Tag: eggs

Quick Update

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t posted in a while, but I plan to start back up again soon. We’ve been busy lately trying to get all the goats bred. Last year was our first year breeding goats and the spring kidding went ok. We had a loss, but other than that, it was good. However, the goats bred for fall kidding did not take. The plan was for two of our Nigerian Dwarf goats to deliver in November, but neither one of them ended up pregnant. So, now all of our goats are bred for spring kidding. I brought on a new buck this last month and am hoping he can do a good job breeding our other buck’s kids for us. Our original does should be bred by our original buck, but we will see. I have someone coming out next week to ultrasound them and see who is actually pregnant.

Winter has decided to show up here in South Dakota so we spent most of the last week prepping everyone for winter. I believe we’ve got everyone situated right now and they should all be good for the cold temps that are coming. I am, however, starting to research and think about switching out chicken breeds. Some of our chickens, especially our roosters have pretty large combs. Last week our high was seven degrees. That is simply too cold for large combed breeds. I do have a few chickens that are Swedish Flower mixes and they have a little poof on the tops of their heads. I am really curious to see how they do since their comb is small and protected, but all of my roosters are normal single combs. The coop is warm and insulated, we will put heat in it when the temps drop well below zero, but I can’t help them much when they are walking around during the day. I am leaning towards bringing on a few Wyandotte colors and having a fun breeding program going, but I am looking at all winter-hardy breeds. Feel free to let me know if you have favorites. I will add, where we live, it gets well under zero, and we have really bad wind. The wind chill frequently gets into the double-digit negatives. Everything that lives here has to be exceptionally cold-hardy.

Lastly, we are cruising along in our homeschool year. I have a freshman and a 7th grader this year and it’s been a bit of a change. I miss the days of poetry tea time and doing all our subjects together. However, this season of life is amazing as well. I am still very thankful I get to make the choice to homeschool them and it’s working out well.

Until next time, I hope you all have a wonderful day and all your farm animals are staying warm.

Quail Eggs

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

I have raised Coturnix Quail a few times now. When we still lived in the city I started with a set up in our garage. It was my attempt at having a little something homesteady when I couldn’t have a homestead. This first go-round with quail got a little out of hand quickly. I ended up winning a few sets of hatching eggs and I hatched my own and before I knew it we had quail everywhere. Chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch but quail take just 18. They also start laying eggs at around ten weeks of age, some a bit sooner. So, it was pretty easy to build up our supply of quail. We ended up getting rid of all the quail as it got to be a little too much to handle inside the garage.

The second time I had quail we used a rabbit cage outside since the garage was not an option and I had only one breeding set. I love quail eggs, especially pickled quail eggs. Not the kind that I make my own brine, but boil the eggs and drop them in your favorite pickle juice. Pickled quail eggs done this way are delicious. We ended up getting rid of the quail this time because winter was coming on and keeping them outside in our yard ended up not being the best option either. Where we live is super windy and in the yard in particular we had huge snow drifts since the fence catches all the snow. I still liked quail but we simply weren’t in a situation where it was working out to keep them.

Fast forward to now and we once again brought quail back into our lives. I found a guy down the street who homesteads and got one breeding set from him. They are outside in the chicken coop area but inside a rabbit hutch. Quail are small and jumpy and can’t run loose with the chickens. My ultimate goal is to build them their own much larger space, but for now, a rabbit hutch is just fine. It’s plenty of space for a handful of quail. When we brought these guys home they were laying eggs. Within a few days, they quit, and for the last probably month maybe more they haven’t laid a single egg. A few weeks back I figured the problem was that they weren’t getting enough sunlight, so I opened up the lid of their housing and placed a wire covering in place. It seemed to have done nothing. But I guess it just took time because today I got our first quail egg again after the long break. I am so excited to have quail eggs back in the house.

Keeping Quail Considerations

If you want to keep quail for yourself there are a few things to consider. First and foremost I would start with a good-quality quail. The ones we have now are from a guy down the road and they aren’t the best quality of quail. I did that because I had a hard time finding quail around us. I know from experience that shipping quail eggs here and hatching them doesn’t work well. I don’t know why, because most people seem to do ok, but something happens in the mail on the way here and I never have great success. I get almost 100% hatch rate when I do my own but I will hatch 3 chicks out of 24 when I get shipped ones. If you don’t have this issue then ordering hatching eggs from a good breeder will be the best way to go. I ordered from SouthWest Gamebirds a few times and they have really nice quail.

