Shortly after we bought the fencing I was pretty adamant about hubby fencing off my garden space. You see, I’ve sold shares for our family’s first ever CSA project this year so it’s pretty important that the goats don’t smush down the chicken wire fencing and eat all the food I’m growing for other families this year.

The problem is I’ve only got my hubby for 1.5 days each week and that time is spent on our family’s farm chores, his daddy duty with the girls and perhaps his own relaxing or hobbies… Time for fence hanging is in short supply and fence hanging isn’t a one person job.

The fence rolls are about 100lbs each, it takes both of us to unroll a section of fence and then it takes us both to get the fence staples nailed in (one person to tension the fence and one to do the hammering)… So, the completion of fence work has taken a backseat but we thought a moveable electric fence might be a nice temporary solution in the meantime. Plus, we would like to set up pasture rotations with the electric fence later down the line.

So one of the 1.5 days free was set aside for electric strand fencing. We started with a single wire at something like 7000 volts then we added a second electrified wire and then a third “dummy wire” that isn’t hot yet but it will be once weeds are trimmed. 

Training animals on an electric strand fence takes tons of conditioning and we are in he throes of it now with the three goats the two goat kids and the two lambs… Plus we’ve added a Great Pyreneese rescue dog, named Winnie, to the mix. 

We’ve been conditioning Winnie to the electric strand fence plus another invisible perimeter fence especially for doggies. The electric strand fence shocked her accidentally the first day and she’s basically respected and avoided it since. Her collar that is connected to the invisible perimeter fencing beeps and then goes on to shock her if she ignores the beep and continues crossing the invisible fence line. The invisible fence runs around our house, yard and the barnyard. The electric strand fence just runs around the barnyard.

This morning I took Winnie off her chain link tie-up for some fence testing. She seemed like she was going to be fine until she ran and then jumped through the electric strand fencing. I don’t think you get a shock if you are jumping through the air! Then she seemed like she was sticking close to the house, inside the invisible fence perimeter. She tried to cross the invisible line, got a shock, cried and came back… Then five minutes later I see her outside the perimeter invisible fence jogging up the road. I call her back and she just looks at me and keeps running- “eff you lady!” is what I imagine she was thinking.

At the exact same time our ornery goat also decides she will go between the electric strand fencing wires. She gets a good shock, cries, kicks and just keeps going till the wire breaks. Her two babies follow her. I take chase after her. We run two laps around the house and she’s sill evading me so I grab one of her babies, show her I’ve got it and then I head back to her fenced enclosure to deposit the baby. Mama always follow her calling baby! Unfortunately baby head butts me with his horns twice in the face while I’m holding him. Ouch!!

Finally I’ve got mama goat and two babies back behind a solid fence and I tell them they get no field grazing time due to bad behavior. Bad goats!

I turn the electric strand fence off so I can repair the broken wire, there are still two goats and two lambs that need to NOT break free. Once the fence is repaired Winnie comes sauntering back all rolled in some animals poop- after we just shampooed her yesterday (did I mention she was skunk sprayed two days ago?!). Then I walk to the mailbox across the street to deposit some outgoing mail and on my way back I see Winnie has returned home with a special treat- a deer leg.

The deer leg doesn’t phase me since I’m dealing with dead stuff almost every-single-day now and I’ve heard of other people’s livestock guardian dogs (like Winnie) doing similar things… it’s just startling the first time a severed deer leg appears in your driveway.

So, that is how my morning is going so far. I think I need more coffee!

The post Electric fencing is a pain in the ASS! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

It was snacking on the necks of 8 ducklings and two chickens. It looked at her and stayed perfectly still. She ran to the house to alert me.

