Things
It's been a rough farm week.
- one of the hives was pronounced officially dead, which stinks. E still needs to take it apart and see if we can figure out why - dead queen? mites? foulbrood? Hopefully it's not disease and we can dump our new package of Russians in there to clean it out and feed off of the big honey supply the hive laid up before they kicked the bucket. We've never lost a hive before, so we're bummed.
- one of the goats had an abscess, and it looks for all the world like CL, which is a chronic thing she could give her kids. Once the abscess heals, we'll get her tested, and if she tests positive we'll have to bottle raise her kids. At least she'll be kidding in the summer, which makes bottle raising them at least a possibility. I'm thinking of finding her a new home in a CL-Positive herd if our other doe tests negative - I don't want to risk her getting infected. If they both test positive - who even knows!!!!
- the chicken deaths seem to have stopped - we were losing one every few days and probably lost six or seven total. Respiratory thing probably... the americaunas were hit the hardest and they are the least hardy birds we keep. Everyone else is happy and healthy and running around now, but we will probably need to build up our flock again. I have to remind myself we can never order ENOUGH chicks...
In better news, the pigs were moved/wrestled into the second to last garden we need turned over, and are happily digging up all the nasty deep taproots in there. My second quilt of the year is chugging along nicely - I'm quilting it by hand so I can do it while I watch tv at night. All three Nigerians are headed to thier new home this weekend - it'll be strange to have so few goats. I think the last time we had two was a couple of years ago on the rented farm, when we had just Daisy and Darwin, a pair of pygmies. OK, off to make lunch and then disinfect Gibby one more time.
- one of the hives was pronounced officially dead, which stinks. E still needs to take it apart and see if we can figure out why - dead queen? mites? foulbrood? Hopefully it's not disease and we can dump our new package of Russians in there to clean it out and feed off of the big honey supply the hive laid up before they kicked the bucket. We've never lost a hive before, so we're bummed.
- one of the goats had an abscess, and it looks for all the world like CL, which is a chronic thing she could give her kids. Once the abscess heals, we'll get her tested, and if she tests positive we'll have to bottle raise her kids. At least she'll be kidding in the summer, which makes bottle raising them at least a possibility. I'm thinking of finding her a new home in a CL-Positive herd if our other doe tests negative - I don't want to risk her getting infected. If they both test positive - who even knows!!!!
- the chicken deaths seem to have stopped - we were losing one every few days and probably lost six or seven total. Respiratory thing probably... the americaunas were hit the hardest and they are the least hardy birds we keep. Everyone else is happy and healthy and running around now, but we will probably need to build up our flock again. I have to remind myself we can never order ENOUGH chicks...
In better news, the pigs were moved/wrestled into the second to last garden we need turned over, and are happily digging up all the nasty deep taproots in there. My second quilt of the year is chugging along nicely - I'm quilting it by hand so I can do it while I watch tv at night. All three Nigerians are headed to thier new home this weekend - it'll be strange to have so few goats. I think the last time we had two was a couple of years ago on the rented farm, when we had just Daisy and Darwin, a pair of pygmies. OK, off to make lunch and then disinfect Gibby one more time.