If you are going to keep your quail in a small space such as the garage just know it is going to make a giant powdery mess. Their food is very powdery since they like the crumbles and when you add their dander to that and wherever you keep your quail will be covered in dust. I would have some sort of plan in place to deal with that if you want to keep quail in the garage or other small space.

Quail are stupid. They do some things that are just hard to believe. I had a quail, more than once, walk straight out of their cage about six feet in the air and splat on the ground. Since they are little and light it didn’t hurt them but be aware that they would walk right off a cliff given the opportunity. They also jump straight up when they are scared and will break their own necks on their cage. So, it is recommended to either have a really tall cage or a small one. Nothing in between. They are really small birds so the height of the cage needs to be only around one to maybe two feet. Anything taller and they easily hit the ceiling and will kill themselves. There are tons of plans online if you want to build your own, and the ones you can buy and put together yourself will have the spacing already figured out.

Quail are mean. They do not take very well to introducing new birds and a cage full of males will likely end in injury. Coturnix Quail have very thin skin. When they fight they peck each other and easily rip the other’s skin open. This typically happens on the head. Numerous times I came out in the morning and found blood everywhere and a quail with their head ripped open. If you clean it, and keep the quail separate, they will often heal. However, if you find out you have a particularly mean quail who is always the instigator, I would recommend culling that quail. If you have a cage full of males I would keep them far away from the females and in the dark. Otherwise, they get too excited and will end up fighting each other and we are back to the bleeding head situation.

I would recommend having a plan if you need to cull one of the birds. Most people who raise quail, especially Coturnix, are doing it for me at and eggs so that isn’t an issue, but if you are not you will likely at some most need to cull one of the birds. Have a plan ready to go. My first quail I had to put down broke her wing and was in a lot of pain. This may be hard to hear but I took a pair of scissors and beheaded her. This is actually how most people deal with their quail when processing for meat. Even harder to hear but good information, if you can stomach it, a quail’s head is very easy to pull off. My husband prefers this method to the scissors. It’s quicker and you don’t have to worry about scissors being sharp or not. Not to mention it’s probably the quickest way to go.

Lastly, quail stink! They do not smell like chickens. Their poop is so much worse. You really have to stay on top of quail cages or they get nasty pretty quickly.

Quail Benefits

I really do enjoy having quail. I love that when you can’t have chickens you can typically sneak in a few quail and no one will notice. They are not super loud but they do make noise. I am a rule follower at my core, but we had quail we weren’t supposed to have and the whole time I was incredibly worried someone would find out and report me. No one did thankfully. If you are mindful about keeping them clean and dealing with the dust then you can keep quail in a small space. They are considered perfect for someone wanting to homestead who doesn’t have the space.

We did not really care for their meat, but many people love it. If you want your own meat source, quail are a very quick way to get that done. They are much smaller than a chicken so you need to put more in the freezer but they get there so much faster. I believe jumbo quail are processed at ten weeks. I usually processed mine at around eight weeks though because they would start fighting and being loud and it wasn’t worth it to me to wait the extra two weeks.

Their eggs are delicious. Quail lay an egg almost everyday. So, although you need 3-4 quail eggs to equal a chicken egg they do lay more consistently. I prefer chicken eggs for most things, but those pickled quail eggs are my favorite. Again, if you can’t have chickens then being to have something is awesome.

Lastly, they are adorable. Quail are so stinking cute. We loved having them and playing around with colors. Like chickens, they are simply fun to watch. They chicken scratch, they take dust baths, they pretty much do all the things that chickens do but in a smaller package.

If you are thinking about adding quail to your home I say go for it! You will never know until you try. If it doesn’t work out that’s ok, but its better than forever living with the “what if”.

Sell the Farm, I Quit!

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really quit but today has been a bit of a rough morning. We live in the prairies of South Dakota and the wind is brutal out here. This morning is no exception to that. It’s 29 degrees outside, which isn’t bad, but it’s 35mph winds. Add that to the fact that it rained just enough last night to make the ground icy and you have the recipe for an interesting morning.

First, I stepped outside not knowing the backyard was a skating rink and almost bit the dust. Next, I had to chase down the duck’s pond since it had been blown down the yard, fight the wind to get it back, and get it filled up with water only to look out the window an hour later and see that it was yet again halfway down the yard. I guess I am going to have to summon the courage to go back outside and put a rock in there to hold it down this time.

