Sunday, March 2, 2014

Getting Better

 



Worked the ranch today. 

Got up early, ate some really runny eggs, had chocolate to chase that down, then out the door to check on the animals.  Normally, the does and ram will be outside in the pen's yard doing their thing.  Today, they preferred to stay in the pen, which is situated underneath the back porch.  They did come out to browse for awhile.  Then went back in.  It maybe the weather since we're supposed to have a rain storm coming.  NOAA Guam states that Tropical Storm Faxia will move North, missing Guahan.  If they don't eat their feed tomorrow.  I'll go ahead and give each of them a dewormer shot, just to be safe. 

I opened the gate to the pen and left it open for them to go in and out as they pleased.  The two kids came out and started exploring their new surroundings.  I put a collar on the doeling.  I picked up both the doeling and buckling to look at them closely.  From their teeth and other physical attributes, they're about less than 2 months old, or right at 2 months.  The horn buds on the buckling is about right for a 2 month old.  The doeling has yet to have her horn buds breakout.  These two kids were weaned to early.  I'm going to have to give them milk bottles to compensate for their loss nutrition. 

I relocated the toro (buck) closer to the house to have him clean up the area.  Once he's done with that.  I'll fence it off and put my garden there.  I trimmed back a lot of the over grown plants close to the house.  The two kids came over and helped clean up the area a bit, just munching on anything they saw, or what I cut or pulled down. 

At the chicken's area, I fixed up some of the blown off roofing tin from the fly pens.  Was able to put them back to the pens that they flew off from.  Today, the chickens got some rice with a mix of grain.  I noticed that they are eating less of the grain and constantly scratching and looking for other goodies amongst the grass.  Which means less feed to purchase from the feed stores in the future. 

Our egg layers have been laying eggs for a while now.  But never at the level that they were laying when we first acquired the lot, last year.  We're currently averaging 3 eggs per day.  That's not bad for family consumption of table eggs.  Unlike last year when we were getting 8 eggs per day.  I was hoping for more eggs.  So I'll be able to sell the surplus to potential customers.  Looks like I'll have to wait until the new egg layers from Hawaii come in to help bring up the egg count.

Worked with the karabao today.  Gera is doing okay.  The grass up here is not helping him though.  The alfalfa hay is helping to supplement the nutrition he needs.  I'll have to get more alfalfa bales and cubes for him.  He likes the cubes a lot.  There is no waste unlike the flakes from the bales.  Trying to get his mass and weight back up.  I may have to do some cut and carry method, for awhile, until I move him to the back ranch.  Trying to avoid moving him to the back ranch until the access way is open.  Don't like the idea of crossing a relative's property to get to mine, even if there is approval to do so.  Don't need the gossip.   

I will replace his lead this week.  The one he has is unraveling due to the constant twisting.  Even with a swivel to keep the rope from twisting to bad, Gera finds a way to do so.  The current rope lead will hold for a couple of days.  But we'll probably change it out tomorrow or Wednesday.  

I do have to admit that the ranch is looking a lot better than last year.  When I restarted the ranch operation after a long break.  Just some housekeeping, waste management, and operations management to tweak to make it better for me and the animals. 


ESTA


KEEP SMILING






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