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Showing posts with label chickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chickens. Show all posts

Friday, August 7, 2020

Farm Friday: Chicken Tunnels

Chicken tunnels.

Surely you've heard of them?

Surely you have some?

No?  Then you must build yourself some.  They are the perfect way to get your chickens from point A to point B without either making a huge coop or letting your chickens free-range, which means they will never even make it to point B.

In my case, I wanted to funnel my chooks from their run behind their coop over to our old vegetable garden, which I converted into my compost bin (which isn't really a "bin" per se).

My idea was to build an enclosed space to throw kitchen scraps and yard/garden waste that the chickens could have access to, so they could scratch and poop and do all things chicken-y to turn the scraps into Gardener's Gold.  I decided the raised bed that came with my house was too small to use for my garden, but was a good size for a compost area, and situated close-but-not-too-close to the house, so it would be ideal.  But it was about 45' or so from the chicken coop.  

Enter chicken tunnels. 

Since I already had nice sturdy livestock paneling as my existing fence, I had a great base from which to build.  I don't have a "how-to" picture tutorial, but it was pretty simple.  If you plan to build a free-standing tunnel, your design will need to be different, so off you go, look elsewhere.

Anyway, here's how I made them...

What I did was to take shorter hog panels, as opposed to the taller cattle panels, and laid them on the ground.  I placed a 2x4 lengthwise on the panel where I wanted it to bend.  Then I just planted my feet on the 2x4, grabbed the upper end of the panel, and pulled so that it bent.  I just moved the board down and pulled up on the far end and kept going back and forth till I had the curve the way I wanted it. 

I only needed the tunnel to be "dig-proof" on one side.  On the inside of my fence (the backyard side), I was making a long row of raised beds for my vegetable garden, which you can kind of see in some of the pictures, but not all.  So since that side had a 20" buffer with the raised beds, I didn't need an "apron" of wire.  I did, however, need that on the other side in order to keep any predators from digging into the tunnel.  Sort of hard to explain, but I attached chicken wire to the existing fence with zip ties, then attached the new tunnel panels to the fence with zip ties, then wrapped the chicken wire over the tunnel, attaching here and there with - you guessed it - zip ties.  Where the tunnel met the ground, I ran the wire out about 12", and secured the chicken wire to the ground with garden staples, the kind you tack landscaping cloth down with.  The grass just grows right up through it, so it is not a problem mowing over it, and you'd never know it was there to look at it.  In fact, you don't even need to weed wack up against the tunnel because the chickens just stick their little beaks through and weed wack for you, considerate little creatures that they are.

So I just kept repeating this down the length of the fence till I got it to where it needed to be.  I overlapped the panels a bit.  You know what I used to secure one panel to the next?  I'm not even gonna say it.  It's good to have a little mystery in our lives here and there. 

Again, apologies for not taking pictures as I went along to make this a tutorial.  It just wasn't in my mind at the time.  But hopefully it makes sense.  If not, head over to Pinterest where I'm sure you can find some legit tutorials with pictures and everything.  I think that's where I got my idea, and then just tweaked it to work for my particular situation.

By the way, my chickens just love it, and it's been working beautifully.  I've had zero problems with it.  And I could do worse for entertainment than to sit with a cold one at the end of the day and watch them darting back and forth like hamsters in a Habitrail.




Beatrice, ever the pack leader.





Old veggie garden turned compost bin

Veggie garden-turned compost bin.




                                             
                                         Scraps turned into gold, right before my eyes.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Farm Friday: Mystery Tracks

Mystery tracks in the snow.

What could they be?










Mystery solved.











































Sure.  Roost on my porch.  Poop on my rocker.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Farm-ily Planning. Rehashed.

I haven't been writing for my blog lately.  
And that's probably not likely to change anytime soon due to certain, ummm, life circumstances.

But that's no reason to not post anything at all, right?  Even if it's something I already posted previously, if you'll forgive my literary regurgitations.

So here's a post I put up about a year ago.....




It's that time of year again.

T minus twelve days till the vernal equinox.

Time to let my overactive gardening and farming ambitions get the better of me.

Let the delusional planning begin.



Where I had my pumpkins last year? I want to put in cucumbers.

The kids eat 'em like candy as soon as they come in, and we never seem to have enough.


All along the whole long stone wall? I want to try pumpkins again. They'll get more sunlight there, and I'm hoping that will mean the difference.







