"Animals Don’t Care About Your Farm Plans"

I've got to admit, this is a little bit disconcerting. I do not know where my cattle are. No luck with the buck this morning, but we do have to do farm chores, so please come with me, my friends. And good morning, my large white farm dogs. Good morning, Mr. Toby dog. How are you, buddy? Good to see ya. And hi, Miss Abington, how are you? Stay. Sit. Stay. Abby's actually better at commands than Toby. Toby gets excited about the treat and then kind of ignores it. Abby knows that she needs that manners. Abby, stay. Stay. Good girl. And so she is actually way more obedient than Toby dog. I think the reason I would say that Toby dog is better at his job than Abby dog is, even though he's not as obedient, he's much more self-directed, and that means he knows how to do the job much better than she does. Yeah, even though you're getting better, you're still a bit of miss, Miss. And that is how she acquired the nickname Miss Behaven. Hey, weirdos, here's your food. Give you weirdos some fresh water, too. But yeah, the weird chicken flock has settled into this area nicely. Captain Janeway remains with the flock, Deb remains with the flock, and Carmen remains with the flock, too. And so I think this is gonna be my winter weird chicken crew. You know, we still have to come up with names for the three sisters here. But I'm actually realizing as I look at the four of them that one of them is actually probably a rooster. So the original mother is Lavender Brown. She's actually the one who is closest to the house. And then these three hatched out this spring. And I thought they were all three hens, but as I'm looking at them right now, I'm realizing that this guy right here, and I'm talking about you, I'm pretty sure he's a rooster. So he might have to go elsewhere because I don't wanna have him breeding next spring with his mom or his sisters. I don't know, I'm just looking at it, and I'm curious what you guys think in the comments, but just looking at them, I think based on what I'm seeing with his head and his crown, I'm pretty sure he might be a rooster. Like here, let me try to do the side-by-side comparison for you. So this is the fella that I think is a rooster, and this is his sister. And when I look at the two of them together, while it's kinda hard to tell from their tail feathers, as I'm looking at his head, and particularly as I'm looking at the spots here, it's actually very similar to what I've seen on a lot of silky roosters. Versus if we look at her head, I don't know, she doesn't have the same apparatus. Like here's the side-by-side. Now I don't wanna rush to judgment too soon, so I will keep him around for a while. I'm not planning on doing any hatching until the spring anyway. And so because of that, I'm not too worried about inbreeding with this guy. I still haven't heard him crow though, which is, at this age, he should be crowing. And so, I don't know, we'll keep looking, and we'll keep watching. And yeah, we need names for these guys, but I'm not exactly sure what naming scheme would be best for them, given this new information that I quite literally just discovered this morning. All right guys, let's go greet the birds. Good morning, birds! How's everybody doing this morning? Wow, it is actually very warm inside here this morning. I finally closed everything up for the winter and sealed off all the sides. And I even closed the back door here. And while it's about, I don't know, 35 degrees Fahrenheit here this morning, inside here, I don't know, it's probably like 60 degrees. I can really feel the warmth. It's something in here. And actually, yeah, I gotta go to the store today, and so maybe I'll buy a new thermometer to put in here, so that we'll be able to do the real-time comparisons this winter between inside the Hoop Coop Tent versus outside the Hoop Coop Tent. Generally speaking, I find that it's about 20 degrees Fahrenheit warmer inside here, but that can definitely change depending on how much sunshine we've been getting, as well as how cold it has been the previous week or so, because those factors make such a difference in heating this space. Release the quacken! Hang on, you guys, let me get your water going. So yeah, the water system is still working out pretty great. It's easily shaving off a chunk of time on my morning chores. So typically what I'll do is just turn it on, let the water start giving everything a quick rinse, and then I can just kind of set it and forget it. It appears one of the ducks just decided to lay this egg, I don't know, no more than 30 seconds ago. They pick the strangest and sometimes grossest places to drop their eggs. You know, one thing I know I'm gonna have to figure out is this area is just gonna get so gross and muddy. I think I'm gonna need to come up with some creative ways to deal with the sludge. And