LAZY H FARM N/C FL. THREAD

[Farmer Connie]

@Farmer Connie, I have 4 breeding does and two bucks. I keep two does paired up on a breeding schedule offset from the other two by abt 5 weeks. When one pair kindled, the other pair get bred.

As two litters of weaned bunnies are going to grow out pens(feeder pens) my other two does kindle their litters. In five weeks when those two litters are ready to wean, the two litters that have grown out to 5lbs by 10 weeks are ready to process. And, the cycle continues.

I have 11 cages, and one is a spare. I generally at any one time have high 20's to mid 30's in my shed.

You have it going on! Very interesting. We thought about ending our Turkey venture and jumping on the wabbit bandwagon. Turkeys are seasonal profit and the rest of the time they just consume profit. They are eating machines.
Thanks for the 411 Pasture Dave

 

[Farmer Connie]

We are finally getting a break from the rain!!! Wahoooo!
Pulled some food dishes out of the quick sand. Mud and clay suction. Wow! We condemned 4 different swine pins before the earth swallowed our livestock. Ivernmection is our best friend right now. I have to send a Christmas card out to the chemical company boys this year.
Hubby got a bunch of screws installed in foot that hasn't healed completely, so I was the food dish fisherman. He wanted me to fall in so he video taped it. Thank God for arm length gloves. I would rather stick an arm into a sow's birth canal than the nasty mess the consistent rain has caused.
Video coming soon I suppose.
Florida.. "The Sometimes Sunshine State".
Focusing on the positive side.

 

[Farmer Connie]

All the rain! All the mud! Where is my food bowls?
In the quick sand.
Enjoy! I can tell hubby did..
​

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Been there - done that!! (but I didn't wear gloves - ugh)

 

[Mike CHS]

I'm sorry but we both had a few laughs at your expense. We will probably repay the favor several times at some point.

 

[Farmer Connie]

 

[CntryBoy777]

My goodness ya got quite the spread and operation going on there, for sure.....way too much for me to keep up with, I tell ya....but, it is certainly interesting to keep up with your goings on there. Seeing the ground sure reminds me of our old place south of ya....we had 3acres and at times at least half could be under water....the field was a retention area for runoff of state highway 19.....when hurricanes came thru we had to keep an eye out for the rising water. I have been all around those horse farms near Ocala, too....mighty high $$ animals there. I certainly don't want ya to think that I'm speaking ill of what ya are doing, but.....I think the chickens could use just a bit wider door....don't ya think?.....
The really good thing about the ground is it doesn't take too long to dig a post hole....unlike this concrete clay we have here now....after the first 8" ya need a pickaxe to loosen the dirt....

 

[Farmer Connie]

My goodness ya got quite the spread and operation going on there, for sure.....way too much for me to keep up with, I tell ya....but, it is certainly interesting to keep up with your goings on there. Seeing the ground sure reminds me of our old place south of ya....we had 3acres and at times at least half could be under water....the field was a retention area for runoff of state highway 19.....when hurricanes came thru we had to keep an eye out for the rising water. I have been all around those horse farms near Ocala, too....mighty high $$ animals there. I certainly don't want ya to think that I'm speaking ill of what ya are doing, but.....I think the chickens could use just a bit wider door....don't ya think?.....
The really good thing about the ground is it doesn't take too long to dig a post hole....unlike this concrete clay we have here now....after the first 8" ya need a pickaxe to loosen the dirt....

The chicken door thingy was a rare moment but was amusing! They were locked out all day because we had a mite prob and completely cleaned out the entire hen house. Floor, nesting boxes, perches, walls.. You name it is was cleaned. They usually have free passage to the house sunrise to sunset. They were confused and freaking out when we locked them out. The sun was low and their stress was high and their bellies were empty.

We have a tremendous clay prob on part of our property. Mostly in swine portion. That's why the bowl was stuck. It was glued to the clay bed. Some of are pens will not drain and are now poo ponds. Most of the posts in the pig pins took weeks to dig the holes. We pick axed and dug with iron bars to slowly dig out gumbo clay. No need for concrete when we packed the posts. Those babies are glued in. If not clay, it is massive lime rock we have to dig thru. Our neighboring farmers to the side of us have higher land and nothing but light dirt and sand. I imagine our place was a lake or pond back in the Seminole Indian days. We have found arrowheads. There is a small spring about 500 yards from our property. Just seeping though. Maybe it flowed long ago and kept this side full? I just know the rain is trying to reestablish the lake and my swine are becoming septic. Treating the ear tips right now with iodine. The conditions are disgusting and dangerous to their health. I might have to sell them all off at a loss if. The rainfall doesn't stop.
It is noon right now. It has been raining since 5 this morning.

Thanks for replying to the thread! Gotta head out.fc

 

[greybeard]

All the rain! All the mud! Where is my food bowls?
In the quick sand.
Enjoy! I can tell hubby did..
​

A sort-of related story follows...

My garden (the whole place really) is clay soil. It doesn't drain well, but during extended periods of rain you can still drive across most of it as long as you don't break thru the surface tension or disturb the soil. The big exception is my garden because of course it is tilled. You can't walk on it after it rains a couple inches without sinking down past your ankles, some places 1/2 way to your knees.
2015 was a wet year, and my garden was a quagmire and most of the plants had all already turned yellow from too much water but wife wanted a "few fresh squash if any are left" so I waded out into it and pulled a few and held them in my shirt tail, when I sunk down nearly to my boot tops. I'm one of those people with no hips and no butt (I'm like a bug, just got a hole in it's back) and can easily walk right out of my jeans if my belt isn't cinched up tight. Anyway, there I am stuck, one hand holding my shirt tail full of $2 worth of squash, stuck tight in the mud, trying to pull one of my feet lose at a time when my pants dropped down off my hips, so I dropped my shirt and it's squash in the mud and grabbed at my pants about the time one of my feet came out of my boot. So now, I'm balanced on one foot to keep my sock foot out of the mud when I lose my balance and plop right down nearly naked butt first right down in the mess, basically in my underwear and one foot askew still in my boot.

I just reached down, chunked the squash out on solid ground, finally worked my other foot out of the mud, pulled my other boot out f the mess and chunked it in the general direction of the squash, and crawled out of the slimy mess on all fours and pulled my pants back up over my muddy backside and timidly walked back inside the house with wife's precious squash..

That was the last year I bothered with a garden.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Where's the camera when you need it! But, I can't laugh too hard, cuz I can't count the times I've walked outa my boots in the same clay quagmire around here.