Sometimes on the farm unfortunate accidents happen. In spite of those accidents, we try to make the best of a terrible situation.

That is what happened a few weeks ago while my husband was hay cutting. He didn't see mama turkey hunkered down in the grass, sitting on her nest. If he had, the nest would have been marked and he could have gone around that little section of ground. Instead, mama turkey stayed put, protecting her precious cargo and you can guess what happened.

I was at the house when the phone rang. All he said was to meet him in the field and bring a basket. It sounded urgent. I couldn't imagine what I was about to encounter. The two youngest and I quickly headed over to where he was, standing in the field over a little nest of eggs where mama turkey had met her demise.

In my haste to get out the door, I had forgotten the basket. We grabbed what we could find in the car...a floppy blue sunhat. The girls and I gathered up the eggs that were still in tact and put them carefully in the hat. We brought them home, started up the incubator and placed the 8 eggs inside.

I did some quick research to learn at what temperature they should be incubated and for how long. We had to guess at how far along the eggs were in development and from there we put the potential hatch date on the calendar.

And then we waited.

I had tried to candle the eggs when we first brought them home but since I had never incubated turkey eggs before I wasn't sure what to look for. I thought I saw movement in a couple of the eggs but couldn't be 100% sure. Quite honestly, I didn't think this would work, but what did we have to lose?

I hadn't really given the eggs much thought during the next week or so. They were just in the incubator, slowly rotating on the egg turner. Once in a while, I would check on the temperature and humidity just to make sure it was okay. And we went about our normal summer busy-ness.

Then on a whim, I decided to candle an egg again. Maybe I could tell if there was any change from the last time I candled. I took the closest egg and headed towards the bathroom (the darkest room). On my way, I rubbed my hand over the egg and noticed a little pip in the shell! What! Could that be? I candled the egg. All I could see was a dark mass. I quick took the rest of the eggs off of the turner and set them in the bottom of the incubator. 5 of those 8 eggs began to move on their own! We actually had movement inside those eggs! Amazing!

The first two chicks that tried to get out of their shells didn't make it. I was pretty sad because I heard and saw the one making good progress, but then I had to leave. We had read that you shouldn't help them out, no matter what! So I left it alone. When we returned a few hours later I had expected to see a turkey chick but the chick was still in the shell and no longer moving. But, alas, another egg had a pip! I was determined not to lose this one. I wound up helping the chick hatch out of the shell.

The next day I checked the rest of the eggs. Two of the remaining 5 had pips (and I could hear peeping!) but the other three were empty. So I got to work helping out those last two chicks.

Helping one of the last two chicks out of their shell
(Photo courtesy of Kaitlyn)

Luckily, we were successful in getting three of the eight eggs to hatch. Now I am learning how to take care of poults. 

Sometimes accidents happen. It is up to us to determine the outcome. Although mama turkey lost her life protecting her brood, we did our best to finish the job.

The girls have named them Rochester, Benny and Dennis.

SSSSSUUUUURRRRPPPPRRRIIISSSEEEEE

     On February 28, 2016, our traditional Sunday morning scramble immediately halted. As I went down to get the spare gallon of milk, something unusual caught my eye: A lot of cows standing all together. There are only two times this behavior is exhibited: 1.When a predator is in the pasture, the calves and yearlings go in the middle and the adult cows go around the outside so that they can protect them. 2. During calving time, right after the calf is born and all the other cows want to meet the newborn.
     Knowing we did not have any cows due until May or June, this behavior was weird. As my eyes focused, I saw a newborn calf trying to use its new legs. Forgetting the milk, I ran upstairs with the news! At first my family did not believe me, and they thought the same thing I did. After further investigation, the good news was confirmed: We had a new baby.
   Going out to further check out the situation, I got close enough to see an ear tag on the mama: Number 30, Little Orphan Annie, who is not so little anymore. WHAT?????? How had this happened?
     During the summer, one-year-old Annie was still nursing on our milk cow Eleanor. She was too old to be doing this, so we separated them, but the only place for her was with the steers and bulls. Okay, well, year old calfs can't get pregnant so it shouldn't matter!!! NEWS FLASH: Yeah, they absolutely can, and that is how little baby Pepper was born.

This is not Pepper's mom this is one of last years calfs named Hepsibah!!

Hello from Hat Trick!

Fall is here, trees are changing and pumpkins are turning orange... Including ours! So far we've had eleven pumpkins (there's more on the vine)two of which we've made into delicious pies! 

Our squash is also growing like crazy as is our carrots and sunflowers! Our watermelon didn't have much success but we are still learning. 

Beef is going to be on the market soon and our list is getting longer.

 Thank you for your support.


Hat Trick Farm.

A farm surprise...from a kid's perspective!

