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<\/a><\/p>\nHe was a friendly rooster but he enjoyed taking the hens all the way down to the end of the driveway.\u00a0 We have sacrificed enough ducks and guineas to the road.\u00a0 Laying hens are too valuable to waste.\u00a0 Besides, he was a bit overzealous in the mating department.\u00a0 When the hens started getting bare shoulders, his days were numbered and the second-in-command was promoted.\u00a0 Welcome Michael, our Cuckoo Maran\/Delaware cross, to the top of the pecking order.<\/p>\n
Tulip found a new home at an Alpine\/Oberhasli dairy goat herd.\u00a0 I hated to lose the gallons and gallons of milk from her prolific udder.\u00a0 But I won’t miss her shoving her bulk through gates and fencing.\u00a0 Tulip, no!<\/p>\n The Jumbo Cornish Cross chickens went into the freezer.<\/p>\n Hey, quit looking at my breasts like that!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n Despite Brianna’s attempts to break into the buck pen, she wasn’t bred.\u00a0 At 10 years old, she is ready for retirement.<\/p>\n I’ve already chosen her retirement home (a farm without any bucks) but right now she’s providing milk for the pigs’ breakfast everyday.\u00a0 Whose days are also numbered.\u00a0 By next week, the pigs can be used to turn under the frost-killed summer crops in the garden.\u00a0 Then it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the girls….<\/p>\n or some of these guys…..<\/p>\n make it into the freezer next.<\/p>\n But there’s someone who just guaranteed her spot in the barnyard until spring.\u00a0 Tina.<\/p>\n You see, Julia and Carmen failed to kid as planned this October.\u00a0 Either they were never pregnant or I aborted them when I gave everyone a dose of ivermectin to stop ear mites that were running rampant in the barn and resisted all my herbal and organic methods to stop them.\u00a0 The goat literature is conflicting on the ivermectin\/abortion issue and goat pregnancies around here are never really confirmed until a kid hits the ground. So it’s hard to know exactly what happened.\u00a0 Although, lots of people at last week’s farm party wanted to know when Carmen’s kids were due and if I thought she had more than 2 kids in there since she was so big.<\/p>\n Really, people, how rude.\u00a0 You don’t hear Carmen making comments about your waistline, do you?\u00a0 Some of us wear our maternity jeans a little bit longer than others, OK?\u00a0 It’s completely normal.\u00a0 Absolutely fine.\u00a0 Really, why would you ever give up jeans with an elastic cotton panel in front?\u00a0 Shouldn’t you always have a pair of those in the closet?\u00a0 Like, for emergencies?\u00a0 Or Thanksgiving?<\/p>\n Regardless, no goat kids arrived this fall.\u00a0 Which was a bummer because Julia and Carmen were supposed to provide milk for our family through the winter months while Brianna and Tina were dried off and went to new homes.\u00a0 We already decided that Tina could never be bred again.\u00a0 Her legs were really too weak to support her when she was pregnant.\u00a0 And her first kid was also born leg weakness.\u00a0 I was planning to find her a home at one of the local farm preschools.\u00a0 A gentle place with lots of petting and lap sitting and treats.\u00a0 But no more breeding or milking.<\/p>\n However, as it turns out, Tina will be providing our family’s milk until kidding starts again in February.\u00a0 Turns out that the weakest member of the herd is strong enough to provide for all the rest of us.<\/p>\n Sure, Vixen, one of the Nigerian Dwarf goats, is contributing, too.\u00a0 But she only had one kid this spring so she wasn’t a heavy producer to begin with and she is threatening to dry up any day now.<\/p>\n So it’s Tina’s overflowing Toggenburg udder that is really filling up the milk pail and keeping the kids in breakfast cereal.<\/p>\n It can be hard to secure your place on the picnic table at a working farm.<\/p>\n No one expects the weak or the crippled to make the cut.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n