Fasting on the Farm

This is our second Ramadan on our farm. This year, our farm is more established with animals. when we are fasting, the animals can be quite bothersome. I usually like to go back to sleep for a short time after the Fajr. Roosters, chickens, guinea hens, ducks and geese are just waking up and making all kinds of rukus. We have a mini rooster and he has a high pitch crow that goes on and on. Each morning we would take him from the barn and put him in a cage so he could not come near the house. Also during Ramadan, our garden was growing fast and we did not have enough time to eat it all. Therefore, most of the zuccini and tomatoes are in my freezer. I made relish and pickles from my cucumbers. We should still be enjoying the garden veggies until spring again!

Barn Swallows

Barn Swallows are just amazing creatures created by God. They usually start arriving in the spring. They build these amazing nests from mud and grass. They are all over our barns. After they build their nests, they have to put soft bedding down for their eggs. They collect chicken and duck feathers from all around the farm and carry them up into their nests. They lay about 4 eggs in each nest. It is hard to photograph them because their nests are so high up. Even if I can reach them, they are so close to the ceiling that I cannot get my camera in there. Well, feeling a little like a wildlife photographer, I climbed into semi-dangerous spots to photograph a couple of babies. My 11 year old daughter snapped a few of these too. Apart from being excellent builders, these birds are wonderful at flying. They glide and move like no other bird I have seen. Every time my cat goes out, they swoop down so fast and hit her that she does not even see them coming. Barn swallows are protected birds here in Nebraska. Their main diet is flies. Anything that eats pesky flies, I am all for protecting!

Mirror Mirror on the wall

We were installing an air conditioner into the kitchen window, and we had to remove part of the window. Well, I spotted my female guinea hen looking at her reflection. She was spending all her time grooming, preening and looking at her beautiful self. It is really quite ironic because if you have ever gotten real close to these birds they are not real pretty. They look very prehistoric and could pass for a dinosaur. They have a horn on their head, very pruney wrinkled skin and some kind of long hair. My children were so amused by her need to see her beauty that they eventually put a small mirror for her. Her and her husband spend a few hours a day in front of it admiring themselves.

Spring Babies

Assalam alykom:

I am a little late with this post since it is around summer now. Here are a few babies that are around my farm. The rabbit my son is holding is a wild rabbit. It was so cute! We put it back where we found it. The little chick was hatched by my duck. She started to lay her eggs in the chicken coop. So, she laid on a few chicken eggs with her duck eggs and this little chick hatched. The nest of robin eggs was found in one of our barns. I just love the color of them.

Our New Kids

Some of our goats finally kidded. The whole family witnessed the birth of one goat. She delivered three kids. For homeschooling, biology does not get any better. The kids where amazed at how a baby comes out. However, they where also disgusted when she starts to lick them clean. It was a big ordeal that day. It was 0 degrees outside, and we were so afraid they would freeze to death. We found the mother goat in labor. We decided to drag her across the property and bring her to our sun porch. After they were all delivered, we took them all to a cozy room in one of our barns. Later that day, the kids went to check on the other goats and another one had delivered four kids. One died shortly after being born. We also moved her to the same room. There is still another pregnant goat left. She was very upset to see her friends go. So, we put her in the room too! After a few days, we moved them all back to their big barn and pasture. Unfortunately, another kid died. He was very small at birth and just was not strong enough. He was my favorite and was the cutest one. As the week progressed, we noticed that one goat had a very hard udder and she looked in pain. The kids and I loaded her up in the back of the van and took her to the vet. He said she had an infection and needed medicine. He said she would need help feeding her babies. We have had to bottle feed some of them to help her out. They are so friendly because of this and the kids love to go in the pasture to play with them. It has been a month now and there is still a third goat to deliver. The goats are nice, but they are not dairy goats. Therefore, there is not enough for us to milk them. They are meat goats. We are not much for eating goats. We prefer sheep for eating. I suppose we will keep a few as pets and then sell the rest. It has been a wonderful experience raising these animals.

Chickens, Ducks, Geese and Their Eggs

Some of our animals have really interesting behavior.My children are making so many observations and learning so much! Our geese are probably the most interesting in their behavior. When we first got them, the girl goose(also called a goose. The boy is called a gander)
laid an egg right in the middle of the barn. The kids found it and at first glance was not sure what it was because it was so large. Well, it was very cold weather, and she laid it in the middle of everything. So,we decided to eat it. It has a milder taste than the chicken egg, and the white part is very transparent. I was not to crazy about eating it, but my kids where very excited to try.

