Summer Farm Tour 2019 Part 1

Welcome to the Ten Acre Woods. My name's Mark and it is a beautiful day. It was a little bit rainy earlier on this weekend, but Sunday turned out beautiful. This week's been fairly busy. We actually had a bunch of school groups come in. So the end of the school season, we had two schools come out on Thursday. Three buses, three school buses pulled up. And then on Friday, we had another bus that showed up. And I think there was, well, there was a couple hundred kids anyway on the Thursday group. A little bit smaller on the Friday. Something that Tiana pointed out the other day. We've had quite a few nests. Oh, it looks like it was just sitting there moments ago. So there's a nest here. A little nest. It's a little bird. So if we look inside, you can see there are two little eggs. So the other day when the girls were walking down to the barn, that's where we store our hay, they had noticed it was really windy. And of course the branch was moving up and down and this little bird was sitting in there. So that's kind of exciting. So we'll go up into the animal area and trek where no man has trekked before. We don't allow people or visitors to go into the front area just because they are, well, the two goats, they are intact and they are a little smelly and they can be a little aggressive. It's more of a playful aggressiveness, but nonetheless, they can be a little bit more aggressive. Now we've been having... Hi, you want me to sit down? I'll sit on this little piggy here. We've been having construction done on the front highway. So there's been a lot of crews, the guys with the stop sign. Yes. The stop sign stopping traffic. And apparently these guys have been quite entertaining up front on the highway. Two people sitting in their car and waiting for their turn to go. So we heard about that from a guy who had stopped by. I think it was last weekend and he didn't know we existed here. So of course he was working on the highway. He brought his two little girls and they had a great time. So getting to Carl, now some of you that have been following us, you know that he broke his horn here. No, the horn won't grow back. The horns do grow. They grow fairly slowly, but he's always going to have one that's shorter than the other. Of course, unless he snaps that other one off. So Carl is... How old are you now, buddy? You're about four years, three or four years old, I think. And Carl, or Billy here is three years old. Hi. And Levi, I'm not really sure how old Levi is. Actually, no, Billy's two. Levi came in last year with the two girls. Two females. He's a miniature horse and the other two are ponies. And the previous owners didn't think that he was large enough to breed them. Well, he did. And of course, we'll go see Meadow and Willow in a little bit. And of course, she has a little tail, a little gray tail, just like that. So he has now since been gelded. We did that last spring. So they go through this, the noise making, if you've been watching our Facebook or Instagram. And poor Levi has to deal with that. What it is, is goats will go into heat every, on an average of 21 days. And if the wind is right, there it is. If the wind's right, blowing the scent of the girls over, they tend to get a little excited. So these two here are intact, both Carl and his son Billy. And Bobby, which is now going to be a permanent resident, unless there's another home that he'll go to. We were possibly thinking about re-homing him along with Blackie. But that's something, things change all the time around here. But this poor, poor boy here has to deal with the other one. So Bobby came in last year because he was the sole survivor on a farm and predators had come in and gotten the other goat or goats. I think there was a couple. Hey Carl. So Billy has also broken off one of his horns. And, uh, that's, that's the story with these boys up here. So they're pretty comical, aren't you? Yes. Yes, you are. Now that brings me up to predators. So I did a video a couple of weeks ago on predators and sure enough, this past week, we had a predator that breached our, our compound. Uh, so Tara was working out in the barn, cleaning out the rest of the shelter area. She heard a big ruckus, geese and chickens and roosters and, and everything going on. So she went back and she saw, it looked like there were two fox. So I pulled up the footage from the camera on the house. It's not the clearest. Um, but in playing it back a few times and I actually slowed down the section where the, where the foxes were, there may be a third shadow in the back. Uh, but I'm not quite, uh, I couldn't quite make it out, but there was at least two of them that came in. Uh, it looks like there were no casualties