Here Chick, Chick...

So, a couple of good things happening at the farm today.  The much anticipated event of the installation of a new septic system has commenced!  When we bought the house, back in February, the septic was repaired because there were roots growing through the pipes.  It was recommened that the whole system be replaced.  So we have been living with a gigantic trench running through our yard and down the hill and have been waiting for dry weather for the "replacement" to begin.  And of course with our luck, this has been one of the rainiest springs in a long time.  Well at least we can be happy for the farmers!

Other happenings:

The baby goat is now doing well enough that I have put her in the pasture with the other goats during the day.  She will still be spending her nights in the garage until she gets a little bigger so that she doesn't fall prey to any other animals.  When we got her she was drinking 12 ounces of milk twice a day.  I now have her up to 3 feedings a day and she is drinking between 16 and 20 ounces.  I think she has already put on about 5 pounds.  She is also offered free choice hay and grain and of course water.  She was 12 pounds when we got her and should easily have been closer to 20.  She hasn't really perked up yet but things are still new for her and she is still hiding a lot from the donkey.  It feels good knowing that we saved her from certain death.  She probably wouldn't have lasted another week there in the condition she was in.  She can look forward to a long and spoiled life now!

The last major event of the day was the delivery of the meat chickens to the processing house.  70 chickens are a lot to have roaming around the property every day and their feed bill was getting ridiculous.  Not to mention that they had a bad habbit of getting into the gargage and making a mess.  The baby goat is in there in small kennel run with a plastic dog kennel and a large wire dog kennel.  The chickens would go in and eat all of her grain and then kick her pine bedding everywhere while they scratched through it.  She would sit in the kennel terrified.  Those chickens were about as big as she was.  I do still have about 5-6 available if anyone is interested.  So now we will start to incorporate the chicks that are left with the rest of the flock.  I'm not sure how Farmer Brown and Bob are going to like that.  They have been working hard over the last couple weeks chasing the chicks around to make sure they don't get too close to the henhouse!  Should be interesting!