Our adventures in "Goating"

We went to the Denver Chicken Swap back in August 2012, and ran into our friends from One Badger Farms.  They were selling lots of different types of animals, including chickens, kittens, and goats.  One goat, in particular caught my eye.  His name was Fred (a stupid name for a goat IMO, but the name stuck).

After some begging and pleading, I convinced my husband that Fred needed to come live in our backyard.  I convinced him by telling him that he'd never have to mow the lawn again.  I quickly became a goat expert...by googling info about goats.

Fred ate all the weeds in the backyard, he ate all the weeds in the side yard, he ate all the weeds in the front yard...he did not eat the grass.... so much for selling the lawn mower....  That was okay though.  Fred was an AWESOME pet!  He would climb in our laps when we went on the patio, he ate out of our hands, he headbutted the chicken-killing dog! He would cry for us when we weren't outside...how cute :-)...until I realized we could hear him while we were in the house.  This was a problem.

You see, goats are not exactly "allowed" where we live.  And Fred was really noisy.  I was worried about the neighbors getting annoyed and calling animal control.  So Fred went back to One Badger Farms.  Since we know the owners, we did get up to visit Fred a few times after we returned him.

I kept trying to figure out a way to get Fred back.  Maybe if we had TWO goats he'd be quieter, or maybe we could make a home for him in the garage...but there really wasn't a solution that would be very fair to Fred.  He belonged on a farm.

Unfortunately, in October, Fred passed away after eating some noxious weeds.  But I'm anxious to try the goat thing again....as soon as I figure out how to shut them up!

RIP Fred the Goat.

The story continues. . .

Snooki, Jwoww, and Fluffy grew like crazy and soon, I realized they were going to need a larger space, then the kennel I had moved them into in the garage.  So, I went into my backyard and looked around.... ah ha! The pool house/shed would be perfect...after a little work....



I painted and hammered, and had the hubby cut some holes for me for ventilation  and after many hours of work...I had a chicken house, and chicken run!

We moved the hens into their new home, and we added an new bird to the flock.  We got our first barred rock, and moved them all in together.  Everything was GREAT!  My chicken-raising-expert skills were paying off! In just a few short months we'd have more eggs then we know what to do with.  UNTIL....

Notice the dog

Boston, the big, stupid, bloodhound killed Snooky!  The big, stupid, dog became chicken OBSESSED! He outsmarted me, the chicken EXPERT, at every turn!  

He looks so innocent!!!

No matter what I did, I couldn't keep that darn dog away from the chickens!  He killed all. of. them!  I bought more...he killed those, too.  I was beginning to think maybe I'd wasted enough money on chickens.  We'd only gotten about a dozen eggs by that time, and that dozen had cost us over $100!  Not exactly a savings.

But, the nice guy at Murdochs's told us we could try putting up some cattle fencing around the run.  It seemed to do the trick.  So far, (knocks on wood), he hasn't been able to get the ones we have now.  

Currently, we have a flock of 5 hens (1 Bantam black Cochin, 2 Speckled Sexlinks, 1 Brahma, and 1 Easter Egger) and 1 rooster (Bantam Cochin).  We are getting about 2-3 eggs a day, but not all of our chickens have matured, yet.

On to the next adventure:

One of our chickens has gone broody, which means she sits on the nest and won't move, because she's waiting for her eggs to hatch.  Well, since we've only had a rooster for about 3 days, her eggs will never hatch, since they're not fertilized.  Hmmmm...what to do?  I just bought some fertile eggs from an online seller, and I'm going to stick them under her broody butt!  We're hoping to get a chick or two out of the nest :-).  Our daughter is very excited by this possibility.

This sparked a new passion: I want to start a small-scale backyard hatchery.  What I've discovered since embarking on the backyard farming adventure, is that I have to drive FOR. EV. ER. to get chicks, and chickens, and forget trying to buy fertilized eggs locally. . . I have to order them online.

So I spent the better part of the last few days building an incubator.  I'm super excited to see it in action!  Here's some pictures:

Outside

Inside

I'll keep you posted....

Also, we're planning a pretty large-scale backyard garden that we're going to be starting on soon.

In the beginning...

Homesteading is not the term we used when we first started our journey.  Actually, it didn't start off as a journey at all, it was more of an adventure; a throw it at the wall and maybe it will stick sort of idea.

I was homeschooling our then 7yr old daughter, and wanted to do a fun science project.  That's how it started....I was doing research for a 1st grade science project.  I wanted to have her hatch some eggs.  So the research started: how much is an incubator? What happens if the eggs don't hatch? What do we do with the chickens after they hatch? How's the kiddo gonna feel if we have to give the chickens away? What happens if one dies?!? 

Since I was sort of a slacker when it came to homeschool teaching, the questions mostly just mulled around in my mind.  I wasn't serious enough to actually find the ANSWERS to any of those questions.  Heaven forbid I google "how to hatch chickens."  So the whole chicken idea was just an idea until I invited a friend from high school to my son's 2nd birthday party.  She happened to live on a farm and had chickens!  (You can learn more about her and her farm at http://www.facebook.com/gettoknowyourfarmer?fref=ts) Soooooo, I did what ANY friend would do in that situation: I asked her 10,000 questions and sucked her dry of information!  What I discovered was that I should start with chicks, I could buy just females, and the town I lived in allowed a small number of hens in backyards.  The next day,I went to the library, checked out Chickens for Dummies (yup, that's a REAL book), and by 5:00 that evening, I was a chicken EXPERT!  I even called my friend and told her everything I learned.  I think by that point, I knew more than she did, LOL!  By 6:00pm, I had convinced my husband to order some Jersey Giant chicks, and the idea became a reality 3 days later when they arrived.

We named them Snooki, Jwoww, and Fluffy.  I made a homemade brooder from an old cooler, and the chicks grew like crazy.  I was chicken OBSESSED!

I figured that would be the end of the story, but it turns out - it was just the beginning...