April was a month for babies here. Goat kids and chicks found they were in a strange new world. But farm babies grow up fast.
It is now June. Those cute balls of fluff are now lovely white with black necks pullets. They complain their little house is just that: little. Their yard is bare dirt as they ate most of the greenery. And it is too small.
I do have a 50-foot roll of three-foot chicken wire. This is staked up from the little chicken gate with electric wire posts to enclose an area of grass.
Don’t stand in the gateway when it is opened. For that matter, don’t stand in the doorway in the morning. Those pullets come flying and racing out.
Most of these pullets will move to a new home later this month. The remaining eight will continue to grow up into pullets big enough to move into the hen house.
The pullets will start laying in the fall. Then they will be hens at only six-months old. Farm babies grow up fast.
Goat kids are so cute when they are little. They depend on their mothers for milk. In a few days they are out exploring, playing, jumping on the goat gym.
At almost three months old these kids are ready to move to new homes. The polled buck has already left for one up near Columbia.
The three doe kids will be advertised toward the end of the month. Hopefully someone good will take them to a new home the beginning of July.
The buck kids are rarely so lucky. They too have to start leaving in July.
And then the barn will seem empty with only my thirteen adults in it. Augustus will be left alone all day again.
Farm babies grow up fast.
Hazel Whitmore raises Buff Orpington chicks in “Mistaken Promises“.