with any of our animals. Everybody's still intact and, uh, on yard. Uh, so the fox or the foxes, uh, the two fox, I think it's singular, came in and didn't come into the open compound area. Uh, I watched the video back a few times and there's Barry. Yeah. Good old fashioned Barry. He's just hanging there eating, just, uh, just oblivious to what's going on around him. Uh, so that was the story with a predator that we had this week. Up here in the front, we have some rogue ducks and roosters hanging about. Now I'm not sure why they're up here. They've gone around, gone onto the electric fence, uh, and then just hang out up here. The pond is, is over in the back guys. So there's a few nests. Well, there's one that's actually sitting right in there. So she's sitting. Uh, she wasn't sitting last week when I went through the nests. So we should be in about four weeks or so depending on when she started. Uh, now of course there's still the two that are underneath the stairs here. You can see the camera that I've placed in there to keep an eye on them. And then there's also a Muscovy that's back underneath there as well. And the other one is around the corner here that the chicken and duck have been, have been sharing. So she's in there. So that's the front area here. You can see a couple other ducks up on the hill there. Uh, and, uh, we've got, is that the rooster? No, that's not Henrietta. Henrietta is a Colombian rock. Uh, and she is, uh, no, this is the rooster. This is her rooster. Looks identical except the black feathers, uh, the big feathers on the back. Now Henrietta is up here because she was, well, she was a bully to the other hens. So we removed her from the coop. She was the only one that wasn't really missing any tail feathers. So we deduced that she was the problem. And after she was removed, then there were no other concerns. All right. So this is the, if I can get this gate locked here, this is the front pen where we keep Sheldon. So Sheldon, hi buddy. He was last year's kid giving his, given a 0% chance of survival. And we worked with him, feeding him the bottle, getting him, uh, getting mobile. And, uh, sure enough, he pulled through. Now he's, uh, he's got his own little quirks about him. We like to call him autistic, essentially. He has a very short attention span and he, uh, he's just the goofiest little boy. Aren't you buddy? You want to say hi? Hey, you want to say hi? Oh, that's right there. You like that? So, uh, he is actually a therapist in his own right. Now Moira came in, in January and she was extremely skittish. She, she still is. You can't get right up to her. You can walk by her without a problem. Um, but these two are buddies. So Sheldon has kind of shown Moira that, you know, it's not so bad in here. You know, these people aren't so bad. They're not going to, uh, abuse you. So she is a Shetland sheep. Hey, and she was sheared this first time. Hi. Uh, the first time this year. So we figure she's about three years old and the guy who did the sheep shearing actually, um, noticed that there was some baby fluff, the curly tips on the end of the wool, that would mean that it's baby wool. So it doesn't look like she was sheared at all. Moving into our nursery in here, we got all kinds of nurseries, but this is, this is the actual nursery. The other ones up front, the ducks, uh, they're just, uh, Sheldon, excuse me. Okay. Well, all right. We'll let you in, but you're coming back out with me. He's a quick little one. Uh, this is Fernando's turkeys. They are sitting. So we're going to keep an eye on them. And here's just a, a rogue rooster. Uh, so that was one of the turkey hens. The other one is in here. Yep. And she is sitting. We were thinking about putting some of the peafowl eggs underneath her. Um, actually there is, look at that. Um, so there's actually a cracked egg there. So I don't know if that was a rotten egg or if, if one's hatched, it doesn't look like it's in great shape. It looks like it's kind of collapsed from the outside in, as opposed to from the inside out. So I would guess that it was just a bad egg, but we'll see what happens in the coming days and coming weeks. Inside the center nursery are two Muscovy ducklings. So these ones here, uh, we had come in a couple of weeks, a week ago, two weeks, I think it was about two weeks ago now. And their names are cheese and quackers. Um, so there was, uh, actually Tiana's principal, high school principal, he wanted to adopt a couple ducklings for her, his daughter. And of course they live in the city, so they can't actually have them in the city. So, um, we had a birthday party out here and it was, um, it was a great success and then had a little certificate done up. So these are two Muscovy