Sunday, July 20, 2008

The Ant Massacre of 2008


So we got our turkey chicks a few days ago and everything went ok as we put all 41 into the brooder. The brooder was build by my husband 7 years ago so it was getting on in age and falling apart a bit, but we really didn’t know how much till the other night I was going to the back yard to go check on them and I saw both of the dogs under the trailer playing with something.

It was a turkey chick. I was in shock, how did it get there? Nooooooo I cried as I tried to get it away I had to crawl under the trailer to grab it, finally I did and they had another one they were playing with, I grabbed that one only to see another and another roaming around. My son and his cousin were out in the back yard I yelled to them, "Tommy go get your Daddy! Hurry!

So my son ran in, "Mommy needs you daddy it’s the turkeys" What had happen was the bottom back board was rotting and they were just rolling out into the grass area. Well after we fixed that little problem two of the chicks had died and ants were on them. I thought maybe it was trauma from the dogs? I took the dead ones out and then an hour later saw 2 more dead with ants of them. It hit me, it’s not the trauma it’s the ants killing my chicks they are attacking them.

We put them in a box for the night in our house; we lost another chick to being smushed. The next day we had to clean out the whole brooder, move it, spray it with this orange natural biodegradable oil plus something else my husband put in there and cover it back up. They are happy now but we lost a total of 7 chicks. That’s a lot of chicks to lose the first few days. 10 of those chicks were supposed to be ours. At least we are blessed that we didn’t have to feed them that long but we lost out on the cost of buying them.

I pray now the others will survive for their rest of their journey.

A bird ate two of my tomatoes today, they were almost ready to pick sigh….at least it left me one. Tomorrow I need to try to cover them up. I found someone to buy my goats milk a nice lady from my milk/egg group I am so happy to find someone who likes goat milk I am glad to be able to share with her Barrels milk. It will be enough for me and some for her and later when I wean the babys from her I will get even more for my cheese making. The money will help pay for Barrels feed, it has gone up so much. Today I attempted to make Feta cheese and I followed the directions wrong so I have to start all over. I am short two quarts of milk and right now I am saving up for my new customer so I will have to wait till Wed milking to finish up.

Thursday is payday it can’t come soon enough so much to get for the house.

Sam

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