Kittens

Paws's litter

After our kitten bonanza last year I thought that we spayed all of our female cats. We weren't able to catch two of the mother cats at the time we spayed the others mothers;so now we have twelve kittens. Spot one of the original cats who is now tame had five kittens. One is a tabby and the others are orange. The mother had her kittens in the hay so that she could have easy access to food. The next cat who gave birth is Paws. She had three kittens, one gray, one black and white and later one that was a tabby. she conveniently had them on Mom's patio set. Mom is letting them stay there until their eyes open. Lastly, Grey baby who is Spot's untamed child from last year had three kittens in the horse trailer. She delivered three tabbies one which has a calico face. In an ideal situation we will keep two kittens and give away the rest. We plan on reducing our cat population down to eight by rehoming a few full grown cats. 

My advice to you is to spay or neuter your cats. If you want kittens adopt them from the shelter or a neighbor.

Andrew with his favorite cat.

Spot's litter

Life on the Farm

My flock of chickens.

 I'm so sorry that I have not blogged recently, and I hope to catch all you viewers up on what I've been doing. One of the activities that keeps me occupied the most would be taking care of all my animals.
Recently, raccoons have been raiding my cages to eat quail. My Dad and I set a trap for the raccoon and we caught him two nights later. After this incident I thought my problems were over. Three days ago six of my quail were dead.  For my poultry to be safe, I brought my quail, bantam and chicks inside our building. Again my Dad helped me set a trap. The next night, we caught the raccoon in the trap only after catching a cat. This morning when I went to feed the rabbits, their cage door was open. Upon further investigation I saw fur and blood on the ground. I also saw that one of the rabbits foot was hurt. Dad was trying to go to sleep, ( he was working night shift ) so I woke him up and told him about the problem. Two of the rabbits had to put them down so Dad handled them. I took the one that was the best and brought in to the building. Once again my Dad helped me set a trap for the culprit.

In other news our garden is doing good.The radish seeds have come up and we have our first green tomato. In our orchard we have small green peaches on the trees. Three of our cats had litters which you will see in the next post.

Quail

Onion Rings

 While going through my mother's recipe cards I found lots of interesting recipes. The cards had all types of recipes from Spoon Rolls to French Fried Shrimp to Irish Spaghetti and everything in between. One of those in between recipes was for Fried Onion Rings, I thought that recipe would go good with our dinner of chicken sliders (We ate a big lunch). My awesome Mom taught me how to make them. If you would like to make the recipe it is listed down below....

Ingredients 

• 4 large onions, sliced into 1/3-inch rings
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg, beaten

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups vegetable oil.
  
  
  Directions

1. Soak onion rings in a bowl of ice water for 30 minutes to 1 hour; drain and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Whisk flour, buttermilk, egg, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl until smooth.
3. Heat oil in a deep-fryer or large saucepan to 375 degrees F.
4. Dip onion rings in batter, working in batches; fry battered onion rings in the hot oil until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel-lined plate.

Rabbits

Ms. Fluffy Bunny is the oldest of the females.

Recently we bought four black Mini Rex rabbits to show in the upcoming HCLS show. We paid more for these rabbits because they came from a well known breeder. The rabbits we got are two males and two females. The male rabbit's pictures should soon be on my little brother's blog here.

My youngest bunny eating feed.

If your wanting raise to rabbits you will need a good cage to keep them in, food, water, feeder, waterer, a platform for them to get off the metal cage, and gloves to handle the rabbits with. If you get black rabbits, you will want to keep them away from the sun. If not, their fur won't stay dark black. Unlike the stereotype, lettuce and large amounts of carrots are not good for rabbits.

Rabbits top front teeth should be hanging over the bottom two teeth. Rabbits teeth are constantly growing so it's good to put a block of untreated wood or a pine cone in their pen for them to chew. Another important thing is to put a small piece of untreated wood or drywall in the rabbit pen so that the rabbits don't have sore feet.

If you have any questions about raising rabbits, please leave a comment on this post and I will try my best to answer it.
  

Rabbit scratches from not wearing gloves.

Chocolate Contest

Recently my wonderful mother found a chocolate contest in Tyler, Texas which Andrew, Mom and I entered. Andrew made peanut butter chip cookies and Mom made chocolate cherry cookies for their divisions.  For my group I made a chocolate cake and chocolate truffles. While the desserts were being judged, a cooking demonstration was held. The demo taught how to make different types of truffles and how to cook with white chocolate. After the demonstration the judges announced the winners. Sadly Mom and Andrew didn't place, but I placed 2nd with my truffles.

Did you know that.........

Truffles originated in France?
Truffles got their name because they look like the truffle mushroom?
Truffles were first made on an accident?

 

 

 

Babirusa

The answer to the What is this animal 2 blogpost is a Babirusa. This animal is very rare, they live only in Indonesia and the Philippine Islands. Here the Babirusa like to stay near mud pits and bodies of water in the rainforest.They are omnivores meaning that they eat plants and meat. A typical  Babirusa diet consists of insects, fruit, roots, and other vegetation. The male Babirusa has tusks and can weigh up to two hundred and twenty pounds. Female Babirusa either have small tusks or none at all. The tusks are actually not tusks but teeth that have grown through their skull. A very interesting video that explains this process is listed below: http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/28358-fooled-by-nature-babirusa-pig-teeth-video.htm A very strange thing about the Babirusa's teeth is that they will eventualy grow through the skull. This doesn't happen to all male Babirusa, because their teeth break easily during fighting. 

I hope you enjoyed reading my post, and have learned more about God's amazing creatures. Genesis 1:25 says that And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Cattle

For Christmas, I received a 4-D cow anatomy kit which I put together yesterday. I was really pleased with the finished product, but one of the pieces broke off and the instructions were very hard to read. What I did like about the model was that it explained the function of each piece and was highly detailed. The booklet had a few pages of information and then a mini test to take to see what you learned. 

For a quick farm update six of our cows calved. Four of the calves are bulls that will soon become steers (steers are male cattle that can't be fathers) and three are heifers. One of our oldest cows had twins this year, this is good because it made up for a calf that had died in later years. All of the calves are doing great and are eating solid food.

Did you know?

• 99% of all dairy farms in the United States are family owned and operated.
•    Cattle have the same amount of teeth a human has which is 32.
•    The average lifespan of a cow is 20 years.
•    Cows can detect smells from 5 miles away.
•    There are more than 800 breeds of cattle worldwide.