Ups and Downs...T'is farm life.

Birth and loss go hand in hand on a farm, I have found it is better to not get too attached...you just never know who is going to make it and who won't. Thankfully we are all starting take the losses in stride, the kids are learning that's life on a farm, and so is this tender hearted mom.

We lost one of the white chicks, it took a while to get the truth out of him but it seems Jericho went in the baby chick run and the poor chick ran under his feet and got stepped on. Jericho was pretty upset, we had a talk about watching where we walk...but honestly that is an accident that could happen to anyone, those little chicks are crazy. They are getting bigger, 7 weeks old now and almost ready to join the grown ups. Still looks like the boys out number the girls, might be mean to say but I was happy it was not one of the girl chicks that got stepped on.

The jury is still out on a few of my chicks, I wish it were easier to tell the pullets from the roo's.

This little guy has started crowing...so yeah no doubt there. Anyone want an Olive Egger rooster?

Another loss, and this one was not due to lack of green thumbs. The chickens got to my bell pepper start before we got the chicken wire up. Need to go buy another one now that they are all more safe. From birds and chickens at least.

A couple hours, a small chain saw and lots of stinging nettle stings later the deforestation of the goat pen is complete. It makes it look so much bigger without all that Elderberry in the way.

One of the three giant piles of downed Elderberry...there was a lot more than we thought in there.

Two more giant piles...we are going to have to add all these to the burn piles.

The piggies enjoyed some Salmon Berry plants that accidentally got cut down....they make such short work of anything edible.
President Business is turning into such a handsome boar.

The momma's are getting bigger.

I think WildStyle should have her piglets towards the end of the month...so excited, but hope they don't need much help, these guys are not really big on people messing with them.

More sad losses of late. We have lost 5 of the 8 baby bunnies. 1 was kind of unexplained, 4 were the smaller babies and I think either they kept getting pushed out of the way at feeding time by the 3 chunks or Momma just plain didn't feed them. The three left seem to be doing well, this white one is one of the survivors...sadly the little runt is not. This is a pic taken at 4 days old.

These two also are still with us, looks like my first color guesses were wrong...I think I have a chocolate and a black and white.

Momma seems to be getting the hang of it, hopefully her next litter goes better. Since she only has three nursing babies we will be rebreeding her when these ones are 10 days old.  Always working on her nest LOL.

Here the survivors are at 6 days old. The kids have named this one Kiwi.

Oreo.

Cupid is still the biggest. Fingers crossed for them, I would really hate to lose the whole litter.