Well, it's another soggy morning here on the farm, which is my absolute favorite kind of weather, ever! It's 35°F and raining – nothing beats this, I swear! I'm going to continue to delude myself about that fact this morning until I eventually embrace the reality that I get to be out here on the farm, working with the animals and talking with you guys. And it looks like our large white farm dogs aren't out yet. Oh, I can see them both napping in the greenhouse, which, on a day like today, I certainly don't blame them for. "Hey, Toby dog! Hey, Abby dog! What's going on, Abs? How's it going, sweetie? Got another burdock. Hey, Toby dog, how's it going, bud? Good to see you! Oh, you are soggy! You are out way more than you should be, kid!" Good morning, cranky chicken! Well, good morning to you too, Dorian Gray! Yeah, it is kind of a soggy, muddy mess this morning, which is just sometimes the way it goes.
These days, most of the birds know how to let themselves out, which means I'm not rushing to get out here. I actually probably waited an extra, I don't know, hour before starting my chores this morning, just because I wanted to let it stop raining as hard as it was. Of course, the joy of the ducks is always a nice sight to behold on a rainy day like today. Oh, and we got some duck eggs! Uno, dos, tres! We actually had some friends from out of town stay at the farm last night, and one of them, the daughter, absolutely loves ducks. Apparently, duck meat is her favorite food, but I don't think she's ever had a duck egg before, so this might end up being her breakfast. And Abby dog is like, "No, that's my breakfast! I love duck eggs! I love them so much!"
Let's go check in with the goatie otis. I'm going to have them work on the backside today. I'm actually going to change up where they're eating today and move them over to the backside of the hoop coop. There's a lot of weeds and brush over there, and I need to move them out of their current location and over to that area. So, that will be one of our projects for this morning. "Good morning, boys! You staying nice and dry? How are you doing? How's barus? How are you doing, doing? And oh yes, we can't forget young telemus! Good to see you guys! Can you boys come with me? Come on!" Okay, this plan might not work because they don't like the rain at all, and this might be the worst possible day to try to move them. "Come on, boys! You want to come out? Can I get you to come out just a little bit? Come on!" Nope, that's a hard no. Alright, I guess I'll keep them in the spot that they have been for the last week or two. They've been clearing out this other side. Actually, you know what? Maybe I'll just move this fence over here slightly. "Oh, hey, you are coming out! Can I co you to come through the backside? I'd really love to get you through the back over here. Come here!" We'll see how this works out over the course of this video.
You know, one problem I have with the goats is that they are starting to enjoy more and more sneaking out of their enclosure and going to where I have all the duck and goose food. They love to eat that feed, even though it's really not that good for them. I mean, they have a taste for it; it's not like it's toxic or fatal, but that should not be a part of a regular goat diet. So, I'm trying to figure out ways to limit that. As I try to move the goats today, we will be employing the goat pro to see what's going on when we're not actually watching the goats. I feel like this is rapidly becoming a must-have piece of goat-owning technology, and I'm really enjoying using it. "Okay, boys, I'm letting you loose, at least through this part. Those are chickens you're familiar with chickens. That's yesterday's feed bucket, and it's empty, just warning you. We'll close this section off. Barus, what are you doing? You're not supposed to go under that! Red Rover, Red Rover, send Abby dog over! It's twisted! Red Rover, Red Rover, send bicus over! There we go, fixed it! Hey, Lauren, you really like that rock! Any goat yard I build needs to incorporate these rocks into its design. Okay, Lauren, going to need you to earn your keep today. Get your head right through! Thank you! Ow, don't nip me!"
And I got a couple of questions on this from the last time I made one of these videos. So, it's a regular old GoPro that I just attached to a dog harness, and then there are like body mounts that various companies will sell, and so I just attach that to that. Let's make sure it's getting the right angle here. Don't lick it as much, it makes the lens dirty. Okay, hey, hey, hey! Alright, alright, now I'm taking you guys with me. We're going on a little adventure this morning. Yep, this is the fresh bucket of feed for today, just some alfalfa pellets, and you're going to come with me. "Come on, Lauren, I know you can't resist! I know you guys haven't really gone in the greenhouse yet, but I think you're going to like it. Oh, Toby dog, you're so muddy, kid! You could probably eat some pumpkins even if you wanted to. Guys, here boys, you want to come through the other side? This is really where I want you to come. Come on! Over here is like wild, untouched kingdom. I've been barely using it all summer, just letting all this stuff grow crazy, and I need your help in cleaning up this mess. Do you think you can do it? And if you get too wet, you can go inside the greenhouse. What do you think? Are you up to the task?" Oh wow, would you look at this? These are some tomatoes that have grown completely volunteer basis. That's incredible! "Come on, guys, how about right over here? This is probably a good spot to start. I think they'll be okay, like they won't aggressively eat the tomatoes, so it won't poison them, but they probably shouldn't eat too much of those. Abby dog, I don't need your supervision right now, okay? The goats know what they need to do. Hey, you sit down and settle, and you guys can get to work. Come with me, ABS! W w w w! Oh no, we're going to chase him back this way! They're like, we're not supposed to be here! Oh no, and they're gone! We got to keep Abby away for at least a little bit. You and I are going to go up to the cattle in just a second, and you boys come with me. Yeah, Toby, I know you can stay here. You, you've got good energy for goats. Come on, boys! Ly, Barney, Telly, let's go! We're setting you up out here. This is goat paradise over here right now. You can get a bite of Alfalfa, and you have so much to browse, so, so much to browse! I love them so much! I don't know why everybody in the comments I told you so! We knew you were going to love goats! We knew it! And yes, you were right, and I was wrong!"
