Life in the Barn at the Hidden Egg Farm

We have four goats ready to give birth – who will be first? The ideal way to breed your goat is to have the buck on site behind a common fence. When the girl goes into heat they will be at the common fence and will know. You bring in the buck you want to breed the girl and log the date. Surely always gives birth exactly five months from breeding. Last year we didn’t have a buck area fenced off so our buck ran with the girls. I witnessed Surely’s breeding and her due date is Thursday, February 11th. This morning (Monday, February 8th) she was discharging mucus and her utter is huge, so I know she is close. I didn’t witness Zoe’s breeding, and her utter is also huge, but no discharge this morning. Nettle and Alure are both first timers so they have smaller utters, but both are “bagging up”.

Saturday I completed a new electrical fence cutting the pasture in half. We have an old structure in that area and it will become our buck house in the new buck yard. We want to keep two of our buck kids this year and will move them into the new yard at three months. The plan is to keep one of Surely’s and one from Alure. If they don’t throw any bucks this year we have been offered one from a friend's herd. In that case we will keep on of Nettle’s or Zoe’s buck kids but wether them.

We received four new barn cats two weeks ago from a rescue organization and they have been living in two large cages in our barn loft. We released them yesterday – organic rodent control. Three years ago we place five in our barn, one ran off as soon as we opened the cages, two disappeared within six months and two stayed in the barn until they died a couple of months ago. We think they were quite old. This morning all four we still in the loft. We’ll see how it goes this time.

Our ducks have begun to lay eggs – I found six Saturday under the goose house. Unlike chickens, ducks like to find hidden areas to lay eggs. If we find the spot before they get too many eggs laid (usually 10 to 15) they will keep laying, always looking for a new spot. If we don’t find the nest they will become broody and hatch them. Last year we hatched out about 70 ducklings. Sold most of them for $4 to $5 each. We kept four of the girls to replace some losses we had and have five of the males (drakes) that we will butcher in another week. Muscovy ducks are good layers and the boys grow huge and are good meat ducks.