As in, maybe we'll actually get a few.



And I'll put sweet potatoes in the secret garden.


Termaters and peppers and herbs and scallions and assorted yumminies in the actual vegetable garden.



And I haven't even gotten started on the animals.


I'm gonna get 50 cornish-rock chickens to split with my friend Theresa.






Since I'm ordering poultry anyway, I'll probably throw in a few more layers. And I've always wanted a few ducks, maybe I'll get me some runners. Should I get a turkey or two?


And there's the building projects.

I want to make a hay feeder to keep in the upper field, and maybe a chicken tractor for the meat birds, and I want to build a little pen to keep a few hens in the garden to till it up some before I plant stuff.

And do I maybe want to get a pig?

Or a cow?

If I do, I'll need to make a few updates to my fencing and gates.

On a smaller scale, maybe I'll get a buck for my Alice and start breeding Flemish Giants.  They're so cool.







Buzz...buzz.....buzz.......buzz....




Time to wake up.

Wake up to reality.

Chicken coop?  Not finished.  Not even clean.

The barn is a wreck.  A tangle of wood scraps and cobwebby chicken wire and knotted baling twine and busted palates and empty feed bags.

You could say just about the same for my house.

Finding time for more projects? Two of my three horse aren't even broke to ride.

My dog's claws look like something out of Guinness.

And I just started back to work!

The only talk of vegetables should be what's on sale at the store.

The only talk of critters should be whose turn it is to clean up the dog poop and bring in the eggs.




Someone please hit me over the head with a shovel.

Just not one of my shovels from the barn.



I've been meaning to clean that.....




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Friday, September 13, 2013

Farm Friday: Traffic Jam

Took my meat birds in for processing last weekend. They were inconsistent in size since I had ordered straight-run instead of pullets only like last time. Still, they ended up getting to a nice size for the most part.





They had NO idea what they were in for. But I maintain that raising my own birds for meat is not cruel, because they had a MUCH better life (and death, for that matter) than their factory-farm cousins.

If you'd like to read about my thoughts and experiences raising birds for meat the first time around, you can check these out:

Meat-n-Greet
Time To Say Goodbye.
I Lost It. Yes, IT.
The Cost of Sustainability



On the drive out to the farm, I hit a bit of a traffic jam.



Those Amish think that just because they're harvesting corn they OWN the road. Sheesh.




Happy weekend, my people!



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Friday, September 6, 2013

Farm Friday: Musical Chickens

Musical Chairs Chickens


Last week I played musical chickens.

I had moved the meat birds in with the layer hens, but they didn't really grasp the concept of roosting at night.

Not known for their smarts, those meat birds.

As a result, a few of them fell victim to the night life.

Meaning they got eaten by someone thing other than our family members.

By the time I had lost three of my dozen birds, I wised up
I'm not known for my smarts, either
and penned them up in the rabbit run.

Then I decided it was high time my new layers, five sweet little Buff Orpingtons, be released into the gen. pop.

So it all went something like this:

Meat birds in with the layers.

Meat birds in with the rabbits.

New layers in with the old layers.

Ducks still penned in the nursery.

And later this morning:

Meat birds taken in to be "processed".

Ducks in with the layers.

Repeat next summer.







Clear as mud....







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Sunday, August 25, 2013

Farm Friday on a Sunday: Chicken Surgery

I was doing some barn chores yesterday.

In the course of events, I saw one of our little hens settin' off by herself, real quiet like.

So I picked her up, and noticed something looked off with her foot.

At first glance, I thought she had a bit of a manure ball stuck to her claw (it happens).

But, horror of horrors, I realized it was not a manure ball, but rather some baling twine that had gotten wrapped around her feet. And the baling twine had gotten all frayed and tight and tangled, and

HER TALON OR CLAW OR TOE OR WHATEVER WAS NEARLY AMPUTATED!!

I brought her in the house and called Daniel over. Nugget is, after all, his chicken.

I sent one of the kids to the pantry to get the surgery bin.

Doesn't everyone have a surgery bin in their closet?

I put a surgical drape in Daniel's lap and set Nugget down on it.

I cut the twine off from around her feet with some bandage scissors and reassessed her talon. It was dead, but still attached to her foot by a bit of live flesh.
I don't know, is that what you're supposed to call it, or did I just coin a new phrase?

So I got a scalpel out of a wrapper, had Daniel hold on to her pretty tight, and cut the talon off.

