Birds in Love, Llamas and Malamutes

We've been slowly introducing the Malamutes to Sid the Llama.  It's been going pretty well, and I thought I'd take a quick video of Sid walking with Mishka.

I think overall Sid is doing pretty good.  He's very skinny and in the short time we've had him, he's put on a bit of muscle mass, but he's going to need a fair amount of time to gain weight.  Herbavores don't pack on the weight as quick as carnivores do -- or so I've discovered.  It seems to be the lack of high quality protein that meat gives an animal.  Still, both husband and I think he's pretty neat and the dogs are enthralled with him.  That's way cool.

My turkey, who proved to be a hen is very much in love with me.  Sort of uncomfortable, when you realize she's a she and she's going to be Thanksgiving dinner.  Today, she laid a lovely egg for me and I saw the egg pop out, so I know it's not the ducks (I know a turkey egg from a duck egg, anyway). 

I also caught my geese in a poor attempt at goose sex today.  It suddenly became all too apparent that Ee'qua is a gander as he jumped on Louis(e), who is obviously a goose.  Ee'qua has been going ballistic over the roosters in the pen next to them and has been lifting his head in a display.  Ee'qua is an African gander (black bill) and Louise is a Toulouse goose (orange bill).  Their picture to the right.

These two, once old enough, will be able to mate and produce viable offspring.  I've heard that geese go broody, that is, will sit on eggs, so I may just let them do that once she's old enough to lay big enough, viable eggs.  Geese live a remarkably long time for fowl -- I should expect them to live to about 20 to 25 years if nothing bad happens to them.  Geese are pretty expensive birds to buy -- I spent about $20 for goslings that were less than a week old, so hatching out geese is a good investment.  If I don't sell the goslings, I can always put them into freezer camp when they're big enough.  I've heard goose eggs are tasty too.