HAWK!

Last night when we went to put the ducks to bed in their house they wouldn't go in. So we took a look into the house and what should we find, but a HAWK sitting on the perch. The only way it could have gotten is was to crawl through the door the ducks go through, making us think that it isn't a completely wild bird. This hawk has been eating our ducks for almost a year now, so we decided that it couldn't keep eating our livestock. We somehow managed to get it into a cage and set it up in the summer kitchen. Then for the rest of the night we called around trying to figure out what to do with it. Here are some of the options people gave us:
1) Shoot it ( D: )
2) Let it go
3) Try to scare it away from coming back to the farm (which is unlikely to work) or,
4) Drive it really far away and hope it can't find its way back
We opted out of the first two options, and since everybody we asked said the hawk wouldn't stay away even if we did a whole bunch of stuff making the farm seem unattractive so eventually we decided to drive it as far away as possible. The next day we had a hawk release "party" at Factory 163 (for more information about Factory 163 see www.factory163.com) and let the hawk go.

Sadly the story doesn't end here because the hawk did come back... We think. Otherwise within 2 days of the hawk leaving, a different hawk showed up which is a bit unlikely...

A... Rabbit?

I never really thought Titania was a good hunter. This was all changed by what she caught today... We were eating lunch, looking out the window, when suddenly we notice Titania. With a bunny bigger than her head. And she was moving towards the dog door! So we all rushed towards the other end of the house (and I grabbed my camera on the way!) in the hope to stop her before she brought it inside. We were too late. By the time we got to the back door, she was already in the house, upstairs, in the middle of my room! I took a picture of her with the bunny in her mouth before I would let anyone try to take it away from her.

After that I let everyone run after her. She dropped the bunny (which turned out to be fine!) and watched us as we tried to catch it. We grabbed a butterfly net (that just happened to be lying around) and shut my door so it wouldn't have free range of the whole house. Eventually we caught it and put it in a shoe box. Then we took it outside and let it run away. This is a picture I took of it right when we let it get out of the net. It sat on the grass for a couple seconds, then bounded away! Finally we have an animal story that ends happily!

Spring Fur and Feathers Show

I can't believe I completely forgot to write about this! The spring fur and feathers show was last weekend. We got up at 5:30 to get there (ick) and brought a variety of birds to sell, including: Pompom (a black banty braham), Rusty (a orange-ish random rooster), 2 Araucana crosses, a dozen Ameraucana hatching eggs, 2 Ameraucana roosters, and a pair of Black Jersey Giants. Sadly, we only sold the eggs and one of the Ameraucana roosters. Hopefully we have better animals by the fall show!



Now onto the fun stuff; what we saw and bought!

The very first animals we got were a pair of buff ducks because we really like the one we got in the fall last year. They are very pretty ducks, although so far they don't seem to want to interact with the other buff duck which is a bit of a problem.

Next we got a Rhode Island Red chicken, mostly because it reminded us of a children's book called "Oliver's Chickens", which is a very cute book! She is a really pretty burgundy colour, and we've already named her Ruthy. Not the most original name, but it alliterates which I find amusing.

We also got another girl quail because Quincy (the boy quail we already have) is pulling all the feathers out of the 3 girls we have for him. Apparently 3 girls to 1 boy isn't a good ratio so he needs more!

The last thing we got was an American Buff goose. This was a bit of an adventure because they were un-sexed, and we really don't need another gander! Luckily we managed to guess which one was a girl. The only reason we know this is that when we brought her home and introduced her to the other animals, she immediately went over to Carter and they've been inseparable ever since! It was love at first sight for them... The only problem is that Carter is VERY protective of his new girl, and is being even more argumentative than ever!

More new birds

Yesterday morning (very, very early) we got some new animals! We got 18 turkey poults, 3 Jungle fowl chicks, and 3 Silver Splash Cochin's!

Birds have an uncanny ability to look dead when they are sleeping. I always have to check their still alive; they get me every time! Turkey poults are always really cute, then again, most baby animals are cute!

Jungle Fowl chicks always have a little bandit mask that makes them look like they're up to no good. They're relatively small chicks, mostly because they are relatively small chickens. We got these guys because we seem to be all out of Jungle fowl roosters... And surprisingly enough, it's hard to breed chickens if you only have hens! Hopefully these chicks will sort out our problems and soon we can hatch our own Jungle Fowls.

Cochin's are the newest variety of chickens at our farm! We saw some this year at the fur and feathers show, and decided we had to get some! We waited to get ours from an actual hatchery, instead of at the (slightly overpriced) show. These are some really funny chicks! They are going to be HUGE and have fluffy legs! Hopefully they work for us, and as soon as they're fully grown I'll put more pictures and information on here about them.

Kaslo the Puppy has... One ear!

This is a picture of Kaslo. As you can see, one of his ears has decided that it is going to stick up... The other one hasn't quite made up it's mind, and is usually down but occasionally comes up. Now he looks really funny, and not very scary with his awkward asymmetrical look! We really hope that the other ear will go up; we even tried to tape his other ear up. We couldn't get the hang of it though, and we didn't want to hurt him so we didn't even attempt to glue them up together. Hopefully it will fix itself out, and we won't have a "guard dog" that makes people laugh!

Names for the Pigs

We have decided on names for the pigs! Angelina is the name of the big sow, and the 2 little boys are going to be called Hock and Hammy. The hock is the part of the leg right above the hoof, for those of you who aren't well acquainted with the parts of the pig. I think it's cute! Although there are other people who disagree with me and think it's not funny at all. Oh well...