Fooled by a Kiss

Just look at that face! Only a face a mother could love, right? Wrong! Today during second feeding, Teddy comes up to me as he often does for just a kiss, looks at me with those sweet loving eyes, bends his head down in a loving way and places his lips upon mine and then, whamo!!!! Spit in the face! That's right! A big old loogie right in my face! Thank goodness he had not started eating or it could have been worse! Well that will teach me to trust his nonsense again! I must not look in those eyes!

 

Oh the stress of the molt

With the loss of daylight, it's time for the chickens to molt. They need to loose those summer feathers and bring in those cold weather feathers and reserve some nutrients to grow new feathers in. They slow down on egg production which is not good for this farmer and her customers.  As they loose their feathers they begin to look very sad like this girl above! 

This poor girl only has this last spike of a tail feather left.

This poor girl! I'm ready to knit her a sweater! She almost looks naked! Her neck is half bald, but she is already showing some regrowth.

The good thing about this time of year is the beautiful feathers you will find. This was a wing feather but the unique thing about it is it has a double shaft and two feathers coming out. Contact us if you're looking for feathers, we have plenty!

 Looking at this girl, it's like she's channeling her inner Turkey Vulture! AS she was standing there, she was literally plucking her feathers off of her body.

So to our egg customers, this is the real reason why our supply of eggs is low right now! It should get better in the next couple of weeks!

Welcome Mr. Copper

Welcome Mr. Copper! He is a Black Copper Maran rooster that we have added to our flock. Sadly the one we raised from a chick met an accidental death. I was on the look out for another one and happened on one that was literally a mile away! When we added him to our flock, within a few minutes he challenged old Henry and learned very fast that was a big mistake. He has realized the pecking order, settled in well and is a very sweet boy.

He has been with us now a couple of weeks and has integrated into the flock quite well. Next Spring I hope to hatch some chicks with the 3 hens we raised this year. The exciting thing about this breed is the amazing color of their eggs, a deep red/brown egg. I'm thinking this may be my new favorite breed of chicken!
 

Well here we go...

Well here we go, after the initial shock that the New England Fiber Festival has been cancelled, it's time to dust ourselves off and reinvent the wheel. The farm can't run itself so I decided we need to re-open the Etsy shop and list all the work I have done preparing for the big show. We have lots of yarns that I have begun listing. I will begin to list each day as I go here.

This is such a hard time for everyone, so hang in there, this too shall pass!

The link to our Etsy shop is:

https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/CoonHollowFarm/tools/listings?ref=seller-platform-mcnav 

You can also click the link on the side bar that will take you to our shop!

Welcome Another Generation

 We welcomed 7 new English Angora bunnies on September 1st! Our CoCo and Frankie are the parents to this beautiful bundle. They are jumping and popping out of the nest already. I usually don"t post new babies so early but these guys are so strong and mom is doing an amazing job! Visit our Coon Hollow Farm Facebook page to see a video of them! (I can't figure out how to get it on here!)

Sad but moving on!

" After careful consideration, we regretfully announce The Fiber Festival of New England has been cancelled for 2020. Current COVID-19 restrictions do not allow for an event of the size, scope and passion that our Fiber Festival brings to the Mallary Complex every year."

 This was the message we got yesterday, completely devastating an already hard year for us as well as a lot of other small farms and businesses that depend on this Festival. From here we are moving on and are looking at other ways to sell our products. Please bear with us as we may participate in a virtual version which the Fiber Festival may offer as well as doing some on line here. We have worked hard all year getting our products ready and have a lot of handspun yarns in stock. All I keep saying to myself is this too shall pass. Stay strong everyone and stay tuned!