From Daisies to Ducklings…

I forgot to show you my latest painted pebble. It’s a bit of a whopper! I liked it as it was in the shape of a diamond, and so thought would look great as a ‘Welcome’ stone. I love white daisies and so it had to be….

I have painted it with two undercoat layers, then a coat of household black gloss, and then gloss and enamels to paint the daisies etc. I then put 3 coats of varnish over the whole lot to seal it against the elements outside.

I still haven’t found a permanent home for it. So for now it just sits outside near the carport, lol. I can see in my ‘minds eye’ where it should be, but I haven’t made that garden area yet. I will….

So for now, my ‘Welcome’ pebble sits and waits for its ‘forever home’…. a bit like the animals here. Hmm, that’s deep! Lol. So… moving on to the ducks!

Aren’t they gorgeous! Mummy duck ‘Arty’ our Swedish Blue, abandoned them and set off for some merrymaking on our pond. After a whole day of neglect we decided to bring them in when it started to turn dark. We didn’t want to risk the cats going for them, or any other predators of the night. We put them out the next day and again still no interest from Mum. She did such a good job of sitting and raising them though… but the high life on the pond won her over after 6 weeks of being ‘grounded’.

We shall keep trying to coax her back to her young, they would have imprinted on her very strongly.. so maybe their little chirps will remind her she now has a family to raise. I really should have got that ‘Parenting for Dummies Duckies’ book for her when I went to her baby shower. For now, all 10 are doing well and slowly becoming tame with us. Tomorrow we shall pick Mum up and put her in with her babies, and see how she behaves…. that’s if we can get her off the pond! Updates to follow…

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Early morning dash!

I had just put in todays bread to bake, and was still on my first cup of coffee when a little after 7am the phone rang. “Hi, is that the goat lady?” “Um, yes… I rescue goats, how can I help?” While I waited to see if they wanted a boy or a girl, I looked out at the lightening flashing over the nearby valley and prayed I wouldn’t have another power cut while my bread was baking. A muffled noise was heard down the phone and then the man said “actually I’ve got two here for you, if you want them… but you had better get here quick or they won’t be here much longer.” Was someone else going to pick them up? Then it dawned on me… “Oh, are they off to the abattoir?” “No.” he said “they’ll have their throats cut.” “I’m on my way!”

And here they are. They were absolutely soaked to the skin…and so were we by the time we got back. We actually rescued 5 in the end, and were just about to leave with 4 when a young lad on a quad bike turned up and said “I saw your car coming up the road and remembered this little one under the hedge.” He held out this cream little baby boy, who looked like a drowned rat. Charlea opened the car door and took the little buck and placed him on her lap.
We thanked them, and explained what a good thing they had done in giving these little babies a chance of a new life. We cannot interfere with farming, and most farmers try their best to find someone to take the kids. However they do not have the time to sit there bottle feeding, and so most times they get culled once their mothers are no longer there to feed them.


Here is another little doe. We brought them back and put them with the others in the shed stall. Here it is dry and warm and the heat lamp had been on all night. They should soon dry out and we didn’t want to towel dry them for too long as they were shaking with fear and cold. We decided to let the new ones skip the breakfast feed and recover from their ordeal and journey.

Meanwhile we had a lovely lady called Rachel turn up, and she rehomed these two little brown girls. These does had been inseparable, so we were really pleased they were going together. We still have some of the black billys left.

A few hours later we attempted to feed the new arrivals. This little girl managed half a bottle… something very new to her. The babies were between 1-2 weeks old so they knew how to suckle – just not from a bottle, but all of them had received plenty of colostrum from Mum.

After their first bottle feed, we just sit quietly with them and let them get over their natural fear of humans. They were completely wild a few hours ago, so these quiet moments are great to help them relax, and learn what love and cuddles are.

This little buck drank a whole bottle! He is still quite shy, but at least he’s safe and warm. We hope too we have made another good contact amongst the farmers. He got our number through ‘word of mouth’ so slowly we are getting known, and it’s good for them too. Most farmers hate to put these little ones down, but some feel they have no choice as they cannot survive on their own once Mum has gone.

We shall keep them here and make sure they are suckling well, have become tame, and then we can search for new homes for them.

Oh, and in case you wondered… during my 3 minute dash in which to get dressed, wake Charlea, brush teeth and hair, and don wet weather gear to go outside and face the elements…. this was NOT done quietly! So when hubby accidentally woke with all the commotion, I left strict instructions on when to take the bread out!

The sun is out, so let’s get busy!

Yes, with all the recent rain and Winter settling in we have to clean the coops and pens when the weather allows. Yesterday I was 200k away, up in Auckland for the day….so what did hubby get up to while I was away? (Yes, of course I left him a list!)

One of the things on his ‘please do soon’ list was to make this years tents for the goats. With the frequent rain it is getting too much to keep running outside to rescue the goats at every shower…. so here we have the first batch of new tents for when our goats are grazing during the day. We need 6, and here are the first 3 ready for use.

