Sunday, December 2, 2012

This Week On The Farm

It has been a quiet week here on the farm. This time of year brings shorter days and a lot of chilly wet weather here on the Oregon coast. The rain makes us all lazy, including the animals.
 
 
The ducks are the only ones unphased by all the wet weather. In fact, they love this time of year with all the mud puddles to play in and lots of worms and slugs to be found in the gardens.
 

This lovely muscovy hen took some time out from her foraging to pose for the camera.
 
The chickens are all going through their end of year molt right now, and when their molt is combined with shorter days and wet weather we don't see too many eggs. They are not laying much of anything right now, but that's okay. These hard working hens deserve a break now and then. The break from egg laying allows their bodies to recover from the strain it puts on them to make all of those eggs and replenish their stores of vitamins, mierals and pigments. We are definately looking forward to the next season of egg laying from the girls when the eggs will be bigger and richer in color. 
 

Here is one of our lovely standard buff cochin hens showing off her new coat of soft fluffy feathers. She just finished her molt and we hope to start seeing eggs from her again soon.
 

With the cooler weather there is less green forage growing, so we have to provide more feed for the animals. Here is a shot of the pigs graciously sharing their dish of grains with the chickens. In the spring and summer our animals are fed a lot of fresh green food, and in the fall they get a lot of squash and root vegetables. Now that the weather is finally starting to feel like winter is coming they are fed more grains. Corn in particular is fed to the chickens on cool days as it helps them build body heat as it metabolizes due to its high fat content. We don't give the animals any corn at all during warm weather or they would just pack on the pounds!
 
Overall it has been a quiet, peaceful week here on the farm.




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