Alright, with the goats now secured in their temporary daycare for the day, it's time for us to feed the birds. "Come on, dogs, we're going to feed the birds! Let's go! Come on! Good morning, everybody! Wow, you guys couldn't even wait, huh? Showdown, my little Lan piranhas! There you go, soup's up!" Here we have Pingu, who's one of our oldest chickens, and meanwhile, we actually have one of our oldest khaki Campbell ducks in the background as well. And of course, we can't forget to feed the weird chickens. Eat up, you guys! Yeah, the weird chickens have gone wet low crazy. They're not built for the rain, and so you'll find them staying most of the day inside their house. That's quite a styling you have going on right now! And here we have Carmen, who is sometimes a weird chicken and sometimes she's not. Ever since my door broke and I haven't bothered to fix it, she's kind of actually started to jump back and forth between the two spots. Yeah, Carmen is kind of a weird chicken. I know folks were also wondering if our large white rooster, Barry White, was going to stick with the weird chickens, and he's actually opted to not stay with them. I don't see him right now; he might be back in the coupe or underneath the CE. Abby, you haven't seen Barry White, have you? Oh, somebody in the comments was asking for a Ralph the duck update. The answer is, Ralph is doing wonderful! As you see him skip off into the pond, he's kind of a wild one, and he doesn't like to be handled much, but he has definitely settled in fully to the flock. It was almost a year ago that he first came and joined us, and so uh, yeah, it's nice to see a duck who at first didn't really fit in at all, now he is fully a member of the flock. "Hey, there's Barry White right there! What's going on, Barry? You're hanging out with the youngans, huh?" Yeah, I'm starting to co-mingle the flocks. I will start to pull out the roosters probably in the next few days and separate them so that I can have one batch of roosters and one batch of hens, and the hens will probably move into the coupe with the other hens, and they'll all be together, and I'll have to integrate that flock. To integrate them, I will probably use electrified poultry netting, similar to this but actually a little bit smaller holes, and I will surround their coupe and just make it so they can't get out and they don't want to get out, and they will spend probably three or four days in a relatively confined, netted-in area to be trained to the coupe, so that they all learn to use that coupe. And then once they're done with that, I'll probably move the entire coupe into the hoop coop, and that will begin the process of the winter bird setup. Even though the trees are starting to more and more look like stick season, it's definitely still feeling like fall, which is kind of and giving me just a little bit of extra time to do my winter preps and get everything ready around the farm.
Now, one programming question I have for you guys is, would you want to see a video of me talking about like all the stuff I do to get ready for winter around the farm in Homestead? Sometimes I think that bores people, like if I look at it based on who watches the videos, that generally doesn't seem to do well, but I also think it might be helpful for some folks. So, as always, let me know down in the comments if that's something you would like to see, either that video or some entirely different video. I'm always curious to know what you guys are interested in watching. "What are you guys doing back here? Did you get tired of all the other stuff you had? You want to be back in your house cuz it's rainy? You didn't like the greenhouse as a place for it's raining?" Or if I had to guess, I think they saw me feeding the chickens, and so they came out here to see all the bird feed, maybe try to grab their own fair share. This is the point where the goats get into some mischief, and I got to be a little bit careful. So, one thing I think I want to try to do is retighten my fence so that it's really hard for them to get out. One of the things I'm finding with these goats is if they're happy with a location, they don't tend to sneak out, but if they're bored or curious about something else, that's when they get themselves into trouble. So, that's what we're going to try to prevent here. Alright, that looks nice and secure. Let's make sure this part is nice and secure. And I see you, buddy! I have a hunt you're going to be up to some mischief up in a couple minutes. Sure, it's not grounding out against anything. And at least until the birds finish their food, I'm not even going to let them go into that new area that I set up for them because this right here is meant to be a lesson in training. We got to get these chickens out of here. Actually, you guys, hey, hey, hey! Bard rock girl, at least you, I know they can probably still slip through. You, I know are too big to slip through. "Come on, chop chop! Thank you, buddy!" Tighten this part up, and now let's electrify this part. There we go, charger is going, and now let's turn on our water for our cattle. This one on, this one on. Nabby dog, why don't you come with me? Behave, you guys! Yeah, this is my favorite weather, my favorite is weather! Alright, let's go Abs, inside.