I. Cut. The. Talon. Off.

Where else can you read stuff like this?











Look at all that stinkin' blood. Is that not disgusting?







That is a TALON.

In my HAND.





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Friday, July 19, 2013

Farm Friday: Allergic?

The chicks and ducklings continue to grow.

The chicks and ducklings continue to be adorable.

I can't hardly stand it.


Here is a picture of the chicks that I promised you from last week.

The goldish ones are the Buff Orpingtons, the whiter ones are the Cornish Rocks.

Don't get too used to those Rocks, they'll only be with us another six or seven weeks.

Well, they'll still be with us, but in the freezer or on the table, not in the barn.





And here is a picture of the ducklings. See the one on the right with the afro? That's the crested runner I was telling you about that I got by accident.

I love her.




Her days might be numbered, though. This morning I put them in the kiddie pool for the first time.

I no sooner put her in then she started flopping all around, twisting and writing like she was possessed.

I think she confused exercise with exorcise.

So I immediately picked her up, and her head continued to spin around.

I put her back in her hutch and she started flopping and twisting and spinning in her bedding.

But I turned my attention to another duckling that had gotten out of the pool and wedged into a little impossible to reach space, and by the time I got her squared away, the crested was upright and looking pretty OK.

I think maybe she had an anaphylactic reaction to water.

I have a duck that's allergic to water.

Figures.



Here are the other three ducklings acting like normal ducklings do when they are placed in water.





This one saw her sister freaking out and just said,

"Really?"

It came out sounding more like a little quack, but I knew what she meant.













************

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If you'd like to vote for me, just click on the image below, then scroll down till you see my blog, then click on the vote button. You can vote once a day till the contest ends on 7/24. If I can keep in the top 25 I can get a cool badge to wear proudly on my blog!




XOXO!


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Friday, July 12, 2013

Farm Friday: Preparing the Nursery

The feeders and waterers were scrubbed and shiny.





The duckling room was prepared.




The chick room was prepared.







And they're here!!!!

I say ducklings, you say cute.

Ducklings
CUTE!

Ducklings
CUTE!














I got two White Pekins and two Fawn Runners.
Runners are funny things. Bowling pins.
And it looks like they sent me one Crested Runner by accident. She's adorable. She looks like she's sportin' an afro.

These ducklings are just hilarious. Hilarious I tell you.
And cute. SO cute.

Pippin's dubious. He says, "They're no cuter than I am."

Yes, Pippin.
Yes they are....






I have chicks, too, and they are almost as cute as the ducklings, but the pictures didn't come out.
Poop.

Did I hear someone else ask what types of chicks I got?

I got 18 Cornish Rocks (meat birds). 12 for me and 6 for my friend Theresa.
And I got 5 more Buff Orpingtons to supplement my older layers.

Buff Orpingtons are awesome sauce.

They're nice.
They're good layers.
They're hardy.

Did I hear someone ask what possessed me to get ducklings?

Well, I heard it told that ducks will lay all winter, where hens (over the age of about two) will slow down in production significantly. Mine certainly did this past winter. Lazy good-for-nothins.
I also heard it told that while duck eggs may not be as good for eating breakfast-style, they're perfectly fine for using in recipes.



I got the call from the post office that my chicks were in.

This was 7:30 Thursday morning as I was on my way to Lancaster to get my Summer Son Obrin to his bus to take him back to New York.

So I called my friend Theresa and asked her if she would schlepp two towns over at 7:30 in the morning to pick up my poultry (truth be told, some of the order was hers).

And she did.

Everyone should have a Theresa in their lives.




************

My blog has been nominated for the Top 25 Moms With Big Families - 2013 list on Circle of Moms!
If you'd like to vote for me, just click on the image below, then scroll down till you see my blog, then click on the vote button. You can vote once a day till the contest ends on 7/24. If I can keep in the top 25 I can get a cool badge to wear proudly on my blog!




XOXO!


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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Wordless Wednesday: Spring has Sprung

After taking an extended winter vacation, my hens are back to business.

I wish I could take that much time off and still get paid.




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*************

Rudeness disclaimer:

I love all your comments,
I read every one!
But I can't hit 'reply',
I've no time for fun.
Please don't judge me,
Please don't hate.
If you have a question that just can't wait,
Send me an email at farmbeachgal@yahoo.com,
And I'll answer right back because I'm, you know, the Mom.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Farm Friday: Grumble.

