I have been too serious lately so here are some interesting things I have learned about farming so far. :)
 
A playful pig is only cute until it exceeds your own body weight then it’s utterly terrifying.

Don’t think if you build a shelter your sheep will actually use it; they much rather be outside. Invest in shade and wind-brakes.

Before you decided to hatch out chicks in winter first figure out where you are going to house them. Basements don’t make good chick brooder.

Rams are called such for a reason.

Dogs can get fat eating chicken poop.

If chickens don’t know what something is their first instinct is to peck it, whether it’s a string on the ground or a temperamental old cat, it makes no difference to them.

Chickens have a bad rap for being stupid, but ducks are worse. They can figure out how to fly out of the yard but not how to fly back in.

Chickens + Dead Frog = Hours of Entertainment

Pigs are smarter then dogs, they know to wait until your back is turned to body slam you.

Don’t ask your pigs if they want an apple unless you actually have some apples to give them, they aren’t stupid and they hold a grudge.

Goats know the best places to stand/walk so they can trip you.

An otherwise quite and late rising rooster will always start crowing at 4am on the days you could sleep in. 

Plucking a duck is one of the 9 levels of hell.

The smaller the size of your male goat the larger the attitude.

Never stand directly in front of a male goat; you risk getting peed on.

Male goats can *cough* take care of themselves if you know what I mean.

No matter how much it may suck going out in below zero temperatures to feed and care for the animals after you've had the day from hell; by the time your done lugging buckets of water and wrestling with the animals to get from the gate to their food dishes, you have a smile on your face and you've forgotten that you can't feel your toes.

Jeff wants meat goats…. which I’m fine with, but I like sheep better. I LOVE my Shetlands, but raising the breed just for meat doesn’t make sense and I have no idea what to do with their wool. (If anyone knows how to shear sheep I will give you their wool in exchange) So I have found a breed of sheep I think would work great for us. They are a larger sheep, are naturally disease resistant, birth easy, you don’t have to dock their tails, and they shed in the spring so no shearing! Unfortunately there are only a handful of them in the US. They are called Wiltshire Horn Sheep and they are super popular in Australia, and gaining popularity in the US. Because their coat adjusts to the climate they are in they can be raised in cold and warm climates. The Wiltshire is an ancient British breed of sheep that nearly went extinct in the early 20th century. The breed was exported to the US where they were used to breed the modern Katahdin sheep. 

I would love to get my hands on a small herd of these sheep, but it looks like if I want them I am going to have to travel and pay out the noise for the real deal and not a hybrid. Most of the other heritage hair sheep breeds are smaller and used primarily for trophy hunting, so they have big horns but their bodies are smaller and they are more adapted to warmer climates. If anyone knows of where I can find a few of these beauties either leave a comment below or send me an email KaylaP@theimpulsivefarmer.com

You know how I said the mallard had been pardoned well....

I changed my mind. So the deed is done; the ducks are in the fridge and it only took most of the day. We are never doing ducks again! De-feathering them was a giant pain in the rear! I had to take the tweezers to them... and then I ended up just skinning 2 of the mallards and one of the Pekins. I can't wait to cook them though! I found some really good recipes and I will be sure to post the recipes and how they turned out. 

UPDATE: Well, my friend and I went down to the county on Friday and it appears that there are no restrictions on my family’s property (so far) we still have a few more deeds to pull. 

On a more negative note, we completed the goat/sheep house on Sunday with the help of Jeff’s family and a friend. We were able to get it all set up and the males and females separated; all that is left is to finish the roof (we have a tarp over it right now). Anyways, we figured that the codes and zoning officer would be getting some calls saying we are building, so we sent him an email to forewarn him. We may not have gotten a variance for the barn, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t construct a small 8x12 building for the sheep/goats. We got a response from the code enforcement office on Monday saying that while they appreciated the heads up that they HAD gotten numerous complaints and they still had to go out and check it out to make sure we are in compliance, which it turns out we are so :P to all those people that complained. I really don’t know what those people expected us to do, it’s getting cold out and the shelter that we originally put up was just not sufficient for the winter. Did they expect us to just let our animals freeze? I can understand not wanting us to start some huge farming operations, but I don’t see what the issue is with building shelter for the animals we already have on the property. 

Oh, before I forget kudos to Shirley and Sue for standing up for us during the Zoning meeting! You made the whole nightmarish meeting more bearable!

This past Sunday me and the hubby attended Upstate NY ChickenStock 2010! Which was AWESOME. Now going into this Jeff said that he would NEVER help me process our animals when it comes time to butch, so I said yeah, sure what ever. At ChickenStock there was a processing demo and now Jeff is all, "That wasn't bad I could do that" :rollseyes: So these past few days we have been looking into what type of meat bird we want to get, and from all the feedback we got from the people at CS we decided to go with Freedom Rangers. They don't grow as fast as the Cornish Crosses that you would purchase in a grocery market and they don't get as big but they don't drop dead at 12 weeks either. Cornish X's tend to not move much so they have to be babied, they can over heat easily in the summer and they tend to lay around allot and get stinky, dirty and disgusting. The Freedom Rangers are capable of being raised on pasture and will forage for food therefor bringing feed cost down.
So today at work, Jeff called me to ask me if I knew how much they where, so I looked them up and gave him the pricing for 25, 50, or 100..... then he is like ok lets get 100.... uh huh yeah, ok great idea and where are we going to put these birds? The field has yet to be fenced and we can't just let them roam free, the local predators would end up eating them instead of us. So I think I have talked him out of getting that many to start out, for now at least.
Then while we where at ChickenStock Jeff saw some Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and if I hadn't of had the foresite to NOT bring our carrier with us we would be plus a few chickens right now.... I don't know how this happened I used to be the impulsive one and he was the voice of reason! Oh well.
On the other hand I got an incubator at CS and it currently has 3 eggs in it just as a test. It was used so it didn't come with a thermometer, so if this batch doesn't go well I have to go buy one and a hydrometer. They are due to hatch on the 24th but I should know if the eggs are developing by tomorrow or so.