New Arrivals!

A little back ground - When I was born, my family lived on this farm, but our house was about 1/2 "over the hill" from here as the crow flies. Whe had chickens (LOTS of chickens), cattle, hogs, a horse, and of course, dogs and cats.

My wife and I moved an older farm house onto the place a couple of years ago. Last Fall, her dad gave us some chickens "out of the blue". We were in Missouri visiting and he boxed some up and we loaded the back of the Ford Expedition with anxious cluckers. We brought them home on a Sunday afternoon to - nothing! I didn't have a place to put them! I ended up using an old calf waterer turned sideways and some chicken wire to build a make-shift pen for them to stay in for a couple of days. My nephew came by and we built a 13' x 13' coop from scrounged materials. It took us about 8 hours and cost $3.50 to build! The DOOR LATCH cost $4.59! The chickens have been happy since.

Fast forward to this February - Once again we are in Missouri visiting. Once again her dad gives us chickens. We knew about them this trip, so we brought a couple of pet taxis to haul them in. While we were there, her dad decides to give us two bred goats as well! We not only didn't have a barn, nor fenced pasture, we didn't bring the pickup stock racks I bought at an auction for 50 cents! We used 3 old bed springs to hold the goats.


After a lot of strange looks (especially at McDonalds), we had our goats to their new home - my tractor shed! I have since built a small barn and fenced in a small pasture for them, but still need to do more. The new kids were born on 14 March and 24 March - a set of boy/girl twins for each mom! I can safely say that these are the first goats ever born on this farm!

Now for today! I went out to gather eggs this evening and found that the one hen I have that was ADAMANT about setting has started to hatch her brood! These are the first new chickens to be born here since the late 60's! I REALLY need to get a brooder house built SOON! As soon as I am sure that all of the eggs that are GOING to hatch, HAVE hatched, they will have to be moved away from the other birds.