My incubator

My quail chick.

For my birthday I received a circulated air incubator and an egg turner that fits in the incubator. A little later in the day we set the incubator up and we put thirteen duck eggs, three Buff Orpington eggs, two Old English bantam eggs and fourteen Coturnix quail eggs in the incubator. All of the eggs we got from our farm. Yesterday my first quail chick hatched! He is doing well. Right now as I type, another chick is trying to hatch from its egg. It is a slow process as he chips away at the shell.
 These chick's parents are the ones that won Reserve Champion at the fair.I hope to be able to show their chicks at the next fair. All of my quail eggs will have hatched  by the fourteenth of this month.
It's really neat to see the quail hatch and it's a great
reminder of how amazing God is.

Quail's eggs

Duck's eggs

State Fair of Texas

Even though the State Fair of Texas doesn't start until September 28, I have to already have my show animals that I want to show there so I can work with them and train them. My Dad and I purchased a steer from Dr. Richardson who is a local vet in town and cattle rancher who opens up his clinic for the Vet Shadowing Program. My steer is a Maine-Anjou and a Black Angus crossbred steer. He weighed about four hundred and fifty pounds when I brought him home now he weighs over five hundred pounds.


I feed him ten pounds of show steer feed a day (five pounds in the morning and five pounds in the evenings) from Mill's Feed in Malakoff, Texas. I also give him free choice of minerals and cool, fresh water. Equipment needed to show and raise a steer include the following, a polypropylene work rope, combs and brushes, leather show halter, show stick, feed pan, water bucket, hose, neck rope, show box, hair coat dressing and saddle soap. You will also need a shelter for him to stay in.

I’ve told you how to care for your steer so now I will tell you how to show your steer. Steers are meat animals so they are being judged by their meat quality. First after you lead him around the ring you set your steer up by putting the front feet about two inches apart from each other so they line up with his shoulder blades. Once your steer is placed, make sure your calf is square and have the leg closest to the judge back just a little bit. Then the judge picks out the worst ones after that he keeps eliminating until he finds the top one out of that class. At the end of the show the winners from each class compete until they reach Grand Champion and Reserve Champion.

My 4-H show steer, Champ.

He's a very messy eater and knocks his bucket down sometimes.

Your steer needs plenty of fresh water.

If you are interested in being in the beef project or showing a steer here is a helpful site: http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/extension/beef/beefu9.pdf

Daniel Boone

A few days ago I was learning about Daniel Boone in my school; so my awesome mom found a really fascinating lap-book here. The lap-book was very neat and I learned lots of information about Daniel Boone such as the following:

• Daniel Boone did not wear a coonskin cap like the legend says instead he wore a felt hat. 
• He was the sixth child out of eleven. 
•  He helped an old Indian who was left to die by finding food for him.
• His indian name was Sheltowee, which means "big turtle."
• Daniel Boone was adopted into a tribe as a son of Chief Blackfish. 
• Daniel Boone and his wife had ten children. 
• He died at the age of eighty-five, seven years after his wife died.
• His parents were Quakers until their children married non- Quakers and were treated unkindly by the other Quakers.

A helpful site I used to learn about Daniel Boone is here.

A video of the movie Daniel Boone is here .          

Walter Farley

Mr. Walter Farley 

I haven't done many posts about books so I've decided to do a book post today. But it was really hard to pick a book so I'm going to do a series of posts on favorite authors instead. My favorite authors are Walter Farley, Jean Craighead George, Will James, Ralph Moody, and Robert Lawson. Since I like them all for different reason I am going to put a biography and my favorite books written by each author.