Of course Kiba has to investigate, lol. The big one is for Munchkin, and the rest for the smaller goats. These are ideal as they are light enough for us to move them over as we move the goats, and have a sturdy frame base so they don’t get blown away if it gets windy. Goats are pretty hardy, but they do hate getting wet.

Shikamaru approves of his rain tent. It’s just enough to give shelter while they wait for the shower to pass. At night all the goats get put back into their pens where they have their permanent shelters with hay bedding.

Next it was time to jet wash the ‘inside stall’ where we keep the very young baby goats. They have a big stall inside the large shed and this gets mucked out once a week, and the whole lot gets a hot jet wash. During the week we ‘spot pick’ out any soiled areas to help keep it clean, and this is where we sit and bottle feed them too.

Whilst their ‘inside’ stall was being washed, we put the babies in the outside stall. We currently have 8 little babies here, and slowly we manage to find new homes for them all.

While we wait for their stall to dry out, we then set about washing all the crates and boxes, so they can dry off in the sun. We use heaps of cages and carriers, and they can soon get muddy or soiled, so once a week they too get a jet wash to keep them fresh for use.

Then its the buckets and bins. Again they get soiled during the week; sticky fruit, mud, grass, compost, you name it…they all too soon end up mucky so they too get washed inside and out.

While everything is drying off, we do a spot of gardening. Charlea’s terraces are still producing veggies and we set about thinning out some of the lettuces.

Amazingly we are still getting new tomatoes, but we have to ripen them indoors in the windowsills. Even so, they taste delicious! We had a good crop of zucchini, and the pigs and chickens enjoyed the pumpkin, beets and turnips we grew. Not bad for ex townies! Lol

And this…. well this is something rather special. Our first two bottles of worm pee! We kept all the pop bottles we bought in during the drought when we had no drinking water, and these are now perfect for bottling our worm pee juice. The worm farm is doing well, and the baby special worms we invested in are now very fat and very long! Lol. They eat all our organic leftovers and create this wonderful fertilizer for the farm. The ratio is 1 juice – to 10 of water… so we should have plenty to start organically fertilizing our produce here on the farm. Yaye!

By evening the baby goats were tucked up inside again, in their fresh new stall. We keep a heat lamp on for them to help keep the shed warm and dry. At night the temperature can really drop and we don’t want them to catch a chill while they are so young. We sit in the shed and feed them two at a time.

After their last 10pm feed, they snuggle up together in the big crate and bed down for the night. A full belly, warmth from the heat lamp, and fresh new hay…. all the older goats are in their pens, and the buckets and bins are all clean ready for the week ahead. Now we are finished for the day, and can go indoors and relax. Up again at 6am, bake some fresh bread, and then kick hubby out of bed to make the other 3 tents, lol.

 

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Cats and Mr. Tumnus

Besides being busy at the farm over the past week, we also had a very busy day today! After seeing to all the animals here in the pouring rain, we then set off to rehome one of the kittens we have tamed up over the past month or so…

He is a lovely Russian Blue X, that we took from the SPCA who was on ‘death row’. Sadly he and his brother had ‘slipped through the net’ rehoming wise, as so many want baby kittens and these two boys were 12 weeks when we took them in. They had not been handled much, so Charlea offered to have them in her room and tame them, rather than see them euthanized the next morning. A month later they were tame, house trained and roaming around the farm. Well done Charlea!

I’m so glad she did, as he is adorable, and such a stunning cat. Today he went to a special lady called Wendy, who has a lovely 3 acre lifestyle block, and he will be loved and cherished in his new forever home. Thank you Wendy! Wendy also offered us extra grazing should we get stuck, and donated many buckets for us to use on the farm. This little boy had taken a fancy to our chirping ducklings…. so time to go. He is great with the chickens, but the small chicks chirping were too much for him to resist. Luckily Wendy contacted us, expressing interest, and he has become very affectionate and soppy, so will make a lovely pet kitten for her. Kudos to Wendy. Then we headed off into town for our Sunday visit to our local SPCA.

We had been told there was a rabbit that needed a home, and while there Jess (SPCA worker) showed us two older kittens who were ‘almost tame’ that had been stuck in the SPCA for nearly 5 months. They just needed more human contact, but we thought they were quite tame already. Here is one young boy, a ginger tom who has been de-sexed…. he’s a bit shy, but didn’t mind being picked up and stroked.

Last week a lovely came to rehome two of our baby goats who she named ‘Millie & Peanut’. She happened to mention she loves ginger cats! Charlea has emailed her, and hopefully she might give this lovely young man a forever home… fingers crossed!

...and here is the other, a lovely tabby and white boy, also de-sexed. He is very affectionate, and loves his cuddles. He is very soppy, a real sook and so will be looking for his forever home too.

