The Sifford Sojournal

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.

Category: providence (Page 1 of 24)

New Chicks 2024 6th & 7th Groups

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Surprise 6th and 7th Groups of 2024 Chicken Chicks

December 31, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Group 6

Just the other day, I was walking a road here, looked left, and about 30-40 yards away….whaaaaat? A chicken hen with a whole bunch of little ones around her!

Oh boy… and Sue was in town…!

So, it was run and get a 5-gallon bucket and the fishing net to try to catch the mommy. (On an aside, farm hack: a fishing net to catch chickens, and a large one for turkeys….they work great! 🙂 ) Well, she and her babies were mostly in an agarita bush, and if you know anything about them, their leaves are very prickly.

But thankfully that didn’t end up being a real issue, as I started to gather the youngin’s and put them in the bucket. But mommy was freaking out, so I thought I should try to get her so as to lessen the chaos and potential hurt to the chicks, but when I went to try to net her, she took off like a shot. I tried chasing her, but she was really fast, and there was just no way. So, I went back and continued with the chicks.

Sue shortly arrived back from town, and soon started helping. After gathering up what we could, it was time to try to get mommy, and eventually with Sue and I working together, I was able to chase the hen down and put her in the summer kitchen.

Then back to the bucket o’ chicks. We continued looking, found a few more, and then I moved them into the summer kitchen with mama. I believe Sue ended up finding yet one more.

So, the final tally we believe was 18! Wow!

And, come to find out, it appears the hen was one that had stopped coming back at night after free-ranging during the day, so I thought she had been “crittered”. I thought it had been less time, but I guess she had been gone for at least 21 days. 🙂 And, the Lord graciously granted she sit out there all that time safely.

Sadly though, there was another young hen that had stopped showing up at night, although I saw her in the morning a couple of times. But then, I found a feather pile not far from the chicken pen area, and I believe her nest, so the Lord in His perfect wisdom decided she wouldn’t make it. We always pray they don’t suffer when this happens.

Group 7

Then, a week or so later after the 18 above, I was filling some chicken waterers in our orchard, and thought, I wonder if there are any dead chickens out here amongst things, especially this plum-tree area that has all kinds of branch-growths out of the ground, and then I saw a hen just sitting amongst them. I thought maybe she was injured, and when I circled to the other side….cheep, cheep, and a little chick in front of her!

Not what I expected, so I told Sue, and while I was prepping the summer kitchen for another set of visitors, Sue just started rounding everyone up, and we got them in there.

There were 6 chicks caught and one hatching when we collected everyone. Sadly, one died, and the hatching one didn’t make it. But the other 5 are still going!

Again, we are grateful to the Lord for bringing her and her young through those three weeks!

And now lastly, here’s the video of the two groups:

Again, we are grateful to God for the granting of these provisions, and His mercies toward them and her out there this whole time!

— David

Goat Kids Late 2024

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Late 2024 Goat Kids

November 27, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Well, with the loss of Elvis and the gift of Reggie from the Lord via our normal goat-kid-buyer back in spring, the things that male and female goats do did take place, as evidenced by the birth of 7 goat kids!

A couple, actually, weren’t expected, as we didn’t really see the mothers being imminent. Plus, one of them has a real problem with her udder, which we’ve been trying to resolve, and just shortly after she gave birth, there was a large blister-ish bubble on the back of her udder, and I accidentally popped it internally, and I don’t know if it was related, but both her right legs started acting injured. Now, she may have injured them, maybe laying too long on that side or something, but she’s still down, and so it was bottle feeding time for the little guy, which we’re calling “Ned”, after his mom Nellie. 🙂

Also, our nanny Adeline has a prolonged udder, so for the first while, Sue “gets” to milk her and bottle feed her kids until the udder is higher and the kids figure out how to suckle her. Well, one has figured it out, the boy, but the girl Sue is still bottle feeding. 🙂 We actually are planning to keep the girl to back-fill for our buck, Shakespeare. We wanted to keep her as she comes from the line of Winnie, our original goat, as she was part Lamancha, and we wanted a little something of Winnie to continue in the herd. 🙂 And, in honor of the barbershop name of her mom (from the song “Sweet Adeline”), we wanted to carry that through, so we’re calling her “Lida Rose”, or “Lida” for short. 😀 We named her brother too as “Liam”.

One other anecdote: our nanny Lily gave birth to triplets, and we thought they were three doelings, so we named them, “Marsha”, “Jan”, and “Cindy” (think 70’s large-family sitcom; Cindy has long ears, like TV Cindy’s pigtails 😀 ). Well, come to find out later, one was a buckling….”Marsha”….so, he’s now called “Marshall”. 😀

Finally, our nanny Hassie had a little girl. 🙂 So, 3 bucklings and 4 doelings in total.

But, without further ado, here’s their video:

This is a new experience for us, having winter kids, so we’ll see how it goes through the times of bad weather. But, we thank the Lord for His provisions of the new baby goats!

— David

2024 Turkey Chicks

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Turkey Chicks of 2024 – Update II

October 28, 2024 / / 0 Comments

After our last 2024 turkey chicks update, there was some more progress on the last ones that were still growing in the summer kitchen, and then the addition of two other turkey chicks!

