Cow & Flies

I. Hate. Flies.

Part of having cows, is that they seem to manufacture flies! I've never seen as many flies in a horse stable (although there usually are a few) as you find around the cows. No matter how many cows you have on what acreage, the flies just love them.

So part of living around cows is that unless you can get in through the walls, you bring flies in with you (even worse when you've got kids and pets).

One thing I discovered this year are these window fly traps. They work disgustingly well, far better then the hanging fly strips.

We don't have a single fly in our barn because the animals are out as much as possible and we've got the chickens in there to eat any maggots that do grow. We do still have quite a few out in the field, if I could I would keep 100 chickens out there with the animals to keep eating all the maggots. They do an amazing job.

Last summer/early fall is my most aggravating time for flies, they are slow and stupid and annoying and hard to catch; so I've armed the kids with fly swatters and hopefully they'll actually get a few in between whacking each other.

Chicken FAIL

I understand that most people don't make back their money on their first round of meat birds, because of the beginner mistakes you make; but I was sure, SURE that I had read up enough, and figured this all out and that wasn't going to happen to us. Not.

Consulted with the processor yesterday afternoon and it's most likely our birds have roundworm. Apparently it's been a really bad year for the worms & that's why they haven't gained any weight. We've sunk all our money into feeding worms, not chickens.

So as soon as we worm they should gain some weight, of course the feed store just ran out! I gave them some D.E. with dinner and we'll go with the commercial wormer as soon as it's in.

I don't know how long roundworm can last in the soil, considering there haven't been animals on the land for years, before us; this really caught me by surprise!

Still feels like a bit of a failure in my part, but we've learned a good lesson! Just glad we started out with 50 meat birds instead of 100 or more!! These birds better be tasty 'cause they were expensive!

Everyone is getting a round of de-worming including the dogs & cats. 

Diatomaceous Earth

Over-top of the meat chick's litter

This stuff is FANTASTIC! It's made up of crushed sea-shells and works very well on little pests by slicing through their bodies & killing them off. I spread food-grade D.E. all around on bedding that doesn't get changed every day, on favourite sleeping spots outside, and I'll give the animals a good rub-down with it every now and then.

In the big chicken's favourite dusting spot

A food-grade D.E. can also be used in a feed-through program to control worms in your livestock. You can get it online, but most gardening centres will carry some type of D.E.. I went in last year to get some, and resorted to one that was not food grade. This year they've stocked the shelves with the food grade stuff!

I rub D.E. on the goats & sheep to prevent
any pests that might burrow into their hair.
I even used it on the dogs. 

Miss Kitty is NOT Impressed

I stole the great huntress' lunch. I'm not really quite sure what it is but I've been told it was probably a martin and I probably should not have taken it away from M.K. and will live to regret setting him free ...

So long little guy! Never return please!