His ginger brother wanted to hide in the drawer, so he took up in the cat bed instead….aw. Both cats have had their vaccinations, and both seem pretty tame already. They just need a loving home, and both are very quiet and not at all skittish or hissy. Lovely boys and we hope we can find them both homes soon.

And finally… here is the rabbit that needed a home. We think he is a giant Flemish, and Jess told us he is coming up to about 6 months old. He is very tame already, and so Charlea is letting him roam in her bedroom and he loves it!

As you can see he is very big already, and will probably get much bigger! When I went in to take these photos he walked up to me, and followed me around the room, he is incredibly tame.

After a bit of debating, we finally settled on a name for him… we called him Mr. Tumnus from the Narnia Chronicles….  and yes, Charlea has fallen in love with him!

I didn’t need much persuading to let Charlea keep him. So he has found his ‘forever home’ already, and being so tame will be lovely for the children to see once we open the petting farm in December. Welcome to Little Acres Mr Tumnus!

*post edit - I just got called in to witness this! Charlea thought she would try the kritter litter, and look what happened....

 

Who's a clever boy! Oh I like him... I really like him! hehe!

 

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5 months on and still growing!

Remember this little fella? One of two puppies brought out to us on Xmas Eve by a lovely girl called Fiona who rehomed a few of our baby goats last year. Another friend Karen who was visiting took one, and when I went inside to get the other one to take photos to rehome him…. I found hubby had fallen in love, all in the space of ten minutes!

Well, he is kinda cute eh? We named him Kiba.. which means ‘king of dogs’. He came from a litter of 10 that desperately needed to find new homes.

 

Here he is in March, when we were still clearing the Oasis area. He is a Labrador X and at only 4 months old here he is already a big dog!

Kiba is extremely loyal. He for some reason ‘bonded’ with me, and follows me absolutely everywhere. No joke when you’re running for the bathroom and Kiba gets in there first and insists on staying! Lol

If I go into a different pen and leave Kiba outside the gate, he will go crazy barking for me and leaping to get over fences to get to me again. I have now taught him to ‘sit and stay’ and so he literally goes with me everywhere, but no longer scares any animals by chasing around. He’s learning fast!

He’s a big boy, and each time I think he’s stopped growing, I find he’s got bigger still! His hearing is incredible and so he’s great for alerting us to someone at the gates outside.

I’m not sure if he has much growing left to do now… but next month we will take him to the vets and get him ‘snipped and chipped’ while he is still a puppy, but at 6 months will be old enough to have the snip

He is very affectionate, and kisses me non stop! If I am busy he will lick my trousers or boots, lol.

Such a big baby still…. but I wouldn’t be without him now. He is adorable!

Isn’t he gorgeous? Charlea and hubby claim he’s addicted to me! Lol. He now travels with me everywhere in the car when I set out to rescue more animals. Look at that face… how can I leave him behind? A ‘faithful friend’ for sure!

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Meet Munchkin, a Toggenburg dairy goat

Yesterday we met a lovely lady called Lorraine, who during the hot Summer months went round rescuing goats that she saw out in the heat with no water etc. Most of these were by the roadside, and if she spotted they had no water she would insist on buying them from the owner and would take them home to care for them. After collecting quite a few, she phoned me to ask if I could take any off her hands…. meet Munchkin!

 

Munchkin is a dairy breed, and is very quiet and gentle. We think she has some Angora in her as her coat is very soft and fluffy. Pure Toggenburgs have white ears, but she’s beautiful and a dream to handle.

She is not used to being tethered, but we found she will follow anyone who has a slice of bread in their hands! Here Charlea leads Munchkin down to some longer grasses to graze. She follows with no problems.

We put her down in a ‘scrubby’ area and she quite happily started to eat the long weeds and grasses.

Sheeno our SPCA kitten is quite curious about this newcomer. Munchkin doesn’t seem to mind cats or dogs, so she’s a very good goat indeed! Good job too with 5 cats around the farm!

Throughout the day we moved her along this ‘front bank’ that runs along the stream. We don’t cut the grass here and let it grow for the goats to munch on. Once this area is cleared, we let it rest and Munchkin will move over to another new patch to eat down. Goats are great for clearing scrub and keeping these sorts of areas in check.

She’s a lovely girl and so well behaved. As it was such a lovely day, hubby built another stall for her in the pen where the does sleep at night. When we revamp the farm we will have a lovely big barn for the goats, but I think they love moving around the farm and eating the long grasses. Munchkin has a ‘forever home’ here now, so will be part of our growing family.

Meanwhile this morning I left at 7am and collected 8 lil babies whose Mum’s were going to abattoir. These little darlings would have ended up in the skip, too small to use for meat. Two are very ‘fresh’ and I only hope they take to suckling the bottle. We can only do our best….

We have a stall for them in the shed, and a heat lamp so they don’t get cold at night. Spare a thought for Charlea and I as we go through this routine round the clock, every 4 hours…. a labour of love, but worth it to save and rehome these little babies. From big to tiny, it was a goat day today for sure!

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