Plus one, minus three

Our census count needs another adjustment. Late this morning hubby and I were preparing to finally butcher some of our roosters. The butchering number was down to three -- I gave two of my Americauna roos to my new friends at Humble Roots Heritage Farm just last week. Their own roosters had been killed by a fox. So, we had brought out the table, knives, hose, buckets and pots and were setting everything up by the firering at the end of the yard. I was heading back to the house to get some rope when I heard the familiar bleating. I turned and headed for the barn.


Eve decided to have her babe outside, behind the barn. A healthy, beautiful black buckling. Like I thought, Eve was just carrying the one. I fixed her and her new babe up in the kidding pen and sat down with them for an hour or so. Eve is a new mother, and is naturally more skittish than Dawn. She didn't like me touching her udder at all. But I was persistent and she settled down after awhile.


The little one is very cute, of course. A little bigger than the twins born three days ago. Eve was bred to a black buck, and since she carries some color under her white she gave birth to a black kid. White is dominant, so a white goat can carry some recessive color. The color genetics for angora goats are complicated, and I don't pretend to understand it all.

Later in the afternoon hubby and I found time to butcher the roosters. These roosters are the first animals that we have raised and butchered ourselves, on our farm. We made some newbie mistakes: too small a pot for dunking, causing the hot water to overflow into the fire; knives that were sharp but not sharp enough; not putting a tarp underneath the plucking station. And my eviscerating skills were a little rusty. But we got it done, and now we have three fresh chickens in our freezer. And our hens are lot happier with three less roosters to cause them grief.