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Enola...that sounds lovely!! How did you in up in Laurens? Did you end up starting over with the little farm thing in SC?Bare land has potential! My Ex and I bought a little run down farm in WV. It was a lot of hard work, but I loved it. We raised 4 kids had all kinds of livestock. Milk cows, steers, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, horses, rabbits, guineas and guinea pigs. We did a lot of 4H and FFA. Just remember hard work builds character.
That sounds amazing! My BF & I have decided kind of late that we wanted to be farmers when we 'grow up'. How many acres did you have all those animals on?Bare land has potential! My Ex and I bought a little run down farm in WV. It was a lot of hard work, but I loved it. We raised 4 kids had all kinds of livestock. Milk cows, steers, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, horses, rabbits, guineas and guinea pigs. We did a lot of 4H and FFA. Just remember hard work builds character.
I'm so sorry for your loss
Little Valentine is not so little any more! She's grown a lot in ten months, she's almost as big as her mother, who still dotes on her like she is a tiny calf.
And I don't often post about chicken deaths, but this tiny old girl deserves some sort of mention. She was going on 8 years old. She was the only surviving descendant of my original OEGB flock that first got me into chickens 13 years ago. Up until this summer, I had her and two of her daughters, but a series of bobcat killings resulted in their deaths. With those gone, she took up the life of a hermit. The large fowl shunned her, and the mere sight of her sent my main silkie rooster into a lustful frenzy, chasing her around the yard with a puffed out chest and lowered wings until she flew up into a tree, so she spent most of her time free ranging by herself. She never slept in a coop, preferring instead to roost by herself in a tree above the dog pen. She weathered out heavy storms and ice on her tiny little branch. In her younger years, she was rather flighty, but in her older age she realized that I was an 'ally' and would fly up onto my arm if she noticed I had food. Over the years, I would estimate she's hatched close to 100 chicks for me. Her (and her daughters) were absolute broody machines, and were incredible mothers. Chicks raised by them turned out to be the hardiest and most intelligent birds I've had, having learned from the best. She actually was still laying, though she only laid about 20 eggs this year. Her eggs always had a distinct torpedo shape. They were the most extreme her pullet year (I swear I've never seen pointier eggs in my life) but slowly rounded over the years. Because of the shape, her eggs did not hatch well at all. Her two daughters were the only ones to hatch over all of the years. As a result, most chicks that she raised were foster chicks. She always stayed with them an extremely long time, which was amusing when she was raising LF chicks, as they more than tripled her size. The past two weeks, I noticed that she was having trouble breathing, often gasping for breath, although she was still the bright eyed, food driven girl she's always been, braving turkeys and huge dogs to get to the best morsels. Two days ago, I found her dead in the area next to the silkie pen where all the birds dust bathed. Her feathers were still full of soil, so she must have died mid-bath. A mini autopsy revealed she had a tumor about the size of a grape (which, relative to her body size, is huge) at the base of her throat, which no doubt was causing her breathing problems. After dodging predators for years, and outliving even her daughters, her own cells ended up causing her death. This picture was the last I got of her. She liked to be near Kota, as he was a refuge from the sometimes overly bossy turkeys, and he didn't seem to mind her presence. RIP little girl. You did good.
I have an OEGB hen that also sleeps in a tree and is a loner. They tend to hold a special place in your heart.
