Back in June, the Lord granted our pig Lulu to have her litter of piglets! She had 14 in all! — one was dead when we found it, and the other died a few days later. But the 12 continued on, and are all still going and healthy, thanks to the Lord!
Here they are at around 8 weeks, the day before we took Lulu into the butcher:
And here is a video diary of the entire adventure, from when Lulu met Piggy, the boar we borrowed from the Bunkers, to shortly after the piglets were born, to the day of the picture above:
Once again, we are very grateful to God for granting the safe delivery, the provisions of Lulu and her litter, and for the continued health of the piglets.
As hoped for when we showed the broody hen in our last chicken hatching blog post, the Lord granted the momma hen to hatch out some new chicks! She hatched out 8 out of 11 or so — one had the shell cracked all the way around, but sadly didn’t make it out; and it looked like another one had died during the incubation process.
From the mini-tractor, I moved them into the piano room so they have a little more room, and to get them away from the ants (although ants get into the summer kitchen, but just not as badly as sometimes in the mini-tractor). Once in there, one day I noticed there were only 7; and I ended up not being able to find hide nor hair (or skin nor feather) of it. And then a day or two later, one of the other chicks I found dead. I did see one of our smaller, homestead snakes in the piano room, so I’m wondering if it got either or both. Or the first one maybe got out of the fencing, and one of the hens we have running around the summer kitchen, while their backs are recovering from when the roosters service them too much and the feather are removed, got the chick. Not sure. But, we are thankful to God for what He has allowed to continue, and here is a picture of them — I thought I’d try to get them a little younger this time:
And a short video:
And here is another hen the Lord has granted to get broody. This is actually the mother hen from that last hatching blog post mentioned above, going for another round apparently; and she’s about a week into it:
We are so very grateful to the Lord for the granting of these continued provisions. May His works, both spiritual and temporal, bring glory to Himself!
At the end of our blog post on our first chick hatching of this year, I showed a broody hen in our mini tractor. Well, the Lord granted she sit on them to term, and she hatched out 9 chicks out of I believe 10 eggs!
And here they are, several weeks later. We had to move them to one of the summer kitchen pens because they were getting too big for the mini chicken tractor, and then the ants kept invading as well:
But, by the time I took that picture, they were getting almost too big for the summer kitchen pen, so I believe it was that same evening of the day I took that picture that I moved them out into the chicken pen area, which gives them more room and the opportunity to start doing chicken things on the outside, in the dirt and hopefully eating bugs:
And here is their video:
And a couple of weeks ago, another hen went broody, and here she is, waiting patiently; and the chicks are due to hatch out in a day or two!
We are very thankful to the Lord for granting the provisions of these new chickens, and we pray for a healthy hatching for the next broody hen in just a couple of days, Lord willing!
After putting our does and bucks together in November, so they kid in the spring, the time came, and the Lord graciously granted quite the little kid herd for 2013! And so, we thought we’d introduce you to the group.
Here are our two bucks, Rocky (left) and Shatner (right):
And here are some sights and sounds of the offspring…
In this video, I introduce you around, including how we named some of them:
And I’ll try to name them in each of the pictures, from left to right.
This is Moe I think, I think Albert (there are 3 or 4 that look like him), Vinnie and Choco on the milking stand, either Shirley or Larry under it, Alice, Rosie on top of the front of the milking stand, and Mario and Stoney:
And here’s a little video Sue caught of some of them a-frolicking in the evening:
Here are Winnie I think, and Annie (our two does), Choco, Penny, not sure the two black ones in the back — maybe Finn and Becky, from top to bottom — Louie, Daphne, Velma, and Nicki, and our doe Minnie with Donny (black) and Clyde behind her:
And this is Clyde and Penny:
Marie, with Stoney and Mario:
Over to the left, Nellie with Velma and Daphne; Huey, Louie, Winnie our doe, and Dewey; Rosie in front; and our doe, Adeline, right:
Our doe Annie; Choco, our doe Pammy, and Vinnie behind her; Rosie (in black); our doe Gracie, with Penny and Nicki; Nellie again, with Daphne and Velma; Winnie again with her three; and Alice way over to the right:
Here’s a closer shot of some from the last pic:
And another close up:
Our doe Betsy, with Finn (left) and Becky (right):
And this is our doe Minnie, with Donny (left) and Clyde (right):
Thanks for taking the tour! In the end, the Lord granted 21 kids — 13 bucks and 8 does. We are very grateful to God for His graces and mercies in granting these provisions this year; for their safe deliveries (both mother and kids), especially after last year’s difficulties; and the health and safety He’s granted to them all thus far.
Soon, Lord willing, we’ll be able to get back to having goat milk, which we really look forward to!
Back in late March, one of our australorp hens went broody, and 3 weeks later, by God’s graces, she hatched out I believe 9 out of 12 eggs (11 were fertilized, but two of the young ones either died pretty quickly or didn’t make it out of the shell), and she raised the others very successfully! She hatched them out originally in our chicken mini-tractor, and then we moved them into the summer kitchen where we had our chicken nursery last year. Finally, just recently, I moved them to the chicken pen. As I mention in the video below, a few of them started getting sick in a day or two after moving them to the pen, and sadly, one died. I started feeding the other two that didn’t look well a little elixir the Lord granted I come up with — using an at least 3cc dropper, fill it with 1/4 cc angrstrom silver, then up to just past 1.5 cc’s with egg yoke, and up to 3 cc’s with goat milk (I did 2 1/2 for these little ones; rinse it down with semi-clean water — and they appear to be doing much better, thanks to God.
And here they are about 6 weeks into it:
And here’s a little video, that includes the mother hen:
And maybe 12 days ago, another autralorp hen went broody, and here she is in the mini-tractor:
We are very grateful to the Lord for granting this provision of being able to continue the flock, and we pray they are used for His glory and the benefit of His Church.
When we last left our broody hens and chick-hatchings, we had just had another Austrolorp hen go broody, wondering if perhaps the Lord was not done in granting chicks this year.
And sure enough, we moved her into one of the little chicken pen areas in the piano room, and she hatched out somewhere around eight or so — Group 16!
I didn’t get pictures when they were younger and with their mama, and they have since moved on to our chicken pen area (which is our staging area for younger birds before going to the main chicken tractor), but here are a couple of them as they are now:
And a video:
We did have yet another hen start to go broody recently, but because of the difficulties in trying to bring chicks through the winter, we just pulled any eggs she was sitting on, and she eventually lost interest. I don’t like to do that, but we’ve had to try to take care of young chicks when it’s really cold, it it takes quite a bit of effort (you can see a little of what we had to do during the pretty bad cold-snap we had a couple of years ago.
Anyway, once again we are very thankful to the Lord for granting these provisions of the chicks throughout the year, and pray they are used for His glory and the benefit of His people.
Mr. Bunker’s been keeping his grullo (grey) pure Longhorn bull, Manolete, corralled in his homestead area. Here is Manolete:
Well, he’s there most of the time……
One day he got out, and I guess pretty much bee-lined to Rosa, our pure Longhorn cow.
And so, nine months and about a week later, it was confirmed that Manolete had done the job, because sure enough, Rosa gave birth! He’s a little bull calf, and we decided to name him Rufino, which means “red-haired.”
Here he is with his mama:
And here is his video (I apologize for the shakiness — it’s a little less so at the end):
While we’ve had to liquidate a lot of our cattle, and have decided to not breed for a while to keep the herd count low, to try to allow the land to restore some if the Lord wills, we are thankful for this not-so unexpected gift from Providence. We thank God for the safe and healthy birth of Rosa and Rufino!
Heb. 11:8-10 - "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
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