I accompanied her to the chicken coop where it still was happily munching the birds. “Hand me that board” I told her as I crept closer to whacking range. First I snapped a photo:

For a long while there was a stare down between me and the mink, then I went at it with the 4×4 board and failed. It still didn’t run off so I grabbed a kitty litter bin that was nearby and set it to catch the bugger. I managed to get it to walk in my bin and as I tried to close it in it jumped over my hand and took off. If I only had a hand gun…

Guess it’s time to bait some traps & clean up some dead birds before we take the girls to the town easter egg hunt. Then maybe we can buy a few more ducks while we are out and about…

Poor ducklings

The post Wildlife Encounters on the Homestead: The American Mink appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Since January she’s had “precocious udders” which basically means she was dried up and just began making milk again. She bagged up (her milk came in) and we noticed her self sucking (aka nursing herself) in January. Now she needs milking about once a week and we typically get 8 oz or so… which happens to be MORE than what I get from our new, dwarf 2nd freshener named Buttercup. Anyway, I’m all for hands on learning and Pop tart is mild mannered so I let them have at it.

The girls already got the lowdown on milking goats last summer and did get to try their hand at milking once before this video was shot. Here they are milking our dairy goat and discussing the details:

The post The kiddos milked our dry goat, we got 1 pint! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Death

Take today for example, we awoke to a gruesome/ fascinating discovery: The back legs, tail and uterus of a dead mouse on the floor. The mouse was pregnant, like 4 babies were identifiable. We could have cleaned it up and tossed it out before the kids noticed but we have a very science minded child- so we picked it up and put it aside for looking at.

“Aw…” Everly remarked at the babies “but it’s good they aren’t taking over our house!” she added. She’s right, baby animals are cute and it’s sad when they die but a house full of rodents is NOT a good thing. Our cats live in the house with a job to do. They earned their keep on this kill.  If you want to see it you can here- most of my facebook friends seemed disturbed so I opted NOT to show it here.

Later, when we went out to feed the livestock the girls spotted a dead cardinal in the grass near a waterway. “Can we take this inside to study mom?” they asked me. They know not to touch without asking first. This dead bird had some decay and possibly disease by the looks of it, so we opt to look at it where it was, without touching.

Back when the below freezing temperatures and snow were here their daddy brought home a few dead birds that likely froze to death over at the farm shop. One was a woodpecker two were common grackles that we studied and identified using our bird books.

The girls drew diagrams of their birds and labeled them. They even plucked a few interesting feathers to glue to their observations page.

They love to get to see birds up close.

New life

A “peep” sang out from our poultry incubator in the living room this morning, we have eggs that are due to hatch. The girls ran over and really looked at the eggs. One had a small crack and the longer we looked the more we noticed!

Turns out three eggs are in the process of hatching early. I keep hatch records so I was jotting notes down and the girls decided to join in. Adalyn drew pictures of the eggs and colored them in accordingly (we have some easter egger chickens). Everly documented the date, time, titled her journal entry and labeled/ colored the eggs on her observation page. I smiled at the sight of their self driven activity.

Being mindful of teaching moments and really letting them become immersed in both the good and bad of farm life has really been working out.

Of course, we didn’t just expose them to gruesome death right away. We eased in with the topic, first when our pet bunny died, then as we saw death around us (an elderly neighbor died, we saw a dead squirrel in the road, our dog was run over, chickens died, turkeys needed slaughtering, we tried to save orphaned lambs, newborn calves needed warming and bottle feeding, etc).

I think being so sheltered from death makes it seem more devastating (for kids and adults). What do you think?

The post Life, death & kids… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Buttercup, our new goat, found her way to our home a week ago. Her two newborn kids also came along! I happened to see a craigslist post for a bred dual purpose goat who was about to kid… Just as I contacted the seller she was having her babies!

Anyway, we said we could take the doe and her kids for pickup over the weekend, if available. We were able to work out an even better arrangement with the seller, he even delivered the goats to us so that they would be moved in before the big winter storm.

Immediately after birth the breeder separated the kids (goat babies) from mom so they could be taken inside and they became bottle babies like many goats do. The winter weather was wicked during this time. We knew it was uncertain if the kids and their mom would reunite and take to nursing as opposed to being bottle fed upon arrival at our farm.

I’m happy to say, Buttercup and her twins are now stashed away in the garage, bonding, nursing and adjusting to us. Everly and Adalyn named Buttercup’s doeling Rose Petal and we think we’ll name the buckling Diablo.

So now our goat herd has grown from two to five and we have fresh goats milk again!

Anyone in Southern Illinois want to barter for some cattle panels or goat fencing?!

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