So, we have a little problem that happened here the other day that I got to deal with. I'll show you in a second. Coming soon in 2025, the Goldshaw Farm calendar of my dogs pooping in beautiful places. So yeah, this happened the other day, and it's not good. We had some crazy, crazy winds, I think they were actually like hurricane remnants. You know, the other day, this basically blew over two different occasions. One time I got it up, and then the second time after it happened, I felt like it was actually better to just leave it like this. But today I want to get it up and maybe move it back down to the lower pasture. But yeah, that kind of stunk, and the worst part is it's going to need some major repairs. And so, it looks like for the season of 2025, we will be back on with Happy Cow mobile 4.0, I guess this will the next iteration will be 4.0, so stay tuned for that, my friends. Now, last time I was just barely able to lift it; this time I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. Part of the side is broken now, and so it might not have the stability I need. Let's see. Nope, yeah, it's just going to break and buckle. Maybe if it was two people, it could probably do it, but one person, no. I think I'm going to have to go for a plan B. Now, I guess I could drive the tractor up here and use the tractor to lift it up, but I actually think I have all the things I need to do this right now. Hopefully, this holds. Okay, you guys, here goes nothing. Oh no, did I not record that? Oh God, that's terrible! It was such a good ah! Oh no! It was a success on the farm but a failure on YouTube because yeah, I actually right-sided it up, but I forgot to hit record on the camera. I mean, I feel so accomplished in applying just some basic physics to like get this thing right side up and to have, you know, camera Bell functions while I'm doing it. I feel so mad at myself. "Hello, Bonnie McMurray! How are you doing? How's my moo crew looking this morning?" Everybody's looking all soggy. So, I'm pretty sure Amelia, who's that white cow right there, she's been going into heat, and so I've seen Macho Man pretty close to her lately. "Hey, buddy! Came over here for some scratches? Yeah, want me to get you a brush? I know you love getting brushed. You're such a good bull!" You know, it's funny, as he's grown older, you can really see how pronounced and more forward his horns are relative to all the other animals. Like if you look at Bonnie right, they're pretty close to the same age. I think she's about a month or two older than he is, and his go down and forward, hers go up. And as you look at Ariel, who's one of my older cows, you can see how wide and up hers go. Then you look at the shape of Joey Ramone, and his go like out because he's a steer. And so, depending on the sex of the animal, it will dictate where their horns go. Alright, I'll give it you a little more brushing, huh? How about right around the brisket? You like that, don't you? Yeah, buddy! "Hey, Kel! Come on, Kel! Fresh grass, fresh grass! Come on!" I love that that works. You know, my neighbors probably think I'm a crazy person cuz they hear it like it sounds like a hot dog vendor shows up in a pasture every morning. Even when they get out, I can just do that call, and they will come to me, which is super, super rewarding. Like look at them, they're all lined up and ready to go. My biggest risk is actually making sure I don't get trampled when I open up the line cuz they're so excited. "Hey, KS! Come on, K! Fresh grass, fresh grass! Come on!" I just love how smooth and just relaxing it all is in the morning when this happens, and then watching them all go and munch. I love seeing that too. When people ask me why do I put up with coming out here for 35° rainy mornings like this, the answer is exactly what you're seeing right here. It's just so peaceful, beautiful, just to see this whole process go down. "What's going on there? Trouble? How are you doing, Rubble? Hey, Betty, you want to come say hi?" She's like, nope, fresh grass. "How you doing, Abby dog? You find anything? Oh, found some more burdock! I know you hate it so much! You hate it so much! You're like, why does my human do this to me? He's so mean whenever he does this thing! But the reality is, you need this. Oh, he got more on your arm! That's all you're showing me. Good girl, good girl, Abby, good girl! Come on!"
Alright, let's go back down and check on the goats, huh? Hopefully, they haven't gotten into any mischief. Alright, Toby, I came back, and it looks like the goats are exactly where they're supposed to be. How are you guys doing? You did a good job! I'm very happy that you respected this boundary, and for once, you're not being little mischievous devils, and I'm a huge fan of the goats. Yeah, that's what we got from the farm. I'll be back real soon with another one. Thanks for watching everybody.