so anybody has suggestions, let me know. All right, let's let the feeding frenzy commence. So I don't know if you guys just noticed what happened right there, but that was how our blind duck, Bean, gets around in the world. So Bean the blind duck, who's this brown duck who's actually standing in the middle of the food trough right now. She actually hatched out on our farm about, I don't know, I guess it was about three years ago, maybe almost four years ago. 2021, so three years ago. And she was originally raised with a goose, Frank the goose, who I actually don't see in these geese over here, but is still on the farm. They were best friends and they were raised together because I had some ducklings hatch out and then had some goslings hatch out. And the goose mom was doing a terrible job taking care of the goslings. And so I decided to put Frank with Bean. They were raised up together and they were the best of friends. As I added them to the flock, one of the things that I noticed the next year was that Bean seemed to be like crashing into stuff. And it turned out that, yes, she is actually blind. Yet miraculously, just on whether it be touch or sound or smell, she's able to navigate really, really well. And she has her own system for how she finds food and water and how she relates to the entire rest of the flock because she really does rely on the other birds to essentially guide her to where the resources are. And they might get a little bit annoyed at her when she crashes into them, but they give her a fair amount of slack and she's able to do things like, here she's like, oh, she just found some more food. Eventually she's gonna walk over to the water and find her way to either a puddle or one of the pools and get some drinks of water. Because after eating, ducks always like to get water. Yeah, you can see it. She hears a duck in the pool. She knows she's relatively close. She crashes into the fence a little bit. There she goes. And so she's able to drink, she's able to wash herself. She's able to do all the things that a duck typically needs to take care of themselves. Even if people get a little bit annoyed at her when she crashes into them. But eventually she does find herself a fresh water trough and she'll go swimming sometimes. And overall, whether it's in this winter setup or in the summer setup out in pasture, she does okay. And so while farm life and nature can sometimes seem really cruel, I feel like the story of being the duck is one of those just nice and inspirational real life farm stories that you can tell. A couple of folks have asked in the comments and yes, I do plan on building out the goose nest soon. I'm just not really in a rush to do that just yet because I still have plenty of time before the geese start laying eggs and the ducks are laying very few eggs. And so I don't have to worry about creating nests right now. I often like to stagger the winter projects. Another winter project I've got to tackle is that I want to build my own nest. Rollaway nesting boxes that actually work for my chicken coop. That'll keep my eggs a whole heck of a lot cleaner. And in case you're not familiar with what the design of a rollaway nesting box is like, it's kind of like these nesting boxes that you see right here, where the bird will lay the egg back there and then it rolls into the back. And that container in the back is something that the bird can't access. And so the eggs don't get covered in poop. And at the end of the day, when you're collecting the eggs, it's really easy to just pull them out. And when I originally built this coop, I had actually planned to use very similar nesting boxes to what you see right there, but they totally didn't work in this structure, with the slope and the mobile nature of it all. So one of the things I need to solve this winter is figuring out how to do rollaway nesting boxes in a mobile chicken coop that is also predator-proof, which is actually a very tall order. And now, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but I think if we watch this chicken, we'll eventually see her roll an egg into that nesting box right there. I think I spooked her, but I think if we just keep watching, she'll come right back, and hopefully you'll get to see her lay an egg. Because watching a chicken or a duck or a goose lay an egg is both fascinating and kind of gross, but definitely more fascinating than gross. So I mentioned that I was sealing off this back corner. I actually wanna show you guys what I did because I feel like it's an improvement. So this back wall has been actually the most problematic part of this hoop coop greenhouse. I purchased the model that had this really big roll-up door like this for two reasons. One is that I wanted to be able to open it up very wide in the summer months so that I could avoid overheating the stuff that I was growing