Then came the chickens. A few weeks ago, the chicken coop door froze and I couldn’t open it. The door slides in place and the wind had frozen it where it wouldn’t budge. Luckily, the coop has big side doors that open so I could let the chickens out, otherwise they would have been stuck inside. Today it was the bottom door. The chicken coop has what I like to call “the basement”. Basically what would be the underneath of the chicken coop has been closed off and the chickens can hang out underneath to get out of the weather. There is a door at the end that lifts up to open and you let it down the close it off. It doesn’t close all the way but enough to keep the chickens warm and out of the elements. This morning that door was frozen in place.

Lastly, were the lovely goats. I am still milking one doe, who I brought to the shed only to have her decide she didn’t want to go into the shed. She tried to run away, I grabbed her, she pulled and my feet flew out from underneath and I busted my butt. The goat feed I had in my scoop went flying, I said a few choice words, got up, and finished the job. However, while I was milking her I had a guest join us in the milking shed. One of the bucks is small enough to squeeze through the gate crack and came into the shed looking for food. He of course proceeded to jump onto the milk stand, while I was milking, and I had to stop milking and drag him off. So, now I need to finish milking but I smell like a stinky buck. Eventually, I got everything done but the chores that usually take about 20-30mins took an hour.

So, although I will not be selling the farm, mornings like this one make me question why we live where we do. The wind just sort of grates at your nerves over time, and although you get used to it a little I don’t know that you can ever simply get used to wind this strong all the time. I am really dreading February when it gets into the negatives here and the wind-chill is unbearable. I think I may dry off the last goat before that happens. We have babies due in March, so it will be a nice break for everyone. I don’t want to complain too much, I am so thankful that we were able to get this property and I have all the things I’ve been praying for for years, but this morning was a little but not so fun. Is it springtime yet?

First month on the farm

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Wow! I can’t believe we’ve been on this property for a month now. It’s been an incredibly busy month. I knew moving onto a new property was going to be busy, but I did not know it was going to be this busy. I will take the blame for a lot of the craziness though, because I went ahead and moved full speed with my farm plans. We’ve gotten a lot done, but there is still so much to do. Let’s start with talking about the animals.

Chickens

The first animal we added to the farm was chickens. In fact, if you read any of the earlier posts you would know we got hatching eggs before we even closed on this property. We only ended up with three chicks from that hatch, so of course we stopped by our local feed store and grabbed a few more. When we had been here for about a week I picked up some hens that were already laying. We wanted eggs right away and our chicks weren’t going to start laying for a while. Next thing I know people are asking if we have eggs so of course, I had to get a few more chickens. Currently, we have 10 laying hens all about a year or two old, and 10 chicks. I wanted to focus on just a couple of breeds so I could hatch my own chickens, but like you tend to do we ended up with a barnyard mix. The chickens have pretty much been my favorite addition. They are easy to care for and going out to the coop and bringing in eggs feels very rewarding. Plus they are just plain fun to sit around and watch.

My one complaint about the chickens is they don’t go out into our “pasture” area. I have tried to get them to go out to the 1.5 acres we are calling the pasture but they seem to prefer the backyard or their coop area. I want them to go out into the pasture because we have had a few ticks show up. I cannot stand ticks, they gross me out so much. I was hoping to have the chickens roam the pasture area and eat the ticks, but it looks like I may need to find another solution. I have read about guineas, which I am considering, however I have also heard they are very loud. We may do a chicken tractor in the future so the chickens have to be out in the pasture, but I haven’t made a final decision. However, some form of tick control will need to be decided upon soon. Despite that the chickens have been a very easy and fun addition to the farm.

Dairy Goats

One of my main goals for our farm is to improve the quality of our food. As part of that plan finding a dairy animal was high on my priority list. I have been researching which type we wanted for years now. I would love to have a milk cow, but decided we didn’t have the room. On top of needing more room cows are harder to breed and the vet costs are much higher. Not to mention I don’t really need gallons of milk a day. So once I decided on goats, I started the research process to find the right breed. I really wanted Nubians but I couldn’t find any quality breeders in my local area, and for right now I was unwilling to drive six or more hours to pick up goats. So, instead, I found a good Nigerian Dwarf goat breeder who was only an hour away. I feel pretty lucky to have found her, as she shows her goats. This typically means more care is put into the goats as well as better genetics. We ended up purchasing two does that were already in milk, and two yearling does who have not been bred. I also picked up a buckling and a wether, both were born on April 2nd of this year. It will be a few months until the Buck is old enough to breed, but that gives us time to get used to the does we already have in milk and get our routine down.

