Usual Morning with Some of the Animals

Bird Bras???

So I went out this morning to let the chickens, turkey and ducks out of their coop and I was so worried because the coop was FULL of feathers! I thought something got into the coop during the night and attacked one of our precious birds!! But I guess its that time of year where they all start molting! Oh NO! It starts in their breast area as you can see on Sugar. Luckily she still thinks that she is beautiful! Does anyone know where we can get bras for our naked breasted ladies? Interesting molting facts.....

Birds must spend a great deal of time caring for their feathers, since their lives depend on them. Preening, bathing, dusting, and other feather care operations, however, cannot prevent the feathers from wearing out. Because formed feathers (like our fingernails) are lifeless, horny structures, incapable of being repaired, worn feathers must be replaced. This process of replacement is termed molting. The old, worn feathers are loosened in their follicles (sockets) by the growth of new intruding feathers, which eventually push them out. Molting occurs in regular patterns over a bird's body. The adaptiveness of such patterns can be illustrated by the arboreal woodpeckers, which retain the key inner pair of long tail feathers used in bracing and climbing until the outer feathers have been replaced. This is the reverse of the pattern found in most birds, which molt tail feathers from the center of the tail first, and then progressively toward each side. The majority of adult birds molt once or twice a year, and the temporal pattern, not unexpectedly, is related to the wear rate on the feathers. Feathers of species that migrate enormous distances or live in thick brush, dodging among twigs and spines, wear more rapidly than those of birds resident in one place or live in open country. The former tend to molt twice a year, and the latter only once.

New Friends to Our Family!

Even though we had a really sad week and lost some of our feathered friends...we gained a couple more to add to our family! Dana, our horse camp instructor, brought over her little pygmy goat and her super cute donkey, Picante. My brother saved three lives on teh dairy by helping a momma holstein cow deliver her twins! That's right...she had a male and a female, one is black and white and the other is brown and white!

Losing Parts of Our Family

This has been a very sad week for us here on the farm. We have lost a lot of our animals who we loved so much. We had nine of the cutest and sweetest baby ducks....we found four of them dead in our yard and three of them we never found. We now have two left. We believe this was from a dog that strayed onto the farm. A few days later I noticed two of the three roosters were missing along with one of our adult ducks. We have not a clue what happened to these three. Last night we lost one of our beautiful Buff Orpington hens. She was acting "depressed" yesterday so we brought her into the house and my brother gave her penicillin. The poor girl didnt last through the night. All we can hope is that we gave these animals the best life that they could possibly have. We miss them all very much.