ducks. They take quite a long time to feather out, not nearly as fast as Pekin ducks. Pekin ducks can go from squeeze out here. They can go from a hatch to fully feathered in a matter of six weeks. These guys here are probably, probably looking at about three months, three to four months before they, they get to full grown. Uh, the male Muscovy, the Muscovy Drake is the largest duck out there. And, uh, maybe that's just one of the reasons why it's said that they're not necessarily a duck, but kind of a duck goose hybrid, uh, because the female ducks don't quack, the Muscovy's, uh, they've got kind of a, a whimper, kind of a higher pitch kind of whimper. And of course the males have this panting, kind of like a dog, which you'll see in here when we go in and talk to high guys. Um, their gestation period for the eggs, the incubation, uh, is between a duck and a goose. So it's almost like it's a, it's basically a hybrid. Moving into our main compound. Now this was redone last year. We, the pond was all lined. So the grass in this area isn't, um, isn't currently growing too well. Although if you look over here, you can see there's green. So there's some nice green coming up. Uh, it's coming up around the stones here as well. Uh, the sandbags that were used in place to hold back the rock during installation have started to become exposed, but we're going to leave those there because the dirt behind the rocks and just kind of in the rocks, uh, is starting to grow grass. So that's going to hold that together. So we want to make sure that we have a good base there. And then we'll likely either add some more stones into it or remove those bags. Uh, we're not quite sure on that yet. Fernando, here's your chance. What do you have to say? Fernando is, what are you? You're four years old now. Uh, he was a hatched turkey that came in, a sole survivor. Uh, he was the only one that hatched and he came in and somebody wanted a turkey. So they took Fernando and it didn't last long. For whatever reason, Fernando came back. So he was destined to come back and he is our big show off here. He loves attention and he's great for people that are scared of birds because, well, he is a little scary at first, but you tend to fall in love with him. Okay. So geese, we have some Czech geese, uh, one, two, three, four, and five. This one here is a Chinese goose. You can see the bump on the head along with this one here. And that's another Czech. And that is a, another Chinese. So the Chinese geese, three of them came in. They were at a farm. The neighbor noticed that the farmer wasn't there. The person who owned the farm wasn't there, but these three geese were hanging out and, uh, they were, uh, they were a little neglected. They were rough looking. So a mutual friend got into contact, uh, with us and we went over and actually bought the goose, the, the three geese from them said, Oh, we've been looking for these geese for quite some time. Uh, what do you sell them for? So he says, well, give me a hundred bucks and they're yours. So we went and picked them up and we kept the peace between the neighbors because that was the big concern. Uh, roosters, lots of roosters out in the yard. Uh, nobody seems to want roosters and we apparently can't say no to bringing the roosters in. Uh, they do get along. The reason why they get along is because they have a large open area that if one needs to get away, they can. Talking about the Muscovy drakes. This is one of the high guys. Hi, what are you doing buddy? And you can hear that. Well, not, not that much. The panting, the wiggling of the tail. Hey bud, what are you doing? What are you doing? Hi. Uh, so these two came in because I mentioned that I think in the last video, uh, the previous people that had them, uh, had the ducks that are extremely friendly, but they can nip and ducks will do that. They'll, it's kind of their, their feeling textures, uh, and they can nip and it's kind of a playful nip, but to small children, it is far from entertaining. Uh, so that's why these two came in. Uh, we have another male here and we have two Pekin ducks over there. Uh, so the pond's looking great, nice and clear. So that's wonderful. Can see right down to the bottom there. We are getting some, uh, a little bit of growth on here, which isn't a bad thing. It's actually, um, decent having the growth there underneath the water. It's nice and clear. So we can actually see right down into the water. Um, and then the growth that's in there, we do have some feeder fish in there. We have people looking for catfish, uh, cause that's ideally what we would like, uh, to maintain everything. There's lots of little bugs and such. Uh, you can just see all the little movement in there, all