Having does in milk has been wonderful but also very challenging. First, the milk is delicious. Nigerian Dwarfs have some of the highest butterfat content which makes their milk creamy and delicious. I won’t lie and say it’s exactly like cow’s milk, but it’s pretty close and maybe even better. The flavor of goat’s milk is very dependent on how you handle it. Other than being really clean, one of the most important factors is how fast you get the milk cooled down. I like to bring the milk into the house, filter it, and then get it into the freezer as soon as possible. I tend to let the milk hang out in the freezer for about an hour to get it cooled down and then I put it in the fridge. There are bacteria in the raw milk that will start to eat the sugars as soon as it is out of the udder. Cooling it down stops the bacteria from eating the sugar as fast and changing the flavor of the milk. Everyone who has tried the milk so far has been really impressed with how good it is. The part that is a little bit goaty is that sometimes there is a tiny bit of an aftertaste. It’s not bad at all and I do not feel like it ruins the milk but it is something to know about if you plan to have goats for milk.

My absolutely favorite thing to do with the milk is turn it into yogurt. I have made goat milk yogurt twice now and it’s the best yogurt I’ve ever had. I am currently a little sad that we have just enough milk to drink because I can’t wait to make more yogurt. We like to make it extra thick almost like a Greek yogurt, but it’s not near as sour as a Greek yogurt can sometimes be. I just top it with some honey and I’m in heaven. I have also made a quick, almost feta-like, cheese. I really enjoyed that as well, and it seems that when the milk is made into other things the goat flavor is completely gone. Not that the flavor is strong to begin with. It’s a very barely there flavor but it disappears completely in homemade goat cheese and yogurt.

Another pro to the Nigerian Dwarf goat breed is their size. I am 5’1″ and the goats come up to about my knee. They are about the size of a medium to large dog. This makes fencing and housing much easier than larger breeds. Also, when bringing them home they rode in the back of the truck. We have a topper on the truck and that’s where they went, no trailer is needed. Their smaller size makes them easy to handle, house, and transport. The con to their size is less milk. I know over time we can work on their udder size and milk capacity, but out of our two does, we are currently getting about four cups of milk each time we milk. This does add up to about half a gallon of milk a day, which sounds like a lot, but when you want to have milk to drink and make cheese/yogurt it isn’t quite enough. We also have two bottle babies still, so if I forget to thaw the frozen milk, almost all of our fresh milk goes to them. They are drinking around a half gallon a day, but they are absolutely adorable so I don’t complain.

All in all, I am very pleased with our goats. I will say one more thing that I learned along the way. If at all possible try and start out with quality stock. You can find cheaper goats from people selling off their backyard farms, but it isn’t always the best option over time. Look for goats that have been bred with milking quality in mind and from someone who has taken very good care of their goats. Starting with registered stock is not required but it may be something to consider. It will make your offspring more valuable since you can register them as well. Like I mentioned I found someone who does 4-H and other goat shows and really tried to focus on quality traits. They are all registered and healthy. They also test their herd every year since they travel and have to make sure they don’t take anything to the shows or pick something up while out. This gave me peace that even though it was more money upfront, we would be better off over the long haul. Plus the woman I bought them from has been very helpful and willing to be more of a mentor. Sometimes what you start out with really does matter.

For milking purposes on a small-scale homestead/farm Nigerian Dwarf goats are a great option. If you are thinking about a dairy animal I would highly suggest looking into these adorable troublemakers.