First is Walter Farley, He was born on June 26, 1915 in Syracuse, New York to Walter and Isabelle Farley. The Farley family lived in Manhattan, New York along with there newest son,William who was 2 years younger than Walter. His father worked as a assistant manager in a fancy hotel called the Roosevelt Hotel which is described as one of the classiest hotels in New York. Walter's love for horses started ever since he was a little kid. He once said that "My greatest love was, and still is, horses. I wanted a pony as much as any boy or girl could possibly want anything—but I never owned one. I tried selling subscriptions to win a pony, which was offered as a prize to the kid who sold the most subscriptions. Then my uncle with a flock of show horses and jumpers moved from the West Coast to Syracuse, and I was deliriously happy. I was at the stables every chance I could get.” *     

Walter started writing The Black Stallion when he was in High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. When the book was completed and published in 1941, he was an undergraduate at Columbia University. When he had finished school he went to work as a advertising copywriter in New York. Later he joined the United States Army and served in a tank with the Fourth Armored Division. During the war he met Rosemary Lutz whom he married. When he was discharged he and Rosemary decided to trasvel abroad. After that, the young Farley family purchased a horse farm in Earlville Pennsylvania. Once they had bought the farm they had four children Steve, Tim, Pamela, and Alice.Walter started writing other children books and the sequels to the Black Stallion. The Farley family also had a place in Florida where they would stay during part of the year. Walter Farley died of cancer in October 1989, after a television show came out called the Adventures of the Black Stallion.  He wrote 21 sequels to the The Black Stallion plus several other books. His son Steve helped the series.

I would give The Black Stallion ten stars out of ten because I really enjoyed it and had a great time reading it.

* Quote taken from here .

To learn more here are a  few sites I used.

http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Farley__Walter.html 

http://www.newreleasetuesday.com/authordetail.php?aut_id=192

http://www.theweeweb.co.uk/public/author_profile.php?id=710

Rabbits and Ducks

The ducklings are hiding between the duck and the wood pile.

  Baby bunnies and ducks at last! Our mother bunny had third litter and her first living litter of surviving babies. The mother rabbit is named Sherry after my Mom. We got Sherry the rabbit at the Livestock show last year she was somebody's show rabbit that didn't make the sale. The father rabbit named Buck after one of our best friends was given to us at the Livestock Show last year also. Sherry had five kits which are baby rabbits. Two of the kits passed away but three of them lived which is our record. We used pillow batting for the nesting box and some got wrapped around one of the babies’ foot and it cut the circulation off so it lost the use of its paw. It is very healthy and not in any pain but we are still going to take it to the vet so it won't get infected. The baby bunnies’ favorite food is greens from our garden.

 We have not been as blessed with the ducks as the rabbits. Two of our ducks had laid twenty eggs in a nest and were trying to hatch them but a snake got a few and some were rotten so only five eggs hatched. Three of the ducklings disappeared and we don't know what happened. The next night we put the two ducklings in the building. They survived a couple of days and learned how to swim but then 

they went missing. I think a turtle might have ate them but I'm not sure.

 

Pictures above are taken by Laura Ashley ,my sister; Pictures below are taken by Dad. 

 

Baby ducks are wet when they hatch.

Ducks

One morning we saw two wild Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks that flew in to eat and visit with our other ducks. I'm ashamed to say that our fat ducks chased the other ducks away  from their food. Since these ducks are so neat looking I decided to look them up.Click here to see better pictures and click here to learn more. I learned that

• These ducks are so different than other ducks, one bird watcher called them the most un-duck-like.  

• Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks eat lots of plant material, but also eats water bugs too. 

• Most of these ducks look alike.

• Whistling-Ducks pairs stay together for life. 

• Females share nest and lay an average of 13 eggs.   

Sorry this picture didn't turn out well.

Chick and Garden Update

I'm writing this post since I promised to keep my blog updated with the chicks and garden growth. My Quail have grown up and have started laying eggs. They have laid almost forty eggs in nine days. I'm hoping to get a incubator and try to hatch some of their eggs.  The broilers are fat and lazy, they have grown a lot. Dad has been butchering some of them and we've been eating them. The Buff Orpington chicks have gotten bigger and have became free range. Our garden is over grown with weeds and has lots of grasshoppers. We've been getting LOTS of squash, a few zucchinis, one cucumber, lots of okra, and about twenty tomatoes. I love having a garden, the produce you get from a garden has lots more flavor than the kind at the store. I would really recommend 
having a garden. 

Broilers 

Cucumbers