After eating a couple of the goose eggs, she started laying her eggs in the chicken nesting box. Well, the chickens do not like the geese because they are mean and always bite them. So, revenge is in order. They would peck her eggs open and eat them. Well, a week later, she decides to make a nest in my basement window. There are decorative rocks around the house there. She has pulled all the rocks in there and made a nest. We brought her some hay and she pulled it in there too. She also seems to be pulling her feathers out and using them. This is still not the safest place. She sometimes gets up in the early morning when it is dark and she eats. At this time, something is crawling in there and stealing an egg. So far, two have disappeared this way. Another time, I was organizing the basement, and I saw a chicken in the window instead of the goose. The chickens had got in there and where pecking an egg and eating it. They must still want their revenge. Finally, she seems to be settling in there. We have three eggs in the window, and she only gets off of them once in a day in the late afternoon. Before she started laying her eggs, the male goose was so aggressive. Now, he spends his days alone while she sits on her nest. He is very quite now and does not say much. However, if we go look at her she starts honking, and he comes running and hissing at us. There is a picture here of him, and he is so funny!

Another egg story we have is our attempt to hatch eggs in the incubator. We have goose, duck, and chicken eggs in the incubator. I am hopeful they will all hatch, but it is entirely experimental at this point. The other picture is the eggs in the nesting box. Everyone favors one box, and everyone is laying their eggs in it. There is both duck and chicken eggs. They seem to be laying good. but no one sits on them. So, they where ice cold. Well, I just collected them and took them inside for eating. We tried the duck egg too. The same as the goose egg. I was not thrilled about eating it and prefer chicken eggs only!

A few new birds

Assalam alykom:

I have been so busy with homeschooling and my farm, that I have not been able to give time to my blogs. We have a few new additions to our farm. We bought a few more chickens, a pair a guinea hens and a pair of white geese, and one turkey. The chickens are laying lots of eggs, and we are enjoying eating them. The guinea hens are scared most of the time, but they make beautiful sounds. The geese are very aggressive and chase and hiss at everyone on the farm. The kids have to show them who is boss. My little girls are especially venerable. They are about the size of the geese and the geese feel comfortable running them down. I told the girls to flap your arms and run at them when they do that to you. This seems to work, but when the girls are not paying attention the geese sneak up to them. It is funny and the girls love to chase them back. There is a sad story about our turkey. He was staying in the big barn in the back behind some boards. He felt comfortable in there so we let him. One morning we went out to feed everyone, but we could not find the turkey. I found alot of his feathers, but not him. Later that morning, we found his body in the pasture with his chest and head gone. I asked my local vet because I was afraid it was coyotes. I would then fear for my children. He said coyotes would eat it if it was already dead in the pasture, but they would unlikely enter the barn and kill it. He said that a raccoon would do this though. Sure enough a few days later after I prayed Fajr, I saw the raccoon in the pasture. It looked about 35-40 pounds. He is now on our hit list. I do not want it to kill any of my other birds. Our goats have finally kidded. So stay tuned for me to load up the cute pictures.

The Newest Member to our Farm

Assalam alykom:

We now have a male sheep for our little farm. We have 1 white female hair sheep and 1 female wool sheep. We just got this little guy who is a hair sheep. We are going to slaughter the wool sheep for meat and keep our herd all hair sheep. They will be much easier to take care of in the summer because you do not have to clip the wool. Our goats still have not had their kids. We will be so excited when they do. Every day we go and feed them and think that they had them. I will be posting the pictures as soon as they arrive.

Did you know this?

Assalam alykom:

My family and I are learning so much about animals and the outdoors. Do you know what this picture is? Will it looks like the feet of a strange creature. Well, we discovered that it is wild rabbit tracks. The two in the front are the rabbits front paws. The one spot in the back is his back feet. They look like one foot because the rabbit keeps his two back feet together when he hops. Did you know that ducks have no nerves in their feet. When we see our ducks swimming in a bucket of water and it is freezing cold, we are not feeling sorry for them anymore. Allah equips them in this manner so they can endure cold water. They also have very thick feathers so they do not even feel the water touch them. We learned this when researching some of the animals we have on our farm.

Did you know that it is good that an animal is shivering when it is cold? Well, I was feeling really sorry for my sheep and goats when I saw them shivering on those below zero days. However, I discovered that if the animal does not shiver that means it is suffering from hypothermia. The shivering is a way the body reacts to the cold and keeps the animal warm.

