What's new at Hill Top Farm?

It been forever...here's what's new

The chickens are all grown up and we've even gotten a new set (adding silver laced wyandottes, and red stars to the araucana, buff orpington, and black australorp girls)

                                     

                                               

                                                   

On March 19th, our first sow (Dorothy) had a litter of piglets. She had nine, seven survived. Clint and Craig finished the farrowing pen the night before she farrowed.

...Growing...

they're not babies anymore

We have done artificial insemination to re-breed the three full grown Berks. They will have piglets in September. Our only barrow will go for butcher along with our two corn-fed steers in August. (right around the corner)

Our full sized black angus was bred when we brought her home and she calved on May 20th.

The other three heifers are bred and will calve early September.

We have had a nice hay crop so far, and Clint started some custom cutting for several neighbors. We have more hay then we know what to do with, and we have continued to get rain. As I write, we had our second cutting yesterday. 

(Kep & Sis looking for mice)

The sweet corn patch, vegetable garden and fruit tree orchard are all doing well. Look for updates i the next enstallment.

Moving out

The ducks are moving outside. They were getting picked on by the chickens and since they have quadrupled in size they needed more space. We are still working on making their pen completely safe from intruders but they are loving their new space. We gave them the kids' swimming pool and they love to swim and clean their feathers.

Bath Time!

We have had all of our flock for just over two weeks now. They seem right at home now. The ducks have grown to likely 3 times their size when they arrived.

Moving day for the chicks.

We officially moved the chicks into their hen house. The ducks were starting to play too much in their water dish and make a mess and cause a stink in our basement so they needed to move to their own house. We have been preparing the hen house for some time and we still need to make the nest boxes but they are very happy having some room to run. We sure did get a lot of interest in what was inside though from the four legged friends of the farm.