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GabrielBane
Songster
Ask and you shall receive!
I used to show/purchase Sheep up in Lakeland! Small world. 
Update from The Farm!
The past month has been aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabsolutely crazy. We've got a lot of our stock in and growing out, chicken mansions are 80% of the way into the ground, and so much more~
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In our Gardens we've had hit and misses. I'm slowly starting to veer from referring to our growing spaces as "gardens". We don't really follow agricultural practices. We follow planting guidelines but otherwise, I'm slowly building back the ecosystem on our property so that plants do not yearn for unnatural supplements or fertilizers.
Our compost is made from lawn clippings, chicken/turkey manure, egg shells, coffee grounds, vegetables/rotten fruit, etc. I dig it all into a deep hole and then I shovel a fire ant colony on top of it. I cover it with a wood board to encourage the ants to stay. The idea is to encourage the ants to stay where you want them by feeding them. In the process, they help you break down organic waste while also ensuring a minimal number of pests in your compost.
This way, no need for pesticides.We free range our birds so we cannot give unbiased reviews as plants here don't last for very long if the birds have a taste for it (RIP to my raspberries, kale, collards, eggplants....). Our sugar peas and passion vines by far are thriving the most, plants like cucumber and squash are slowly gaining their bearings. I'll report MUCH more in detail about our plants as I learn more myself. I am a novice when it comes to planting and tending to crops.
Always a learning curve there.Here's what is left of our crops;
Barbados Cherries
Citrus (Kumquat, Blood Orange, Tangerine)
Blue berries
Strawberries
Cucumbers
Squash (Crooked neck)
Peppers (Green bell, purple micros)
Sugar pod peas
Tomatoes
Garlic (from the store cloves)
Onions (which are failing...)
Lavendulla
English Lavender
Eggplants
Miracle Fruit
Blackberries
Tamarind
Bananas
Passion Fruit Vines
We have them in three different planting areas. One in full Florida sun, one near our pond in 1/2 light, and one in dappled lighting. I'm trying to get a feel for the best growing here.
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Our chickens are doing amazing! I haven't done exact head counts because we've just received so many chicks we've been anticipating for months. Our Mottled/Split to mottled Orpington pen is probably the most prolific. Out of the 5 girls, we typically get at least 4 large brown eggs a day. Fertility was relatively low in their first hatch (only 2 of 14 eggs hatched), but I'm already seeing an increase in % of developing embryos.
Speaking of chicks! Here's the first ever chick we hatched here;
A pure mottled English Orpington.
She's the reason our initial post was delayed. She surprised us by hatching a few days early according to our calculations. Since then, she's been joined by one more who has hatched.Photos of the parent stock:
We've got a lot more English Orp photos to share/ discuss, but for now, our focus is growing out our juveniles and focusing on improving our mottleds!
In Sulmtaler / Turkey land (Our pair of Turkeys live with our Sulms) things are going rather well. The boys are incessant crowers. Hoooooooooooly moooooooooly sometimes they drive me nuts. But when you have 4 cockerels over 2 pullets, that tends to happen.
I *know* we need to lean down our boys, but the lack of processing supplies / a local butcher is killing me. I miss having a facility within ten minutes of me.
They're just striking birds though, and docile as can be. Not necessarily a "lap chicken" by any definition. But yard candy galore.... No losses to hawks even though they've free-ranged every single day with just turkeys supervising. They do great on pasture.
These were the guys hatched in October:
And of course.... What kind of enabler would I be if I didn't include a few pics of our young Jake gallivanting?
Another update to add... We took the dive. We did it. We adopted 4 Sebastopol goslings and 4 Muscovy ducks to get ahead on the spring weeds in the pond. We're actually SUPER excited to share more about them and how they grow out, right now I haven't had much of a chance to photograph 'em, hopefully as the madness of chicken coop construction/bathroom remodel cool off, we can get some nice quality shots.
We've also added a doeling Lamancha to our farm. We had *intended* on getting two doelings initially, but due to mama being killed by a coyote, we had to jump in and save the day... Here she is, her name is Abigail;
(Note; this photo is a week old, she no longer gets fed in a crate, she now has her own out-door play area!
)It's been a really crazy few weeks here and I don't even believe I'm covering all the bases.... I definitely won't allow that much time to pass in between updates again, y'all!
Next time I'll update you guys on the completed coops, divided breeding pen plans, and hopefully an up-and-running duck and goose house (if not, the next water fowl update will be live from our living room LOL!) , thank you guys for following so far! Things are finally speeding up and we're so excited to finally beginning transforming these four acres into a self-sustainable poultry paradise.