Challenges

It hasn’t all been fun and games. As I said, I moved pretty quickly when we first closed on the property. Chickens were added right away but we already had a coop and a fenced area so that was no big deal. I did however rush the goats. I had found the goats I wanted and they were ready to go, so I jumped. I don’t think this was the smartest way to do it, but sometimes when you find what you want you have to make it happen. We ended up bringing them home when their fencing wasn’t even finished. They hung out in our backyard while my husband and I finished fencing their pen. We also didn’t have a housing structure, but luckily there was something already here that we ended up using and it worked out great. It’s not perfect and will need some work in the future but it’s been exactly what we needed to get them here and safe right away. Our first night milking was quite a disaster since I also didn’t have a milking stand. We ended up milking them on the deck. We were slow and they were annoyed and it was a total disaster that ended with us all frustrated. A milking stand is expensive and shipping one would have taken time that we didn’t really have, so my husband converted an old bunk bed frame into a milking stand. Sometimes you have to use what you have. It has been serving us well ever since. As you would guess milking is a skill that takes a little while to get down. In the beginning, we took extra bowls out with us. We would milk into one bowl and then dump it into the other every so often, just in case one of the goats decided to step in the milk. Which they did, OFTEN. Even a few weeks in we are still learning. Last night I ended up with a lap full of milk because my daughter, who was helping, moved her hand and the goat thought we were done and kicked the bowl right over. Of course, this time I hadn’t poured it into another bowl so we lost the whole thing. The saying ” no crying over spilled milk”, does not apply here. It is so frustrating to lose all that milk.

The other most challenging part of the goats is keeping them in the fencing. A quick tip, make sure your gate opens inward. Our gate opens out and it gives the goats enough space to try and head-butt their way out of the gate. Quite often we have had to wrangle goats after they all pushed their way out of the pen when we were trying to put one back. You can also throw treats into the pen to distract the other goats while you get the one you wanted for milking. Goats will take advantage of any hole left in fencing or gap left in a gate. They have wormed their way into the chicken area when we cut what we thought was a chicken-sized hole in the fence. We wanted to give the chickens easy access to the pasture, that hole is now closed. Once, we had a goat in the chicken coop. It was so funny. I kept hearing a goat cry but couldn’t find her. It sounded like she was behind the chicken coop, but there was no goat to be found. I thought, “No way she’s in the coop”. She was! She had climbed up the chicken ramp and somehow had knocked the door closed behind her and was stuck inside crying for someone to help. So, if a chicken can fit, so can a goat. Who knew?

Other challenges we can’t do anything about. Where we live the wind is absolutely insane. It’s no fun trying to milk goats when the doors to the shed are rattling on their hinges and you feel like you are going to blow away walking them back to the pen. That is unfortunately something we will have to get used to. I do believe the animals will get easier as we get more experience, but the weather is something we will just have to suck it up and deal with.

This last month has been wonderful and I am so happy that we have been able to make this dream happen. I have loved adding the chickens and the goats and I can’t wait for garden season to start. However, even a month in I can tell you it’s not like what you see on the internet. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be a lot of work. I always to try and keep my why in mind. Why is this what I wanted? What do I hope to accomplish? It helps me when things get hard, to remember why I started all this in the first place. To remember my goals. To remember that this is what I have dreamed about for years. I am now living in it and I don’t want to forget that and ever become ungrateful. There have been hard days and I know there will be more, but I hope to never look at this with less than thankful eyes, challenges and all.

Upcoming Changes

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

With a new name change comes content changes as well. We are still homeschooling and that will always be a part of what I share, but we are also finally moving out onto a small piece of property and getting ready to start my homesteading dreams. We even have baby chicks sitting in the living room right now! This is something I’ve been dreaming about for the last 8 years if not longer. I can’t believe it’s finally becoming a reality, and I can’t wait to share some of it with you.

Chickens are here!

Chickens are sort of what started this whole thing as they tend to do. I’ve dreamt of them for years now, and have really been disappointed time and time again when we had to move somewhere that didn’t allow them. Pretty much as soon as our offer on the house was accepted my husband got me a dozen hatching eggs. We have friends who raise chickens and likes to have different breeds, so she sold us a dozen Swedish Flower hatching eggs. Into the incubator they went. Unfortunately, my incubator decided this was the time to act up and the turner didn’t work very well, so on lockdown down we found out only five had made it that far. Five chicks, with the possibility of a decent number being roosters, meant we needed a few more. We headed to our local farm supply store and came home with six more chicks. We chose two Black Australorps and four Welsummers which are already sexed and should be hens. Now the problem we face is that these won’t lay for months and I am wondering if I should find a few adults to add as well. Chicken math sure does kick in quick.

What’s Next?

I am so excited for what the future will bring. I plan on starting a large vegetable garden, an herb garden, flowers everywhere, an orchard and berry patch, and of course our farm animals. As much as I would love to do this all right away, I know it will take time and I will have to be patient. So I hope you will all follow along as I work to accomplish my dreams.