Signs of summer on the farm

July eNewsletter

Author: Arloa Chadwick

Happy 4th of July! ❤️🤍💙

Welcome back to our monthly eNewsletter. Here we share our sanctuary news goals and more on the first Friday of the month.

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Recap

• For the month of June, we talked about farm animal dads for Father’s Day. Of course, to start off the month we told you about the latest happenings in the newsletter. After that we introduced you to Richard- the sire of our two adorable doelings, Pavlova and Turtle. He might not be the most active dad but he’s a father none the less. The next week we told you all about Gandalf and his adopted pups Cado and Rolly. To wrap it up you got to learn all about Guinea fowl as well as a fam favorite Guineacock by the name of Uncle Joe. He adopted some little keets after they had lost so much. June was super fun and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store for July.

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Title stories

• From Guineahens deciding to go broody, to toads making an appearance, annoying but cute little bugs and sheep getting a summer wool cut, summer is always an active time on farms. Let’s talk about some happenings that have been reminding us summer is kicking off:

Hens going broody

A telltale sign of early summer is when the guineahens start going broody. Every year we have several try, like this year we had a guineahen try to hatch out a clutch but unfortunately did not succeed. We were really hopeful to have new additions to our flock, but sadly it didn’t work out. The pair that tried to rear chicks were Uncle Joe’s Kid and his mate. There’s still hope they might try to rear keets again in the future.

The arrival of toads

The toads are always a big part of summertime on the farm. Every year we get tons- and they are everywhere. In the grass, in the driveway, under rocks- Wait, did I just see one going for a swim in the dog water? Sometimes we even find them in the house! They decide they should go everywhere. They look very offended if you don’t agree. They are always in pursuit of summer bugs and they almost always show up after one particular bug shows up…

Junebugs

Junebugs are always a sign things are warming up. These comical creatures (sometimes called June Beetles) are, well, not the brightest bugs in the world. A typical day for a Junebug (or night since that’s when they’re most active) is comprised of running into a wall and falling on their back. After a very long time they then get back up and fly directly into the wall again. They are rather clumsy and often fall into things, ram objects, all while buzzing very loudly. We think they probably do it on accident… but it does sometimes seem like they are trying to break into the house. But they probably aren’t....probably. A lot of the animals are put off by the creatures- especially Gandalf. They definitely creep him out and if one dares to try and land on him, he tries to bite them! When Sandy was a puppy, she would eat them like popcorn all the time. Cado will chomp them on occasion but apparently, they aren’t her favorite snack.

However, we’ve been seeing a sad decline in these bumbly little beetles. They are very susceptible to small changes in the environment such as a year being wetter or dryer than it needs to be for them. It’s also speculated that the use of pesticides is hurting them, just like with many, many other bugs.

Sheep shearing

The annual sheep shearing is usually the biggest indicator of summer. Ah, sheep shearing. I’m sure for many those words paint the picture of a farmer in overalls with little clippers in the middle of a field with a fluffy, clean sheep standing peacefully while the farmer clips away. Oh, we wish it was that simple. It’s not.

Instead, it goes something like this: We round up our dirty sheep whose wool has felted slightly since last year. We convince them to go into the barn with hay, and close the door behind them. Then our shearer comes and sets up his electric shearer and shearing board so the wool doesn’t touch the mucky barn floor. Do the sheep come walking up for their haircut peacefully and stand still the whole time? We wish. Actually, the shearer then picks out a sheep from the flock and grabs the wool on their neck and their rump all while the sheep is leaping in the air and running in a circle! Peaceful farm scene? No. Rodeo? Yes. He then grabs their head and gently twists it toward their body- making them lay down. He then flips them on their back to shear their belly. You’d think at that point that the sheep would give up, right? No, often we have to hold their feet because they still try to kick when they’re upside down! One of our ewes, Spirit, managed to escape not once but twice in the middle of her shearing. She just ran around the barn half sheared! Unfourtunately we couldn’t get a picture, but let’s just say it looked like she had a Santa beard! Thankfully they were able to catch her and finish the job. The funny thing is, she used to be the most naive and all years before this year, she was caught first and finished first. Guess she finally learned!!

And even with a professional shearer, nicks can happen. Often, they are not a problem and barely bleed, but sometimes they do. Usually nicks aren’t too serious and one of us has a spray bottle of disinfectant to put on there after they are done.

No one talks about the heat, stuffing several pounds of wool into big contractor bags, all while being bit by horse flies. But it’s not all bad. I often look forward to the annual sheep shearing, myself. Over the years we’ve gotten to be good friends with our shearers. If what I mentioned earlier sounded rather mean, grabbing their wool and flipping them, I assure you it’s for their health and wellbeing. And the shearer isn’t really mean, in fact after he’s done he’ll often talk to them and give them scritches on the rump and behind the ears!

Sheep shearing sure isn’t the peaceful scene it’s often made out to be in books, is it though?

Top left: Chompy Mom doesn’t seem to like her new wool cut. Top right: We got lots of bags of wool this year- 15 to be exact! Bottom left: A toad poses for the camera. Bottom right: The mate of Uncle Joe’s Kid isn’t very happy about getting photographed on her nest.

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• Garden news

  • Now that summer is in full swing, so is the garden! We’ve had about 139 corn plants come up and we have several brussels sprouts and cabbages that are doing great. Our tomato plants are doing awesome and already have a bunch of baby tomatoes on them. In our gourd patch we have watermelon, Hopi Pale Grey, and Oka melon (Like cantaloupe). We’re very excited for our harvest this year- in fact, it’s already started! We had our first ever harvest of the year- mint, sorrel, lettuce, and grape leaves! We were able to harvest and process quite a lot.

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  Quiz

  • And the answer to the last quiz was… True! It’s a rare and weird phenomenon, but roosters will occasionally sit on eggs. Why? No one really knows. Are they helping the hens try to hatch them out? Do they see the hens in the nest box and just want to try it out to see what all the fuss is about? Are they just… Confused? We may never know.

  • Here’s our July quiz! This one is about bees, our lovely pollinator friends. The answer will be revealed in the next monthly eNewsletter.