Rabbits!

The chickens are growing and now are kept inside in the evening.  We also added four easter egg chickens to our flock!

Rooster?  Sure acts bossy!

 The chickens stay outside during the day through the garage side door and in our little doggie fenced area! We suspect we may have two roosters. Of course this was not planned- but we see a trend with our flocks...

Now the chickens enjoy eating bugs, picking through grass, and compost!

Our ducks have grown considerably large!  We let them out by the pond but they prefer to stay close to the house!  They live on weeds and bugs at the time, but try and steal the rabbit and chicken feed!  Since they are Pekin ducks (which is mostly the type of duck sold at resturants), they tend to have a nervous disposition.  They do not let you pet them but at times will follow behind you. 

They ducks spend all their time together- by the way its Quackers and Howard the duck to be exact.

Mighty even spends time with Howard and Quackers!

Now for the new addition to Mighty Dog Farms!  Angora rabbits!

We have two German Angora rabbits (one female and one male), and one English Angora rabbit!

The hair of an Angora rabbit can be used to make thread to make really soft material! Once the hair gets about 3-4 inches long it can be combed our cut.  Angora rabbits need to be brushed twice a week in order to prevent any matting. 

 Bunny wants out!!

            

The animals are all getting along in the back yard!

     

The garden is coming along and extra spinach is growing up front!  Yum Strawberries!

 We planted a couple of nice pine trees along the road to help block out some noise.

 Chris also built an awesome bird viewing deck that we love to relax on after a long day of work.

New Chickens! Spring is here!

As many of you know, our chickens were slaughtered by what we believe was a bobcat a couple weeks ago.  We recently learned from our neighbors that they saw a bobcat in their backyard.  With this hard lesson we have revamped up our security on our coop and have started over again.  Heres some info on predators of chickens: 


http://www.raising-chickens.org/chicken-predators.html it explains what happens to your chickens as well.  There are many websites about predators of chickens- but the best thing is to prevent an attack by always closing up your chicken coop in the evening and have a good fence around the cooped in area. 

We have a combination of chicks this year. We have four giant chickens (similar to the jersey giants we had) and four yellow pullets which are mainly egg layers.  We are also planning on getting Araucanas (easter egg chickens) in a couple days when they are available.  As you can see by the picture, one of the giants is larger than the others and has different colorings.  We are wondering if it will be a rooster!  We need another rooster to protect our chickens again!  Our last rooster got one of the predators eyes out during the attack.  (Just what you wanted to know)


We also decided to get ducklings this year! They stay together and LOVE the water!

Spring has sprung in the recent weeks and flowers are bloomed!  Today, however, we had to cover them up due to frost last evening!

Wild flowers are growing on the hillside.  We even have our asparagus popping up! 

End of Summer

Mighty dog got skunked!!!! I came home from work at midnight and let mighty dog out and he went running after something. Of course he comes back snorting and shaking his head- he got skunked! We tried everything!  Tomatoe juice/soup (only place open at the time was walmart), baking soda and vinegar, and then the next day we stopped at the vet and got de skunking shampoo.  The tomatoe juice/soup really just masked the smell I think. The vinegar was similar.  The de-skunking worked well but he still smells when he gets wet!

Our first chicken egg!!!!  One chicken started laying and within a few days two others joined in!  However, one chicken is always flying outside the pen and we think its laying its eggs outside the pen but we can't find them!

Getting pumpkins ready for the wedding!

Flooding in the area- lizard creek!

The sunflowers are coming out!

Mighty getting along with the chickens....

Huge garden spider!!! Tomatoes are slowing down, but got some surprise last minute cucumbers.... 

Relaxing at mauch chunk park!

The chickens are roosters!

So when our "hens" started cock a doodle doing- we decided they may be roosters instead of the hens we paid for!  As far as we can tell only two are roosters- however- they are starting to fight with each other now and again and also to harrass the hens.  It may be time for a ROOSTER ROAST soon.  The hens haven't started laying eggs yet- which could be due to excess stress with too many roosters bossing them around.

The lake really got high with all the recent rainfall.  The dock started floating away!  Lately, turtle have been sunning on top of the hay bails!

The pumpkins are really popping up everywhere! 

However, I started noticing some dead vines and on closer inspections I found the dreaded SQUASH BUGS!!! They look like stink bugs but a bit skinner and grey!  They were everywhere! All sizes.  Laying their red eggs on the bottom of leaves and tiny ones emerging.  I spray soap water on them and dunked them in soap water buckets- but it seems impossible to get rid of them.  Its important to inspect leaves daily to look for them and get rid of them before they become a big problem.  You can use insectide but we prefer not to.

AHHH!

The corn is looking good! Ready for another bbq?

The grapes are beginning to turn purple- and taste much better!  We think they may be concord grapes- so we will give winemaking a try!

I've been making tons of tomatoe sauce and soup and freezing it for winter time! yum.

And on a funny note...who are these people?