June Nineteenth:

We have just purchased an incubator and are starting to incubate some eggs. We have 7 Dominique and 5 Speckled Sussex chicken eggs. We also have 5 pheasant eggs- 2 are yellow golden and 2 are Red Golden. We’ve added 4 eggs of our own which will be of mixed breeding. We’re expected some Cinnamon Golden Pheasant and Phoenix and Welsummer chicken eggs this week from Ebay purchases. This is our first attempt and incubation- to this point we’ve only had natural incubation of chickens, duckling and goslings.

Other than that, things have been fairly quiet here. I’ve been doing the usual farm chores and weaving when it’s been wet. I’m trying to combat the weeds and the slugs in the garden with some success. The weather is finally starting to dry our so the goats are back on the blackberries again.

Since the rams can’t stay in with the Highland cows anymore. we have to find a new livestock guardian. We’ve used llamas and donkeys so far. The donkey’s didn’t work out because they got too fat on pasture and we caught Marty attacking one of our goats. The llamas have been no trouble and we’ve yet to have an attack but we want to keep it that way. I’m much more comfortable if there’s a guardian in each field of small livestock- the cows are on their own. I’m looking into getting a livestock guardian dog. I’ve been reading up on them for a while and now I’m looking into sources for purchasing one.

Our previous farm blog in at http://www.schoonoverfarm.com/farmblog if you’d like to read our previous year of farm blog entries and photos.