Did you know that a rooster can get frost bite? Well, I would have never thought of this especially since my chickens and roosters do not even leave the barn because of the cold. However, my rooster does have frost bite. It does not seem to bother him because he is not lethargic. However, the kids still feel sorry for him and he has spent a few nights in my basement. We have made their roosting room as warm as possible, but he is very large and has a huge comb on his head. It was reading that the larger birds are more prone to it. Keep reading my blog and you might learn more right along with us.

Organic Eid

Assalam alykom:

I have been very excited about having more organic meat, eggs and vegetables in our diet. We slaughtered one of our sheep for the Eid. She was 100% organic. She was fed only corn, alfalfa and grass. The meat looked so different. It was very red when I was organizing it to put in my freezer. I cooked some of it with rice this week. Sometimes, sheep can have a strong smell when you cook it. This one did not and it was the best tasting meat that I have ever had. When we lived in Florida, it was a hassle to slaughter for the Eid. It was always very crowded and one sheep was over $200.00. This year was very easy. We just took her from our pasture and that was it. We have three pregnant goats pictured here. Once they deliver, I will be experimenting with getting their milk and making yogurts and cheese. It will be a learning curve I am sure, but I am looking forward to it.

The dark side of a farm

The bright side of farm life is the fact that it is full of life. There are chickens, ducks and animals. There are eggs being laid and baby animals being born. There are wild berry trees, fruit trees and nuts. There are gardens and flowers being planted. With all of this life, the dark side is death. It is inevitable that death will occur on a farm. It can be quite emotional. This emotions are very great when your attached to some of this life. When we first came to our farm, my friend gave us a chick. She was very sweet and so friendly. She was getting quite big and her cage was to messy to keep her in the house. She had a very large cage and we decided to put it outside right next to our back door. It was during Ramadan, and I was up preparing the food in the morning. I checked on the chick, and she was fine. As we were eating, I heard her cry. It was too late. There was a feral cat that had grabbed her through the cage. This was our first death. The kids were all crying, but it was soon healed with a little time and twelve new chickens. Our next story is about a young sheep. We got our first new sheep. There were four, andthey were all young sheep. Three of them were around 4 to 6 months. One was a baby who had been orphaned. His mother had died from a bug bite. He was doing great when we first got him. However, we think that he had ate more than he was used to and became sick. He was our second death. The kids were sad, but better than the chicken. The most recent death was my friends' horse. My friends had brought one of their large horses to my pasture. The horse had been nursing her baby and the baby was ready to be weaned. The mother horse had become very thin from the nursing and she was also older. While she was in my pasture she did not seem to gain weight. Last week, she must have felt ill and sat on the ground. It was very cold and she was unable to get up after that. After spending the entire day with the vet trying to get her better, she died. This is all what can happen with life on the farm. I think that I do not want to have too many animals as pets. The attachment to them is really hard when something happens to them.

Our Ducks

Assalm alykom:

My friend has so many ducks. When we visited them, my husband cornered a male and female. Now they are the new residnets on our farm. Well, they are kind of camera shy. They just would not turn around for the picture. They are really cute! Be sure to see my other blog for a great craft about ducks!

Our Goats

Assalm alykom:

We now are venturing into goats. I do not really like them for their meat. I prefer sheep. However, I do love the milk for cheese and yogurt. I really know nothing about goat milking. I am sure it will be a big learning process for the whole family. All three goats are pregnant and we might be starting our milking adventure soon. Goats have more personality and are much smarter than sheep. we have had them less than a week and they have been out of the fencing three times already. They went right to where we store their corn, took the lid off the can, and they were feasting. They are pretty tame, and the kids love them. The white one with the beard lets us pet her the most. I cannot wait till they have their babies. They must be so cute!

More chickens

Assalm alykom:

Well, we added more chickens. We now have ten hens and two roosters. I thought I would get more eggs now. Well, I have had them for two weeks and no eggs. Someone told me they do not lay eggs as much when it is cold. When we got the new chickens we got these little tiny chickens. One is the rooster and the black one is a hen. SubhannaAllah, how Allah makes creatures of different sizes!

Borrowed Mowers

Assalm alykom





When we purchased our home, it had been left unkept and over grown for a long time. We have quite alot of overgrown pasture. Our few little sheep could never clear it out. Therefore, our friends thought that they would bring three of their horses over to help out a little. Two of them are ponies and the kids and I are really enjoying petting them everyday!