Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.
The Lord graciously granted our next set of chicks — the 5th for 2022! She hatched out 8 (usually out of 12), and they’re all going strong today, and we are grateful to God!
Besides the picture above, here’s their video:
Once again, we thank the Lord for His graciousness in granting these new provisions!
— David
Well, the results of last year’s goat breeding time are in! š God graciously granted 4 bucklings and 2 doelings, although there was another doeling, but she was still-born.
Here are some pictures when they were going to the kind gentleman who buys our goats:
Very sadly though, the Lord, as owner of the goats, decided to reclaim Annie, whose two bucklings are these last two pictures. Thankfully they were 7 weeks old when she died, so we didn’t have to bottle feed them.
Annie was also our little orphan from way back. Here’s a video of her and her brother Spot drinking off the bottles!
This is Hassie’s (Annie’s daughter) daughter (in front), which we’re keeping to replace Annie. We’re calling her Annalita, in honor of grandma. š
Goodbye Annie…we’ll miss you…
Lastly, here’s the video of 2022’s kids:
We always thank the Lord for His gracious provisions, and for the milk, and we pray the kids do well for the new owner!
— David
With the surrogate chicken mommy with turkey chicks working so well, and with chicken hens again being much more easy to handle, and with another turkey/chicken mommies set sitting on turkey eggs in the barn, if they hatched, we’d thought we’d try to grab them and a chicken mommy and put them in the brooder barn to hopefully grow.
Here is the turkey mommy and the two chicken mommies in the barn on the eggs, and I believe even at least one hatched-out:
And thanks to God’s graces, they did hatch out several over a couple of days, and we moved one of the chicken hens and the youngins into the brooder barn, and along with the picture at the top, here they are, 5 in total!
And here’s their video:
As always, we thank the Lord for these continued provisions, and may He always glorify Himself in these things!
— David
After we had a turkey mommy accidentally hatch out a chicken chick, we discovered in the barn next to the north footer in the middle a set of turkey eggs being sat on by both a turkey and a chicken. Since the turkey mommy worked well as a surrogate to the chicken chick, I started to wonder if maybe a chicken mommy might make a good surrogate for turkey chicks, especially because a chicken hen is much easier to work with than the larger and stronger turkey hen.
Well, the little things started to hatch, and eventually the chicken mommy ended up near the big door across the barn to the east with the chicks under her, and the turkey mommy kind of hanging out behind her. So, it was round up the youngin’s and the chicken mommy and get them into the summer kitchen (now basically what is a brooder barn).
There were 6 of them, and we initially started them in a cage on the table, which you can see in the video below.
Then not long after, another turkey/chicken mommy group in the barn hatched out 1, and it was walking around on the hay stack next to them, and so we grabbed it and put it in with the brooder barn mommy, hoping she would accept it, and she did!
And then, another 1 from that same 2 mommies in the barn, and so it was off to the brooder barn.
And so now, there are 8 turkey chicks with their chicken mommy in the brooder barn all still doing great! That last one is a little tiny, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to make it, but it’s still going!
And, along with the picture above, here is another picture of them. However, the chicken mommy at this point seems to be losing interest in attending to them as a mommy, and has been jumping out of the caged run area, so we may just let her go soon, although we do like the idea that these mommies being there might protect the young from snakes:
And here is their video:
We thank the Lord for granting these new little provisions, and for the idea and gracious success of a chicken hen taking care of the young turkey chicks!
— David
After our first chicken hatching this 2022 came from a turkey mommy accidentally sitting on a chicken egg and hatching one out, the Lord has graciously continued to grant more chicken chicks!
This is group 2 for 2022. We usually put 12 eggs under the broody mommies, and she either hatched out them all, or close to it…I haven’t done a count yet, but there are quite a few! They are in the image above, and this one:
And here’s group 3. She actually hatched out 5 more, but I think she ended up killing them as she tore apart her nest after she lost her broodiness. Sigh. But, she still has these 4 going strong!
And here is group 4. Originally, these eggs were under a mommy under our house. We grabbed her and her eggs and put them in the mini-chicken tractor shown here. However, about 5-6 days short of the 21 required, she lost her broodiness, and tore apart the nest, and sent eggs somewhat scattering. We even found one dead not-quite-complete chick, I guess perhaps just broken out of the shell by her maybe?
Anyway, we gathered up the rest of the eggs and re-set them in the nest, and tried putting on them other broody hens we had that weren’t sitting on eggs (we pull their eggs if we don’t have a safe place to let them hatch out chicks). Well, finally, I believe it was the 3rd mommy attempt which stuck, and she did bring it home, hatching out these 2 little ones! She’s still acting quite broody, but I have a feeling the other eggs are not going to hatch. And at least, her little ones are apparently figuring out how to drink and eat regardless:
And lastly, here’s the video of all 3 groups:
As always, we are grateful to God for granting these new provisions, and we pray He glorify Himself through them, and that they might benefit others as well!
— David
With our first sitting turkey mommy of 2022 hatching out a chicken chick, our next one did indeed hatch out some turkey chicks — 3 this round!
As you can see, they’re a little grown up by now, but still doing well!
And here’s their video:
As always, we are very grateful to the Lord for Him graciously granting these new turklet provisions!
— David
We had a broody turkey mommy next to a hay manger in the barn goat stall. One day she had a hatchling showing itself with her. But, it looked funny for being a turkey, and that was because, it wasn’t a turkey! A chicken egg got in with her clutch, and she hatched out a little chicken chick!
But, turkey eggs need a week more of sitting than chicken eggs, and so we were worried she might stop sitting on her turkey eggs. Well, sadly, that sort of did happen, although 3 sort of hatched out. We actually tried taking them and all her eggs and putting them under a broody chicken, and 2 more tried to hatch out, but in the end, all 5 turklets didn’t make it. š
However, this little one — I think now it’s a rooster — is still alive today and doing fine!
Here’s another picture of it with its “mommy” in the barn:
And then a video. I had to use a flashlight to try to get light on them:
Even though it didn’t go as we had planned, we are thankful to the Lord for granting this provision of the new chick, our first for 2022!
— David
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