Bleh!
Whine.
Grumble....

I had a post all written up with the kitten update. And I had pictures, but now I can't find the stinkin' memory card.
No memory card, no pictures.

And I canNOT bring myself to post a kitten update without showing you their toxic levels of adorableness. Can't be done.

So I'll try to post that tomorrow or something, and in the meantime I bring you some choice rehash of farm-like material.

Hope you don't mind too terribly.







So a good friend of mine is putting her house on the market because she wants a place in the country where she can keep her critters out in the open, and not hidden away in a secret chamber like Anne Frank.

The realtor came by to appraise her house and saw chickens in the garage.
Told her they must go.
She has some notion that potential buyers might not want to look any further once they saw chickens in the house. Sheesh.

So anyway, needless to say, I am now chicken-sitting said poultry. I took receipt of them a couple days ago, and felt like I was part of the underground-railroad.

We quickly got them settled into the Henhouse with the others.

Others being my 13 layers, 10 meat-bird chicks, and 6 layer-breed cockarels that I had heretofore described as styrofoam packing peanuts.

We oriented them to the feed and water, and sat back chattin' like the overall-wearin', hay-chewin' farmgals that we are, and watched the hens get acquainted with their new digs.

To no one's surprise, a fight broke out between one of the newcomers and one of my Wyandottes.

Me: Do you think we should break it up?
T: No, let's see if they can resolve this on their own.
(we're mothers first, chicken stewards second)

And we watched them fly at each other, puff up, peck at each other's wattles and combs, and cuss at each other.

At one point, in the thick of their squabble, they both stopped and turned to look off in a corner, with one neck twisted under the other and talons outstretched mid-strike.

Me: They need a thought-bubble above them that says, "I'm gonna rip you limb-from...Look! A squirrel!"
T: I think our chickens have ADHD.























Image courtesy: SydesJokes on Flickr
via Pinterest



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*************

Rudeness disclaimer:

I love all your comments,
I read every one!
But I can't hit 'reply',
I've no time for fun.
Please don't judge me,
Please don't hate.
If you have a question that just can't wait,
Send me an email at farmbeachgal@yahoo.com,
And I'll answer right back because I'm, you know, the Mom.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Farm Friday: Poultry Gender Confusion

Yes, another resurrected post. 
Haters gonna hate....


I know it hasn't yet been a month since my last chicken update, but it would appear I have some news on that front.

It seems our Golden-laced Polish is perhaps not a hen, but a rooster.

Clearly an error was made in the sexing and shipping dept, b/c I did not order any roosters. I wanted only hens in my henhouse.

I did not want crowing before daybreak.
I did not want children pushing away their plates of eggs for fear they might be eating a could've-been-baby chick.
I did not want a Demon Bird From Hell chasing and ankle-pecking.

But the last week or so I'd been hearing new sounds coming from the Chick Shack. Something akin to a teenage boy saying "Heyy. HEYYYY!" only with a distinct stalling car component to the sound.

This morning, when I had finished feeding and watering them, I looked at Tizzy. I noticed her headdress seemed more pronounced. Her neck feathers were more mane-like. Her tail feathers were carried high above her back in contrast to those of her peers.

And then it happened.

She stuck her neck out, stretched her back long, and screeched out

"Cock-a-doodle-doooooooo"

only still with a very marked teenaged boy quality to it. Imagine Shaggy imitating a rooster. That's it.

So it would seem we need to change her - I mean his - name. And I'll need your help. Here are your choices, and of course, feel free to suggest others:



David Bowie
You've gotta admit, there's a striking resemblance.













Big Daddy
My grandfather's name (may he rest in peace). One of my hens is named Big Mama (after my grandmother, naturally, may she rest in peace), so it would seem only fitting to name the only roo for her husband.
























Chas Bono
In light of recent headlines that Sonny and Cher's daughter Chastity chose to undergo a sex change to become Chas Bono, I thought this might make a good choice. And let's face it, how many people can claim to have a rooster named Chas Bono? Hmmm? Anyone?















??????

















So whaddya think, folks? Help me name my gender-confused rooster/hen.









