Breeding, slow starts, cooping

Yesterday evening, the Fox’s brought the two little does they had bought from us about eight months ago to be bred by one of our bucks. Originally, Mama thought that buck would be Julian, but upon further research, we discovered that the buck needed to be Midas, since the two does were Julian’s progeny. Anyway, we got the does into the little enclosure next to the bucks easily. The reaction from the bucks was instantaneous. It was pretty obvious that at least one of the does was in heat by the shoving and grunting that the bucks engaged in. I do not know if Midas got any sleep at all last night as he and Julian fought for mastery of the attention of the dies. In fact, Midas refused to eat this morning because he did not want to interrupt his guardianship of the does just on the other side of the fence.

When Mama and I took the time to move Midas to the paddock with the does, the fight was on. Midas is our most difficult buck to handle. Firstly, because he does not like to be handled so he is hard to catch. Secondly, when he is finally haltered to be moved, he is incredibly strong. He is almost more than I can manage when he refuses to move in the direction I need him to go. Such a struggle is not good for my back, but I endure each time we repeat the process of encouraging a frightened buck to go where we need him to go.

Between Mama and I we got him into the area with the does but we had to interfere with the continued fight between him and Julian as we singled Midas out for passage through the gate out of their paddock. Keeping Julian from following through at the same time was a challenge. I had to coerce Midas to go forward through the gate while Mama had to discourage Julian from trying to follow through the opened gate. The fact that the bucks had all perfumed themselves with beards full of their smelly urine hindered Mama’s willingness to handle any of the bucks. She danced around the faces of the bucks crowding both of us in what was a hilarious sequence of evasive moves. I had to change pants after the move was completed since I had to keep Midas very close to by body to meet his struggling jumps and jerks as he fought against me.

When Midas got into the small enclosure, he immediately singled out one of the does and did his best to breed her. It was kind of sad because the does was in standing heat, so she welcomed the advance but when Midas mounted her, she was not ready to support his bulk and collapsed under his weight. The next time he tried she was ready and did better so she might be bred already. Sarah Fox will be thrilled. We will keep Midas with the does until late December just to be sure, but he is definitely interested in doing his part in the breeding program. Hopefully, the young does will be able to handle his attention to them.

With both the ducks and quail, we are off to a slow start as far as egg production is concerned. With the ducks, we are at a loss as to how to beneficially promote egg production. We have investigated various feeds, various hours of light exposure, keeping certain areas dry for laying eggs, etc. So far, to no avail. We are getting about six eggs per week from our ten hens. We should be quite a bit more than that. Potentially six eggs per day. We have several customers waiting on us for duck eggs and it would be nice to fill those orders. That, and duck eggs are delicious, so we are looking for a more trustworthy supply as well.

With the quail, we were advised to add a container with dirt/dust so the quail could take a dust bath. It seems, we are told, that they like having dirt under their feet. Mama added that dirt to their habitat in the Banty house so we will see if that makes a difference. I would like to have a shot at raining quail, but we will have a hard with doing so if we cannot get any eggs to hatch. Fortunately, they do not eat much as we wait on them to produce those eggs for us. They are otherwise easy to keep. They have a pleasant cooing chirp but are otherwise very quiet.

There is growing consensus among several of us at church that raise chickens that we need to buy a chicken plucker to share among us. So far, the interest has been circulating among three families but a fourth family added their voices to the mix, so we may be able to split the expense four ways if we decide to coop a purchase. That would be good. I will reserve my enthusiasm until we all eventually get together to discuss the details, but I am encouraged by the team effort under consideration.

Every little bit helps.