inside the greenhouse. But then also, in the spring, I like to be able to drive my tractor in here and use that tractor to clear out this entire area before I start planting the summer crops. And then in the fall, I need to be able to do things like drive the chicken coop in here with the ATV. And so that's why that door needs to be so big. But the problem is I'd always have trouble with wind hitting it and sometimes ripping it open, and so I'd have to reclose it in the middle of winter, which is much harder. And so what I did the other day is I actually built this sort of like false bottom to it, which I now attach the poly fiber for the back door to that. And so hopefully the weight of that will keep it down. But in the spring, when I need to open this up again, I also designed this to be very easy to disassemble. I just have to take out these screws here and these screws here, and then there's a handful of screws on the other side that keep this pinned in place. And then I'm able to just drive right back in again and clear things out with the tractor, and then come the summer months, it'll be open, and then I'll probably close it up again just like this when winter hits. Now, the other thing that I did to ensure that this doesn't go flapping in the breeze is I put up some dirt, and I just basically pulled it from this area over here and used that to close off the bottom space. And by the way, that's the face plate that keeps this pinned in place with screws. You found a nice place to nap, huh, Abbey dog? You wanna try to help? Aw, you're such a good dog. So hopefully things will hold on better this year than they did last year. And by the way, the added bonus of my little earthworks with the tractor is that I dug out more of this space, so I'll hold onto more of the water that overflows from our pond, and keep it here before it runs down to where there's a creek way past those trees over there. It's kinda nice to be back out here in the winter yard for the ducks and geese. While I'm keeping my cattle out for as long as possible with the ducks and geese, I find that as soon as it starts to get cold, I like to put them into the coop. They have access to this entire yard, so it's not like they're all cramped up and stuff. I mean, the winter bird yard itself is probably about two acres of space just alone. Eh, maybe a little bit less than that, but pretty close to two acres. And so, particularly because I'm down to my lowest point and lowest number of birds for the year right about now, that ensures that my birds have plenty of space and there's no overcrowding. You know where you are? You're in the jungle, Abbey, and you're gonna get petted on the face. So that rooster is actually a new addition to our farm, and he's needed a name for a week or two. We had our monthly farm meeting livestream, which happens every first Wednesday of the month, and on that livestream, we decided that his name was gonna be Beetlejuice. And so, everybody say hello to Beetlejuice, just don't say his name three times. Would you look at that? Freshly laid, and look how clean it is, too. Wow, don't even have to wash this egg. So despite my best efforts, she picked the one nesting box that actually has its nesting basket broken and out of commission, and she laid in there. I actually wonder if we even got any footage here. Let's check the camera. Well, that is definitely a bummer. I was really hoping to have captured the egg laying, but it doesn't look like we got a good angle. Like, you can see and hear it drop, but you don't get it on camera, and so, I don't know. I will set up some cameras more regularly, and hopefully I will catch you guys in egg laying sometime very soon. I genuinely feel like I've let you down. I know, I know, you guys are annoyed that I did the chickens and ducks and geese before I did you this morning. I know, you're annoyed. Come with me, come on. Here, have some of this good alfalfa hay, huh? Enjoy, guys. So one little bit of behind-the-scenes info for you guys. Typically, I will do the goat chores at the exact same time as I do the bird chores, because while I've got the water pouring automatically, that gives me just enough time to go in here and do all the goat stuff. But on days when I'm shooting a video, I prefer to focus on what I'm doing and get good footage for you guys. And so in the goat's case today, that means they had to wait for me to both finish hunting as well as do the bird chores before I actually fed them. Of course, they do have plenty of food sources scattered throughout this goat yard. For example, they've got all this greenery that I keep cutting for them. And in fact, I feel like I've been in the woods a lot lately in the last week or two, cutting greens. I cut a bunch of greens, actually, for a local school parent-teacher association, because every year they do this