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Picture of Chas Bono from Google images
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTKAuFcU2MseHhNIeeQhdi5hKlN7bKG-BDvJ2hyQCBVnXV4zSnR


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Read it.
Like it?
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***************************



Rudeness disclaimer:

I love all your comments,
I read every one!
But I can't hit 'reply',
I've no time for fun.
Please don't judge me,
Please don't hate.
If you have a question that just can't wait,
Send me an email at farmbeachgal@yahoo.com,
And I'll answer right back because I'm, you know, the Mom.








Friday, March 8, 2013

Farm Friday: Farm-ily Planning



It's that time of year again.

T minus twelve days till the vernal equinox.

Time to let my overactive gardening and farming ambitions get the better of me.

Let the delusional planning begin.



Where I had my pumpkins last year? I want to put in cucumbers.

The kids eat 'em like candy as soon as they come in, and we never seem to have enough.


All along the whole long stone wall? I want to try pumpkins again. They'll get more sunlight there, and I'm hoping that will mean the difference.







As in, maybe we'll actually get a few.



And I'll put sweet potatoes in the secret garden.


Termaters and peppers and herbs and scallions and assorted yumminies in the actual vegetable garden.



And I haven't even gotten started on the animals.


I'm gonna get 50 cornish-rock chickens to split with my friend Theresa.






Since I'm ordering poultry anyway, I'll probably throw in a few more layers. And I've always wanted a few ducks, maybe I'll get me some runners. Should I get a turkey or two?


And there's the building projects.

I want to make a hay feeder to keep in the upper field, and maybe a chicken tractor for the meat birds, and I want to build a little pen to keep a few hens in the garden to till it up some before I plant stuff.

And do I maybe want to get a pig?

Or a cow?

If I do, I'll need to make a few updates to my fencing and gates.

On a smaller scale, maybe I'll get a buck for my Alice and start breeding Flemish Giants.  They're so cool.







Buzz...buzz.....buzz.......buzz....




Time to wake up.

Wake up to reality. 

Chicken coop?  Not finished.  Not even clean.

The barn is a wreck.  A tangle of wood scraps and cobwebby chicken wire and knotted baling twine and busted palates and empty feed bags.

You could say just about the same for my house.

Finding time for more projects? Two of my three horse aren't even broke to ride.

My dog's claws look like something out of Guinness.

And I just started back to work!

The only talk of vegetables should be what's on sale at the store.

The only talk of critters should be whose turn it is to clean up the dog poop and bring in the eggs.




Someone please hit me over the head with a shovel.

Just not one of my shovels from the barn.



I've been meaning to clean that.....




****************************

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Like it?
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***************

In case you didn't know it, I'm like the queen of blog-hoppin' lately. It's kind of like square dancing but without the dated outfits, smelly gym, and elderly caller.

Come join the fun!

*************

Rudeness disclaimer:

I love all your comments,
I read every one!
But I can't hit 'reply',
I've no time for fun.
Please don't judge me,
Please don't hate.
If you have a question that just can't wait,
Send me an email at farmbeachgal@yahoo.com,
And I'll answer right back because I'm, you know, the Mom.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Farm Friday: Never the Write Time.

Long day yesterday.

Longer still when I looked at my list of posts to see what I had cued up for today, and realized with an accomplanying gasp of horror,
nothing!

So I traipsed on over to my old blog, went through my posts tagged "farm", and voila, there was one I had written up a couple years ago, all ready for me to steal breathe new life onto it.

It was written at a time when my hens were just wee chicks, all cute and full of promise, instead of the non-egg-laying freeloaders I have in my barn now.

Funny thing is, the post is all about how I was super busy and never made time for writing.

Same problem, different details...


**************




I let the day get away from me without writing.

I could blame it on my *%#@! computer, which taunts me with its connectivity one minute and then whips it out from under my feet the next.

Jezebel.

I could blame it on having to clean out the chicks' water dish 3 times today b/c they keep clogging it with wood chips that soak up all the water and then they stare at me with their little beady chickie eyes. Pleading silently for water, water ....

I could blame it on possibly finding the solution to that problem by placing 2 bricks under the water dish so it sits up higher out of the bedding.

Or on the fact that while I was in the barn to fetch the bricks I got distracted and before I knew it I had built a little hutch within their room as well as a small table for their food and water dishes for when I move the chicks out of the tub and into the Chick Shack.