the little bugs. I forget what they're called. They're the little swimmer, uh, swimmer, the paddle boat type bugs. You see in swimming pools all the time. I did know the name of them, but, uh, there are tons of them in there. Uh, so good food for the ducks, good food for the fish and, uh, just hopefully maintaining clarity. Uh, the water level is back down slightly and we can always turn on the pump that is situated inside of the lighthouse here to pump in some water back in to refresh things. Uh, you can see the bubbles happening in there and that's done by the windmill that's turning and it is pumping air down through the tube, which I would like to sink. Prince! Well, we got a honk. The next stage is the hooah. Um, female. So we've got a female, we've got two females. So those are the, uh, peahens and then our pigeons up here. Uh, and, uh, they were amongst, some of them were in the back feeding on the ground when the fox came through and they all just bolted. Look at the spacing of those. You guys are, look at the, you're, you're just spaced perfectly. So are these ones. Maybe they're getting ready to perform, uh, perform for this afternoon. That's funny. Perfect spacing. Uh, this area here is growing up nicely. So we wanted to keep the animals out of this area to give the grass a chance to grow. Of course, you can see lots of little seedlings. Uh, those are likely, uh, popular trees that are coming up. Uh, but once this gets established, we probably even let somebody in here for a little bit, just to kind of mow it down, uh, and then, uh, and then continue to allow it to grow. Uh, rabbits. It looks like they're lounging. Oh, rabbits. Oh, bunnies. I'm going to have to take this off to be able to get in there. Hi girls. Hi. So they're lounging. This is actually a compost bin, uh, which works great for a little rabbit hutch. This is the door that you'd take your compost out of. It's got nice air holes and it has a lid that you can turn off to put whatever hay in there, or you can pick it up however you want to do it. Uh, this over here is the bottom of a, uh, of a bed. I think it's called a captain's bed where you have the two pieces and you have the drawers on each side. Uh, so we took one of these and put it here and the other one is actually over by the pond. Uh, there's a nesting, uh, duck that's in there. So we have a standard Rex and we have a little lion head. You're a cutie, aren't you? Uh, and then it looks like we have a kind of a cross mix here and a another standard Rex, actually standard Rex cross it looks like. Uh, so they have three of those compost bins and they have some toys and well, they flipped this one over. This is kind of a single, a little single rabbit house. Uh, and, uh, they've got some wood to gnaw on. Uh, we should probably put some more wood in here. There's wood here. And of course there's wood there. Uh, you want to make sure that you have wood in their area so that they can chew because their teeth continuously grow. And so that's the outside pen and moving on inside. So here is, uh, again, the inside pen with the girls and across the way we have the boys. Uh, I think there are four, I believe four. Yeah. One, two, five. Sorry. Say again with my numbers. Um, having the wood in there is again essential. So we just use some dead wood from out in the bush. You want to make sure that it's not a treated lumber. Uh, sometimes you have scrap lumber and such that, uh, you build your deck from. Uh, and as you can see that one right there is chewing away, digging in. Uh, they do have an automatic waterer in here, which is down in this area here has to be cleaned regularly because they, uh, they mess it up quite a bit. Uh, they're not the best roommates. They, uh, and that's one of the reasons why we do get so many of these rabbits in, uh, is because of course, uh, kids and some adults, uh, they want a rabbit and they don't realize the responsibility that it takes for a rabbit. Um, I can't think of any other animal at this moment that requires more attention than a rabbit does. This shelter here is new from last year. So last year we built that and we're planning on doing some more work on this netting over here. The far side is not netted. Uh, we want to close that whole thing in and we're thinking about using a lumber, something to that effect to have a secure, um, caged unit and go from there just to keep predators out and to keep those roosters out because we have so many of them. Uh, so moving in, oh, we do have, well, this is Lambert. What are you doing in here, Lambert? If anybody's in here, it would be Hannibal, but, uh, Hannibal's out in the back. All right. Well, you don't want to go out with the rest of them. No, don't get up. I