fundraiser to sell wreaths to help support some of the school programs. And so they need lots of greenery for that. And so I dropped off a load of greenery for them. They had a whole bunch of waste cuttings and stuff that they weren't gonna use. And so I took all that stuff in my tractor back to the farm. And I now feel like I've discovered the endless goat food glitch. Yeah, we're gonna go bring some more treats to the boys. Hey boys, I got more stuff for you. I know you're excited. More stuff, more stuff. Here you go, dig in. You like that, huh, Barnicus? Lauren's happy with it too, but Telemachus is back at the alfalfa. One of the interesting things I've noticed too, as I keep observing and learning about goats, they don't just like the needles, they also really enjoy stripping down the bark. And the sound of them eating is very, very satisfying to hear. I think the one thing I have to figure out is what to do with all these goat sticks that get left over, because eventually I have branches like this that are pretty much all stripped down. I'm starting to think about maybe drying it, and then next year I can use it as kindling for the fireplace, so who knows? I've got to admit, this is a little bit disconcerting. I do not know where my cattle are. Right now I'm still at that time where I'm letting them completely free range around here. Yeah, I don't see them anywhere. I don't know, we'll go look for them in a second. I'm like a little worried, but I'm not like really worried. So here you can see we've got our stick season watering set up going. Rather than use the float valve like I typically do all summer, I've switched to the freeze-mizer here, which is a little bit more efficient. It was probably running until about, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes ago. It lets water out when the temperature is below 35 degrees Fahrenheit, and then when it hits 35 degrees Fahrenheit or above, it stops. This water trough was running all night. You can see I actually even set up like a little overflow trough, and it gets a little bit muddy around here. I'm not gonna lie, that's the one downside to all this. If you don't have a good draining spot, it can kind of get messy. I think one of the things I'm gonna plan for for next year is figuring out a spot in this pasture where I can set the winter, or I guess I should call it stick season water up, and just let it be there, and that would be the spot where they get water for most of the cold month until I bring them down to the barn for winter proper. Again, I feel like it's all about incremental improvements. But other than a slightly muddy pasture, this thing is working great, and it's probably gonna give me a whole extra month of grazing with the cattle. Now, speaking of which, let's go find our wayward animals and do a quick head count to make sure everybody is accounted for. I think they heard me and Abby come up, and I can see them starting to congregate around there. The reason I'm doing this right now is I just want them to graze down pretty much everything that hasn't been grazed so far this summer. And in fact, they're getting pretty darn close to having everything grazed down. I mean, there's still some munchable areas around here and there, but a lot of this, when you look at it, right, like this has all just been ripped down. You can even see the blades of grass that have cow teeth marks on it. And I can even hear some cranky cattle in the background. The reason I am doing this is I'm going to be adding some extra seed to the pasture this later fall. So probably as soon as I move the cattle down to the bottom barn, I'm gonna be adding a couple of different new grass species as well as things like clover, just to help give the cattle a better diet from the pasture. I'm just gonna be broadcast seeding here. I'm not doing like a seed drill or tilling anything up, but the idea is to give some of those grasses a better chance of getting started and established so that I can have a really good mixture of what's here on pasture for the cattle. And here we have Bonnie McMurray. Would you look at her? I think she's getting whiter. Like I think Bonnie McMurray might be pregnant. She's a heifer, so she hasn't had calves yet. She was one of the first to go into heat this year after I put the bull in. And so there's a good chance she might have the first calf of the year come, I guess it would be April. So you got Bonnie, who was Ariel's first daughter on the farm. And then you got Belle, who was Ariel's second daughter on the farm. And so Bonnie and Belle are half sisters. Belle's father is Macho Man, and so she's gonna be part of a separate breeding herd that I eventually get established here on the farm. All right, but let's do the head count. So we've got Bonnie, we've got Belle, we've got Ariel. We've got our boss cow, Audrey. We've got