The video takes you through the release of the last group plus the new ones’ intro. And then to release day of those last two new ones, with sadly, the one of them not doing well…

This is the last known update for turkeys this year at this time. We are always grateful to the Lord for His provisions, and His graciousness of all the new turkeys this year!

— David

2024 Goat Kid Louis

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2024 Goat Kid, Goodbye Elvis, Hello Reggie

September 30, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Well, this kidding season was different. Elvis our buck we thought last year had gone sterile, and that was confirmed this year as his four does had no kids.

Then with our other buck Shakespeare, we believe one of his does miscarried after getting her head stuck in a gate and apparently getting beat up by other goats, because her back end was bloody and the like, and she didn’t have a kid.

But, we had one mama left — Lucy, our part Spanish, and she did. It was twins initially, but the doeling was still born, but her brother was fine, and he ended up being the lone goat kid this year. 🙂 We called him Louie because of his mom Lucy, but in the end went with Louis. He’s in the picture above.

Then, the fellow who buys our goats each year had an extra Lamancha buck in his possession and offered him to us, and we took him to replace Elvis. That was a gracious gift from the Lord, and the nice gentleman! 🙂

In Spanish, gift is “regalo”, so we decided to call him Reggie 🙂 We decided to put him in with all our females, so we’ll see if we have late fall/early winter babies this year — something we’ve never done, we don’t believe:

But then, Elvis ended up with an infection in his leg that we didn’t realize was there, and perhaps with worms we couldn’t conquer, we found him one day on the verge of death, so we expedited the matter. Always sad to say goodbye, and then having to do that to an animal stinks but does put them out of their misery.

Goodbye, Elvis. We thank the Lord for all of the kids He granted from you. And we thank the folks who gave him to us all here initially:

Lastly, here’s the video of Louis and Reggie, and a quick goodbye to Elvis. Plus, a guest appearance from a dog that comes all the way over here during thunderstorms sometimes whose owner lives about two miles away. 🙂 :

Even though it was only one kid this year, we are always thankful to the Lord for His continuing provisions!

— David

5th Round of 2024 Chicken Chicks

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 5th Group of Chicken Chicks for 2024

September 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Once again, the Lord graciously granted a hen get broody, and we put eggs under her in the mini-chicken tractor, and by God’s graces, she hatched out our 5th group of 2024 chicken chicks!

One sadly died fairly soon after that, but the rest are still going today, and we are grateful!

Here’s another picture of them:

And here’s their video. You can see it wasn’t yesterday they were hatched. 🙂 I think I’m planning on moving them into the summer kitchen to grow up some more due to their current quarters becoming more cramped, although I don’t like to take them out of a more natural environment. But, hopefully it won’t take long, and then we can move them back outside into the chicken pen area.

Again, we thank the Lord for Him granting these continued provisions!

— David

Turkey Chicks 2024

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Turkey Chicks of 2024 – Update I

August 13, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Just a catch-up video on the turkey chick goings-on since our May turkey post.

I believe in the video below we cover pulling 3 groups of young turkeys out of the summer kitchen and putting them in the barn at night to begin their life with the turkey flock.

Funny too, but apparently a couple of chicken eggs ended up with the turkey eggs because we ended up with a couple of chickens in with the turkeys. 🙂

Here’s another picture of them in the summer kitchen before moving them out:

Something we learned: One turkey hen ended up sitting outside and hatching out quite a few turkey chicks. We thought we’d experiment and let her raise them out there and not move them into the summer kitchen, but sadly all of them ended up disappearing or dying, so we have decided to not do that again and just grab any turklets (my name for turkey chicks, kind of like “chicklets” 😀 ) and put them in the summer kitchen.

And on another very sad note: Our “matriarch” of the flock, Trina, died since the last update. Originally, she just showed up on the homestead one day and moved into the barn, we bought her a mate, and the rest is history. Here’s the blog post we did about her arrival from back in 2016.

This should be she, and should be her first chicks…

Goodbye, Trina…we thank the Lord for bringing you here in His kind providence, and for the huge flock He granted from you…

But back to current day, as far as I know, all the turkeys that we have moved out into the barn this year are still alive and doing well, and we are grateful!

And without further ado, here’s the update video. Be on the watch for the turklet cam! 😀 :

Again, we are thankful to the Lord for granting these provisions!

— David

3rd & 4th Round of 2024 Chicken Chicks

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2024’s 3rd and 4th Round of Chicken Chicks

June 12, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The Lord graciously granted another two rounds of chicken chicks this 2024! 6 from one mommy and 3 from another, both about the same time.

Sadly, with one of those hens no longer with us, I thought the other hen might adopt the other chicks, and so I put them with her, and thanks to the Lord it has worked out.

Sadly again though, I found one of them dead this morning in the coup part of the mini-chicken tractor, but we are always thankful for any God continues to grant.

Here’s another picture:

And here’s their quick video:

Again, we thank the Lord for His provisions of these new chicken chicks!

— David

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