don't want to bother you. Uh, so Tara had cleaned out this area here. It was quite built up from over the winter. Uh, she had cleared this area out about a month ago, but of course, because we had Willow and, uh, Meadow in this area, which have now since been moved to the back. So that's something new this week. Uh, we had this area closed off so they could come in and out of this area. Uh, and once we moved them out, Tara spent, uh, some quality time out here, uh, cleaning that up. So that's great. Uh, going into the building, if this is, no, it's not locked. Okay. So this is the secret that our daughter showed us. You reach through and turn it and voila. Uh, all right. So coming inside, we have our little Sarama roosters. Uh, this one, yes. Uh, this one here can be a little, uh, a little spicy. I guess we'll say it. Uh, so we have Apollo and Atlas. So those are the two boys in here. We did lose Zeus. Uh, Zeus was a black and white one, uh, for whatever reason. Um, he didn't, uh, didn't make it about three, I think it was about three weeks ago. Uh, so this area here is going to be one of the, um, next, uh, next clean out areas. Uh, we've already done the chicken area. Uh, but what we want to do is of course we want to paint the inside of this. So I've got the paint. Uh, it's just a matter of taking some time off work. So I think I'm going to, uh, take some time off in mid July and take a week off and get this stuff done. Uh, so their feeding station down is in here and they have a, uh, basically a furnace duct pipe that runs up, uh, the wall here and is filled. Excuse me, buddy. Filled from this area right in here. Uh, so that works very well. Uh, moving over to the hens. So again, these hens are closed in. Um, and we want to get, we need to get that, uh, that area on the outside done. Uh, the hens are looking a lot better since the roosters are out. Uh, this one, I believe just got put in here. You can see she does have a bare spot on her back. Uh, but the other ones are looking pretty good. Uh, and this is Henry. Oh Henry. Hi buddy. Uh, so he was kind of getting picked on. Uh, he is, uh, he's a bantam rooster and you know, we, we move animals around as we see fit. Uh, he's kind of a little special one. He's keeping these boys entertained, although they don't really need too much entertaining. All right. And the hens. So these hens are starting to get quite a bit larger. Uh, and they're going to be, they're getting close to, uh, to being able to be put in with the other ones. Um, so that is, uh, that is these ones. You can see some different breeds. These look like barred rock actually. Um, we had these eggs brought in from, uh, other people that, uh, that, uh, brought in eggs to incubate. And then, uh, we kept some of them and the rest of them went off. But yeah, these look like, I'm guessing these are barred rock. Um, that one almost looks like a leg horn over there. Uh, maybe some black Australorps here. Uh, and that's, uh, oh, and another, I can't think of the name of that one. A sex like maybe. Um, but yeah, no, those are, uh, those are the little ones. Those are the little ones. The other little ones. No, you're not going in there. He went in there earlier when I was doing the water. I went in to change the water and I go in and I turn around and there he is moving into our other nursery, our younger nursery, where our incubator is located. Uh, we have the chicks here. So these ones are leg horns and their feathers. Uh, you can see their feathers coming in nicely. So the wings first, tail, and then the rest of the body. Uh, these ones came in from a school that, uh, was having a, um, uh, some eggs to hatch out in the classroom. Uh, of course, once summer comes, well, where do you send the chickens? So you send them to a farm. Uh, so we'll incorporate these into our flock, uh, or we'll, um, uh, rehome them to somebody else who's looking for some more, uh, chickens. Uh, either way they will be taken care of. Uh, they'll be well taken care of and that's their little area. So this is all set up with heat lamps in here. Uh, this one here is now closed off, closed for business. Uh, we've got some wool in there that we sheared the sheep, uh, and we didn't need any more space. So we've actually got two of these little areas here and they work out really nice as a brooding pen. So that is it for part one of a two-part, uh, episode that I'm doing here on the farm tour. Uh, I guess just having too many animals and too much to say, it is, uh, going a little bit too long. So I'll post the next video, uh, likely 24 hours after I upload this one, uh, and you can watch that one there. Uh, so until tomorrow, have a wonderful day and we'll see you in that video and take care. Bye-bye.