Annabelle and her daughter, Betty Rubble. Betty has grown into a very nice calf as well. She's gonna be a good heifer one day. She is half sisters with Belle, but with different moms. And yeah, as you guys can see here, this is why the cattle have migrated over to this spot. There's plenty more grass for them to eat. And here we have Belinda Carlisle, who was the first calf ever born on our farm, or at least ever since we had the farm. And she is also looking pretty wide. She and Bonnie McMurray were actually half sisters and they lived together last year just by themselves. And so they're best friends. And she also was like really early to go into heat too. And so I was gonna guess who's gonna have a calf first. It's either gonna be Belinda or it's gonna be Bonnie. As I was tracking conception, they were like neck and neck. And then we have Joey Ramone, who's our steer. Folks have asked if Joey's going to freezer camp and I'm gonna actually keep him on until probably next summer before he leaves the farm. And so Joey will be sticking around. And then we have our largest cow, Astrid. How's it going, Astrid? So Astrid is a Charley. It's a different breed of cow from the Scottish Highland, which is what most of my herd is. And one of the experiments I'm trying to do is actually have the Charley and Scottish Highland genetics mix and see what sort of animal produces. What I'm looking for is a friendly, easy to manage, somewhat beefy, winter hardy type of bovine that would work perfectly for our farm here. Astrid and our bull, Macho Man. And so hopefully they end up providing me with some nice mixed calves come next spring. Here we have Astrid's daughter, Betty White. She's looking a little dirty and less than white this morning. How's it going, Betty? And then our other Charley, or at least our other Charley cow that we added at the beginning of the year. You can see Amelia Bedelia and her daughter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hanging out right over here. You know, the really funny thing about all of this is, typically, based on the way I graze my cattle, it takes me a quick glance and I can have everybody accounted for. When they're running loose like this in the pasture, it takes a little time. This is a space they're really comfortable with, so they're willing to spread out and give everybody their own grazing areas. And here we have Amanda Hug and Kiss. How's it going, Amanda? So Amanda didn't calf this year, but she had our farm's only calf last year in the form of Beatrix Potter. And here's Anne of Green Gables. So Annie was one of the first cattle on our farm and she was the first cow to give birth on our farm. And so her first daughter was Belinda Carlisle that you saw back there. She also had a little bull calf born this spring, a little cute fellow by the name of Elliot. Unfortunately, Elliot died a few weeks after birth. I'm pretty sure the cause of his death as well as the death of our other bull calf, Prince, was related to a selenium deficiency. And so now I give the moms extra selenium. And when all the calves are born on our farm, I give them a selenium shot too. Okay, so our head count for all the cattle up here on this upper pasture is, we've got our five Scottish Highland cows, we've got our two Charley cows, we've got our two Scottish Highland heifer calves, we've got our two Charley heifer calves, and we have our two, I'll call them teenage Scottish Highland heifers who are hopefully going to calve this spring. We have our steer, Joey Ramone, and of course we can't forget our bull, Macho Man. Hey, Macho Man. Good to see you, buddy. Good to see you. Oh, good boy. You're such a good boy. Yes, you are. You're getting big. You know, he has turned into such a wonderful bull. He's very gentle. I can still lead him around. And just his size, he's filling out and getting nice and beefy. And so he's just going to be great for this farm for years to come. Anybody know where our abbey dog went? Abbey dog, come! Oh, there she is. She's way back there. I think she was marking the fence line. Come on, Abs. Let's go. Look at her jog towards us. I don't know. That sight of her just running free out of the open pasture makes me so happy. Yes, you're lots of trouble, but you make me really happy, girl. By the way, I know gift-giving season is just coming. And if you're looking for a great gift, you should check out my book, Toby Dog of Goldshaw Farm. It's a book I wrote last year. It's a fun story. It's written for kids, but I think adults would like it too. It's a full-on novel and not just a picture book. It's available in paperback, hardcover, digital version, and there's even an audio book version narrated by me as well as with some very talented actors playing the roles of the animals. Be sure to check it out and just know that the sequel for this book is coming next year.