June has arrived... and with it... summer weather.
Our days are sunny and hot, our nights cooler.
Daily farm chores include making sure that everyone has adequate fresh water
several times daily.
We go through lots of water each day...
watering cans filled and hauled around to animals by gator.
Of all the animals, extra water is most appreciated by the pigs.
(they don't sweat as we do, and they don't pant as dogs do)
we fill a small swimming pool for them each day
so that they can cool themselves off as needed.
And boy, do they love their pool!
To answer a couple of questions from yesterday's blog...
Joyce: That beautiful orange painted turtle headed right back into the woods as soon
as our photo session was over.
And Portia, you asked if the roosters would fight.
What I have found in the past when we have had an overabundance of roosters is this:
If I keep them separated and far away from the girls so that they don't even know they exist,
they seem to get along pretty well most of the time.
That darned testosterone does make them occasionally challenge each other,
however with no prize to win at the end of a fight...
it's not worth fighting to the end.
What usually happens, though, is eventually (because I allow them to free range)
they become more and more comfortable wandering further and further away from their coop.
Eventually one will find the hens that wander down to the barn (the middle point between the
rooster house and the hen house).
Upon making this discovery, said rooster usually defects and ends up with the hens.
Then we have a situation where the defecting rooster has to duke it out with the roosters that normally live with the hens.
Usually a pecking order is established and life calms down.
Why don't I just put all of the roosters in with the hens?
I like to keep my rooster to hen ratio at about 1 to 25.
This keeps the hens from getting too stressed by over-sexed roosters
(as all roosters tend to be!)
There will be many rooster adventures ahead when these boys are old enough to free range.
I'll wait for that until they are full grown.
PS....I stand corrected. The turtle in yesterday's post is apparently a very colorful box turtle.
I had thought by its color that it was a painted turtle.
I was wrong.... painted turtles have a whole different shell shape.
Thanks "Farm Buddy" for steering me in the right direction!!
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