it. She came right after 4 days of antibiotics and we thought we were in the clear only for her to come down with bloat in the transition onto pasture and go downhill quickly. Our breeder was gracious enough to replace her, so one of our girls now is a month behind the rest. We plan to get another 3 from them next year, then bring in a ram the year after that to start breeding our own for meat. We plan to do a ram lamb and cull annually from there unless we get one that is particularly well-mannered, but not keeping my hopes up on that.

The Turkey:

We've had a rough start with these guys, so no turkey dinner this year. Our founding flock ended up with a bit if a skewed ratio - 3 boys to 2 girls. One boy fed us last year for thanksgiving, but our hatching season was almost a total loss.

Incubated eggs failed just before hatch, our broodies kept losing full nests, and finally, one girl had a successful hatch - then the cyclone came and they all ended up dying of pneumonia under mom. Our other girl started a nest beginning of fall. We took half the eggs into the incubator and finally a successful hatch, but lost many to medical issues that cropped up in development. We ended up with 2 girls surviving to adulthood.

We lost our other boy - looked to be kidney or liver failure going by the urates. He was a white tom, and a lot if his chicks were deformed in that first failed incubator hatch, so possibly an underlying genetic issue there.

This year's hatching has been much more fruitful under our lone bronze tom, but leaving the chicks free-ranging with mom has resulted in heavy losses. One mom has 2 out of 15 left that are about a month old. I have one separated from mom due to a leg injury and am hoping they come right. My other hen hatched hers about a month behind - 12 chicks, but is already down to 3 after a round of storms rolled through. We don't need heaps of turkey, but it has been a struggle to get our birds established and thriving.

The Pigs:

I can't recall if I posted, but we lost one of our boars, Rusty, who happened upon a sinkhole in our native bush section that opened up in a storm. Poor Spotty Dotty was devastated when his brother just never came home that night and went through a severe depression - complete with crying and tantrums. We quickly sourced a replacement piglet, Wattles. He's a barrow, which leads to him suffering a but of harrassment from Spotty now, but they immediately became fast friends and are inseparable. Neither of them range very far from the house, rarely even leaving the garden, which has been ideal for us. No complaints on our surrogate dogs. Spotty has tusks now and even at his most intense, I can still tell him off and he will stop what he's doing and pout about getting told off for a bit before getting up to find something else to do. They are good boys.

The Quail:
After suddenly losing the entire flock to, we assume, a stoat or rat, we've decided not to continue these little guys as there are no nearby breeders and they've proved more hassle than benefit.

The Chickens:

Never much drama from these guys aside from rooster bullying. We got a few mutts from last year's breeding and just did a small rooster cull last month. We currently have our two campine brothers, a half slw frizzle, and purebred slw remaining. Intending to try and rehome the slw as I have someone interested in him.

Both of my campine boys have eye injuries from farmyard squabbles and are partially blind. One is my lap buddy, but seems to have lost his depth perception recently and has been struggling to hop up on my lap on his own. He always gets spoiled for being such a good lil roo.

We want eggs over winter next year, so brought in 3 hyline chicks and two frizzled black Araucana chicks to bring in the blue egg gene. They're still coming in at night, but free-ranging during the day. The araucanas still look like girls. Pinkish combs, but still very flat and underdeveloped.

The Goats:

Surprise! We have goats now! It was a bit of an impulse buy - very cheap babies pulled off feral moms from a cull operation in early winter. We decided to cut our teeth with them as bottle babies before bringing in expensive sheep later in the year and it was a success! We had our struggles with bottle rejection along the way and two who were obviously thriving over the rest, but they all made it through to weaning and we now have 4 cheeky horned girls, half if which are very good at escaping the electric netting. We do not want a billy here full-time, but I'd like to put one over a billy and have a try at milking once they're 2. They are feral muts, so not expecting much milk, but I think even 500ml a day would be plenty to do a but of experimentation with cheeses and butters. Mostly, they will be used as bush clearers. We have plenty of forage trees and an encroaching gorse patch we'd like them to tackle in a paddock that needs electrifying. I'm not sure if standoffs at 400mm will be enough to deter my two escape artists. Am thinking of running a topwire too - this will be an addition to an existing 8 wire post and batten. Have already gotten the polywire and standoffs, just need to get out there and rig it up.

Surprise Babies:

I thought I was done with brooding for the season, but my husband found a pheasant chick on the side of the road getting dive-bombed by a territorial piwakawaka and brought it home when mom was nowhere to be seen. I then found a nest that was maybe 2 weeks along under a broody and kept the 15 most developed out of them to keep the pheasant chick company once they hatch - which is maybe half a week away. The pheasant has been doing well, eating and drinking, but still has a bit of a feral streak that's made handling difficult. It looked to be under a week when my husband brought it in. Small, but no egg tooth.

Future Plans:

Next year, I plan to try my hand at pekin duck - strictly hatching eggs raised for meat. We do have a little stormwater pond, but I know how messy ducks can be and do not want to keep them long-term. May alternate between duck and chicken hatching each season as I don't think we'll go through many in a year. We've been struggling to use all the lamb we had put in the freezer over winter XD.

My husband would really like an emu. Have told him to sort a tall enough enclosure first, so he has 5 years to do so - that's our personal cut-off for bringing one in considering their lifespan.


That's it for now, full update on the animal side of things. Renovations are ongoing, so much to do all the time. Just installed a new decorative gate on our greenhouse and a bunch of trellis skirting for the cabin. Now looking into a roller door for our storage container. Slowly getting through it while working from home. The focus this year is quality of life improvements and I feel like we're making some headway. Still have a lot of fodder trees to plant out. Wish us luck with keeping the goats and pigs off them while they establish.

 

[Mini Horses]

Yep it's been a while! . Glad you posted -- come back sooner . That is one hairy pig

 

[Baymule]

Y’all are figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Getting goat bottle babies was a good decision as is getting lamb bottle babies. Bit of advice, don’t raise a ram bottle baby. He will have no fear or respect for you and will get Rammy sooner. Most rams take about 18 months for the monster to show up, but there are exceptions to every rule. But you might be able to use a ram for a couple of breedings before sending him to Freezer Camp.