Monday, July 26, 2010

More Babies!!!

Had 7 turkeys hatch on 23 July, 4 reddish ones and 3 blacks ones. Chickens are due to hatch today, and so far 5 have hatched.
Fred and company, the peafowl and 5 turkeys, have been going outside each day and back inside to the box each night. Trying to get the acclimated to the rest of the birds so I can out them in the coop at night. With the new babies here, I need to push them to the next level and getting them out of the house is that step. The big birds love to pick on Fred though, so not sure what to do about that until he gets bigger. And it could be 2 years before we know for sure if it is a he or she. Still better than Yaco, Had her for 16 years and still not sure. Not sure I want or need to know either at this point.
The garden is starting to do good. Getting tomatoes, and the beans are starting to come in. The pole beans are so much better than the bush beans. Need to remember that.
Also, was at Walmart the other day and they had a nice Rosemary plant for $10 so I got it. It is in a 2 gallon container it seems and turns out there are actually 3 plants in it, so I'll be dividing that soon. Plus I have several large leaf basil plants in the garden and sage that survived the winter. Was actually surprised it grew back. And Saturday I got me a German Oregano plant. I also put some more seeds out to sprout to start more plants for basil, oregano and rosemary. Need to start some cilantro also. Guess cilantro is more a cool weather crop, my tends to bolt and go to seed before I can use any of it, and then I end up buying some from the store. The whole point here is that a friend just opened a new pasts joint, and he likes my fresh herbs for cooking with. So in addition to the stuff I have been drying for my own use, I'm thinking of growing more of everything and seeing if I can't start a small scale fresh herb business. They are pretty easy to grow so far, and every one seems to love the fresh herbs in the cooking. Just an opportunity and want to see what happens with it. Not sure about pricing or any of that. Will have to research some of it.
Realized one of my chicken hens had swollen feet, and did some research and think they have some kind of leg mites. Did some checking and found some body mites also. So I need to get some kind of program going to control and eliminate them. The first step is cleaning the coop out. So last night and this morning, I did some of that. A Lot of stuff in the coop. Some of it is pretty good and spread it around int he garden. The rest of it I need to let sit and compost before I use it.
The chickens got into the garden this morning and had a feast on the tomatoes. Got almost all of the ripe ones. Think I got rid of the ground hog that was living in the garden. Time will tell.

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