Our Prized Goose is DEAD ~ what happened?

Last night I came out here and I turned off the fence and then all the chickens were out, so I went to look for Pooper.

Pooper, for those of you who don't know, is our guard goose in training, growing up to be a guard goose over the flock.

And then I came out here and then I didn't see, I didn't see him. So I came over here and he's tangled all up in this.

There's some of his feathers.

He's busted the tent. He was a big pain in the butt to untangle.

Was he dead when you found him, or was he still alive?

He was dead.

Her. Her.

So her. Jonah came running in the house last night with Pooper in his hands saying that she was dead, and it was very disturbing. I don't think I'd been that disturbed since King Daddy the rooster died, and it's my main rooster. It's our prized breeding rooster. Um, we're back on the farm. We've had some deaths, but nothing like an animal that you want to keep for 40 years dying so young. Initially, we were panicked and just disappointed. And what went wrong? What do you think went wrong?

I think the broody hens, they go crazy over him. Uh-huh. Chased him into the vents. He couldn't get out. Because I had to untangle him from here. I was like this on the other side of the fence, basically. His leg was like stuck in one of these. His leg was like one of the stickers, one of the smallest cracks, so it took a while to untangle him on that one. These things were behind his wings, and he was just really messed up tangled in it.

I came out here and investigated The fence was sagging a little bit. That could have been because of her fight after she got tangled. You know, it could be that the fence was too saggy and that she wouldn't have got caught if it was tighter. So it's one of those situations where you wonder, you know, is there anything you could have done to prevent it? You feel bad whether it was your fault or not, uh, whether there could have been a prevention or not. Yeah, was it the broody hens after her? We don't know. Nobody saw it for sure. That could be a possibility. What I'm going away from it with— somebody gave me a book back in high school, it's called As a Man Thinketh. One of the things I take away way back from like 20-plus years ago reading that book is the best thing to do when something bad happens or you make a mistake is just learn from that mistake. So in this case, let's get our fence tight— tighter. Of course we're going to fix that. We're going to fix that as soon as possible. Let's do something about the broody hens. You know, we were going to put the pigs in here. Let's slow that down. Let's get the broody hens under control. Those are the things I can learn. Just recently, just a couple of days ago, I was reading a book by Andrew Carnegie. He said the only thing you can control is your thoughts. So do we keep dwelling on blaming ourselves, finding fault. No, we do that, we make changes, and we move forward, and then we begin to think positive because that's the only thing we can control. We can't control that the goose got in there. We can't really control these broody hens. We just can't control any of it. As soon as I realize that and take control of my thoughts and direct them towards productivity moving forward, it'll be better. What are you doing, buddy?

I pulled up a potato plant. Oh, the only thing that came out.

Oh yeah, there was a, there was a volunteer plate there. Let me see what you got there. That's from a volunteer potato. We'll take it. There's another one there. Let's wait till it grows up a bit. Okay, here's another one, Jenna. And what is that? Oh, that's a horse. I was thinking that was a, uh, potato coming out of the ground. Hey ladies, we don't know if you provoked him or not, and you can't help it, you're just broody. But we don't have any roosters. We don't have any roosters. We don't need any broody hens. We need to nip that in the bud. First things first, fix that electric fence. Look how it got shredded right here. I think Some of these are shredded. Wait, wait, no, no, no, hey, we need some to tie to. Cut it right here. Good, that was a good cut. There it is, supper time, and it's Father's Day. You got me something? You got me something, Lily? Yeah, you got me something? Guess. Niece Faith, Aunt Rachel, you got me something, Gideon? Give me your gift, buddy. Wow, thank you!

He did that all by himself.

What is it?

It's a big keyhole garden bed.

It's a big keyhole garden bed. I love it. Thank you.

Oh, open it.

Fancy wrap job. Oh boy.

Oh, it fell apart.

This is a note. Happy Father's Day. I hope you have a good week. Oh, such a good drawing, dude. Thank you for the blessing in my week. Very lovely painting, Lily. What is it?

It's the other side.

You flip it upside down.

Oh, you flip it like—

It's upside down. Okay.

No, no, like this.

Like that. Okay, I see it now. It's a tree with the clouds and the sun. Is that right? Very good. How did you know I like trees? Looky here. Okay, what is this, Josiah?

It's, uh, it's our farm.

Okay, that's our house.

Here's the pond, here's our house, and that's just a stump, and there's our road.

Okay, we got a stump? Okay.

Another amazing painting by our artist children.

Okay, one more. Is this a Painting? I bet he built something. Yeah. That's his love. Oh my.

A P, but it goes like this. A P? P!

You know about that? P for what?

Papa!

P for Papa!

For Happy Papa's Day.