     Every child has read or heard a story like the following:

        "Momma! Momma! Henny's gone! I can't find her anywhere." Penny came running into the house with a shocked look on her face, tears welling in her eyes. "I'm sure your speckled hen will come back," her mother said, trying to soothe her young daughter. To no avail Penny started crying even harder. "Penny stop crying. We will go and look for her," her mother persuaded, trying a different angle. After hours of searching it started to get dark and it was time for bed. The next day Henny was waiting for them at the coop. Everyday Henny would disappear and they could not figure out where Henny was going.  After a while it was a normal occurrence for Henny to leave and then to  return in the morning. Finally one day when Penny went to check on Henny, she had followers. Chicks-a bunch of them... THAT's were she was disappearing off to. Penny ran into the house and explained what happened to Henny.  All was well because now Penny had 8 'Henny's'. 

This happened to me.

I've done a lot of fun things on this farm but this was the most surprising! Here's how it happened:

      My sister and her friend went to give our chickens some corn. As they were throwing corn, the friend asked to go see the eggs in the house. They started walking into the chicken coop when friend stopped and asked if she could see the chicks. Chicks?! We don't have any chicks! However, when the girls peeked into the pasture, they see peepers everywhere. The girls started raising the alarm that there were chicks. As we went outside one by one, the surprised looks around our farm started adding up. Yes, chicks! Seven fluffy seeming to be day-old chicks!! 

      I have always wanted to see a mother hen with chicks and I guess now's my chance.

With Spring comes Babies!

Spring is upon us here at the farm.  We are starting to see buds on the trees, grass in the fields and calves running through the pasture.  The weather has been so nice lately that we haven't had to don boots, hats and mittens before leaving the house.  Tennis shoes and a sweatshirt suffices most days.

As of this writing, we have 8 calves that have been born in the last 3 weeks.  Last year, we lost 2 calves, due in part to overfeeding resulting in larger than normal calves and to inexperience on our part. We were heartbroken to lose those two calves last year and thought that was the worst. However, this year, we experienced something harder.

One of our original girls, Little Spot, developed a prolapsed uterus on delivery.  This occurs when the uterus is delivered with the calf.  The 'cure' is to push the uterus back in and sew up the opening so the uterus can't come out again.  We read that cows that have this problem can go on to have more calves in the future.  We were hopeful that this would be the case with Little Spot. Unfortunately, she didn't make it, leaving us with her beautiful heifer calf to raise.  Below is a picture of Brooke (the calf) having some fun in the yard with the littlest.

If you have been following along with past posts, you will recall that last year, we had a calf that was orphaned by its mother.  This calf, Annie, was successfully 'adopted' by our milk cow, Eleanor.  Annie is doing well and stays pretty close to Eleanor most of the time.  We have noticed that Eleanor still lets Annie nurse!  We were hoping to give Brooke to Eleanor to feed so we wouldn't have to but Annie and Eleanor still have a strong bond.  We will have to separate the two for the summer to initiate the weaning process.

That is what has been happening on the farm this month.  I'll post more next week on other things that are happening on the farm.  Until then, we are getting out and enjoying as much of the warm weather as is possible.

Update

Winter has started again on Hat Trick Farms, and a wacky start it is too.

First, it snowed about 12 inches in October, warmed back to about 50-60 degrees then snowed again back to a balmy -4 degrees at 9:30 on Dec 31.

Second, we had to start feeding the cows early, however it seems we will make it to March or April.  

On the happy side, my dad fixed the automatic chicken door so we do not have to go out in the morning. It is set on a timer, so we can decide when the chicken door comes open and closes.
The timer is also connected to a light because the chickens lay more eggs in when it is light, or if they are out side when it gets dark, instinct tells them that they should go to shelter so they go hide under the pine tree. If the light is on then they can see where the door is and they will go inside. As well we have the light so when we go to feed them and gather the eggs we can actually see.

Last is an update on Little orphan Annie, who really isn't an orphan anymore. First of all the next day my dad was woken up early because heard a lot of ruckus. He got up and checked on the cows to see what was wrong. He opened the curtains and saw Farlow (the surrogate) trying to kill Annie. She probably realized that Annie was not her calf so she chose the stronger one which was Henry. As the story plays out when we moved the bulls down from the back separation pasture and the girls dow the road to summer grazing they knocked our shed down and Eleanor injured three of her ankles. When we moved the bulls and since then made steers in with the cows and calves we moved Annie in as a pasture buddy for Eleanor. Annie soon figured out that Eleanor could not get away very well or at all because of her ankles so she kept her persistence and succeeded in nursing off of Eleanor. One day when we went out to milk we did not get a drop so from then on Annie is now our little fatted calf. SOOO.... when life gives us a calf with no mother and a mother with no calf (who's story will be in the next post) we put them together for a match made in heaven.

Chick's Hatched

It's a girl and another girl oh, and a boy one more girl!!!! It is so hard to keep track and I don't know what genders we are having (I wish). We had 27 hatch but 1 chick did not make it. Since we have the incubator and the eggs we decided to hatch more, and they will hatch on the 30 and 31of May.  These chicks in the picture are younger then they are now.  The other chicks hatched today.