Or if I want to sound more like a good mother and less like a grungy farmhand, I could blame it on making some homemade Play Doh with the kids, using a neat recipe I found that uses Kool Aid packs to flavor and scent the dough. We played with it (myself + all the kids but the oldest) for like an hour. Some of our sculptures included a foot, a beanie-sportin' snowman sticking his tongue out, severed fingers, hearts proclaiming undying fidelity to the one and only Justin Bieber, and a newly-hatched-still-in-the-shell chick.

Oh well. As pathetic as it sounds, it's 9:45 and this good-mother/grungy farmhand is heading to bed.


Better luck tomorrow.



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Like it?
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Thanks!



***************

In case you didn't know it, I'm like the queen of blog-hoppin' lately. It's kind of like square dancing but without the dated outfits, smelly gym, and elderly caller.

Come join the fun!

*************

Rudeness disclaimer:

I love all your comments,
I read every one!
But I can't hit 'reply',
I've no time for fun.
Please don't judge me,
Please don't hate.
If you have a question that just can't wait,
Send me an email at farmbeachgal@yahoo.com,
And I'll answer right back because I'm, you know, the Mom.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Farm Friday: Living the Dream Life


I get a lot of awesome comments from my awesome readers.

I'm sure they must be here for the skillful and poetic writing (see above sentence).



Anyway, one comment I get a good bit is something along the lines of
"You're living my dream life".

And it is a dream life for many people. Myself included.

But if I'm going to be a responsible blogger, I think I need to point out a few of the less-than romantic realities of hobby farming.

Because it's not all gathering wildflowers in a sunny field or walking through pristine bedding to collect fresh eggs in a vintage basket.

So if you're picturing Laura Ingalls in a Massengil commercial, I think it's time for me to paint you a new picture.























In fact, let me give you a little quiz on this "dream life", and we'll see how you fare.


Rats


If you have a farm, they will come.

So let me ask you, when you hear the word 'rat', do you picture

a:
























Head straight to your nearest Petco and get yourself a little cage and a hamster. That's as close as you should get to farming.


b:

















Buy a horse and board it at someone else's farm.



or c:




















Get you some barn cats and a rat terrier. You're ready.






Mud

No one is quite sure of the science behind it, but farms seem to generate mud. Lots of it. So again, I ask, when you hear 'mud', do you picture

a:



















Buying your eggs and veggies from a farmer's market is as near as you should get to farming.






b:



















Not even close.




or c:























Yeah.  That's about it.  Get a snorkel and come on down.






Decision-Making

Living on a farm, you sometimes have to make tough decisions.
For instance, if you see a mangy, skanky-looking fox skulking around your barn for a few days, and then one day you find him curled up in the corner DEAD, do you





















a:
Cry a little, offer up a prayer to the god of wildlife, and bury him under your prize rosebush?

b:
Cut off his head and stick it in the mail?
AS ADVISED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP PEOPLE!!!!

or c:
Scoop him up with a shovel and ditch him in the thicket and marshes under cover of night, a la Jimmy Hoffa?



I still can't talk about it.





Preparedness

If you were to live on a farm, which of the following would you be physically, mentally, and emotionally prepared to do?

a: sexually violate your hen with mineral oil and rubber gloves when, in your chicken ignorance, you mistake broodiness for being egg-bound.

b: Scrub out dirty water buckets.

c: Scrub out dirty water buckets in which you have picked out drowned rats.

d: Scoop manure till your back breaks.

e: Track said manure into your house, as if you didn't have enough to clean up already.

f: Castrate ram-lambs and bucklings with your very own Elastrator.

g: Fix fences and gates while your household projects remain on the to-do list.

h: Spend $300 on a hay delivery while you feed your kids Ramen till payday.

i: Pull #$!*ing burrs out of manes and tails till your fingers bleed.

j: Massage the udders and nipples of mastitic does and ewes and mares.

k: All of the above and much, much more.



If you answered "c" in the rats, mud, and decision making portions of the test, and "k" in the preparedness section, you might be ready to buy the farm.



But just one more word of caution:

While you'll find there's a little of this in farming:




























There's a heck of a lot more of this:



























And believe me when I tell you, if that's the worst I ever looked doing the dirty work of farming, I would be thrilled.




But go ahead.  Get some chickens.  Maybe a few goats. 

Live the dream.





















Just don't say I didn't warn you....










Image sources: shutterstock.com, istockphoto.com, equinaturaledits.blogspot.com, nfws.org.uk, saviortpc.com, sodahead.com, animal.discovery.com, stylecraze.com, yesspaces.com, 123rf.com

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