And you can hang it right there, Papa.

We can hang it right there. Okay. Thanks.

This is looking nice.

I'm missing one.

Okay, here she is. That's right. Hey kids, we have this. This is a huge dog crate that we got for when we were gonna get an Anatolian Shepherd, a bigger dog. We've never sent it back. I think— You gonna wear those mismatched shoes? Okay, here.

Come here.

You gonna come with us, Laurel? Laurel, you gonna come with us? Yeah. Okay, Laurel's the star of the show yesterday. Stole it. Stole the show yesterday. You can go see that video right there. Are you two strong guys gonna get it?

No.

Okay, I bet you can with the help of Faith. Come on now. Uh, Josiah or Lily, you gonna grab the camera? You know, Uncle Pete, it's kind of a little messy in here. Uncle Pete He taught me something valuable. He's got one of the cleanest places in America. I said, what do you do when it gets— I mean, how do you keep it clean? He says, well, I noticed some things I'm getting behind in some place, and I just designated time and do it. So that's what we're doing right now. We got to keep on, you kids.

Let's get this place clean.

We got it blowed out. Hey. I will, just one second. We got it cleaned up, blowed out. Let's build this thing.

No question.

We got 1 hour and 10 minutes to put up this cage for our broody hens and set up their feed and water. Okay, what's this for? Scissors. Let him do it, he's wanting to do it bad.

He's about to go collect the water scissors.

Okay, good, thanks. Step 1: Separate everything into their kind. We got our pieces. I know I don't want them pooping and peeing on this, on this floor, but you want to give the chickens minimal. You don't want to give them any nesting material or any deep litter or anything like that. Let's get— let's cut a piece of cardboard this size. Flip it over, Josiah. Let's see if it works. Almost. Got to cut a little bit of the edges off. Okay, Mom's here, so we're in good hands now. Let's put this thing together. There we go. Lovely assistance. All we got to do is put the feed and water in there and go get our broody chickens. Bare bottom, that's the trick. Everybody gonna grab one? No. You're gonna grab one in that pretty dress?

I ain't gonna touch one.

Rebecca, you want me to show you how to hold one without getting pecked? Oh no. Couple mean broody hens right there. You want to hold one, you actually hold it backwards like that. It can't peck you like that. You hold it backwards.

Is it really gonna peck me though?

Here, put your— put, put your fingers.

I'm scared.

Look, look, look, she's amazing. See how my fingers are, guys? See that?

Yes.

You hold her backwards, that way her breast is on your arm and she doesn't think she's gonna fall.

Am I gonna get rid of her? Like, how am I gonna put her in the cage?

Just like this. You can do—

you're not gonna peck me?

You can do two hands. I could get her away from you if you want. Okay, you got it. No, they're nice. They're nice. Just come on, she's not gonna get you. Put your hands— there you go. Good, good, good. Now put her there.

There you go, like that.

Okay, you want to try it?

Okay, I can't help you with that one, Papa.

This one's a little—

I don't want to get back. That one seems mean.

He's a little more aggressive.

Sure. Okay, I'll give this a go. Is it hard? We should pack.

No, no, no, this is how we're gonna end up, like this. Okay, we're gonna end up like that.

Yeah, but what about my arm? Is it gonna get packed? It won't pack it. Okay.

Okay, I think we got one more here somewhere. Where you at? Where you at, brood? Where you at in this thing? Okay, uh, maybe, maybe we only have two now. I can't find the other one, so we'll wait until she goes broody again. Hey, where's the third broody?

I think I broke it already.

How'd you do that?

Just throw it out of the thing every day.

Okay, well, that's good. The way we break a broody— she wants to nest and sit on eggs, so we take her away from eggs because those chickens are laying eggs every day and she's got fresh eggs to sit on. And then we take away the nest So we put her in this, these contraptions right here. We put her in this. Where's the other one? For 3 days. Jonah said he broke her. There wasn't another one.

They're not really happy.

No, they are not happy, and they've already gone number 2.

Oh yeah, so they're not— they're letting us know that they're mad. They want their nests back.

On a scale of 10, Rebecca, how happy are these ladies? 10, like, yeah, we're going to Disney World. One being like, boo, I'm stuck in a cage.

Okay, say negative 10.

Negative 10.

Yeah, they're not happy.

All right, it's a shame. I mean, we wish we had some fertilized eggs. We actually looked. Wouldn't it have been cool if we could actually set them on a goose egg? But we didn't have fertilized goose egg. You can't buy them. You can't even buy a goose right now. We looked.

There was— there is a possibility maybe in July a hatchery will have a goose, a possibility.

In July.

July 16th, I think they said. But we have to buy ducks with it, so—

okay, let's find somebody who wants some ducks.