Photo shows juvenile mollies in a vat ready to eat. Fish tip, How to Feed Your Fish: This tip was first published in our Newsletter No. 1, August 2013. I’m reposting it as a blog so that it can be searched for on our website and in my blogs. Here it is: Get plastic fish; they require no ... Read More
Farm Fauna
Fire Ants
Guess, in the photo above, what the dark brown mat is on the water in the ditch after a two inch rain. In case you don't know, it's a floating mat of fire ants. The most common ant on the farm is the Imported Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta). This species is not native to North America but is ... Read More
Sunset Variatus
Photo: Male Sunset Variatus I’ve recently begun blogging about the Variatus-type Platies we raise. For a discussion about the meaning of “Variatus-type,” check out an earlier blog I wrote about our Redtail Blue Variatus. This blog concerns our Sunset Variatus strain, which we developed ... Read More
Non-Gold Dragon Blood Peacock
The photo is of two Non-Gold Dragon Blood Peacock Males. A couple of days ago, I released a blog on Dragon Blood Peacock cichlids (see: http://goliadfarms.com/dragon-blood-peacock-cichlid/), which I had written months ago and had failed to post. This blog is an update on the genetics of the ... Read More
Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid
Photo is of a Dragon Blood Peacock Cichlid male, one of our breeders. A while back, we processed two breeding vats of dragon blood peacocks. This is a strain we got from www.livefishdirect.com in November 2012. The photo shows a typical male of this strain. We grew the fish to maturity and set ... Read More
Copperhead Bites Sadie
Photo: Sadie on sofa about a half hour after being bitten by a copperhead. I hadn’t planned on blogging about copperheads any more for at least a year, but Sadie our son’s family’s rescue pit bull was bitten, so here goes copperheads again. In previous blogs I’d explained that copperheads ... Read More
Copperhead Eating a Cicada
The photo shows a copperhead with a cicada nymph in its mouth. This time of the year at the farm cicada nymphs are emerging at dusk from ground to ascend into a shrub, tree, or other object where they eclose into winged adults. This typically happens from June 1st to about July 15th. They and ... Read More
Copperhead Hunting a Cicada
The photo shows a copperhead stretching for cicada that is just out of its reach. During July and August each year copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) flock to our yard to harvest emerging cicadas and June bugs. Both of these insects live underground for a year to several years as grubs. When ... Read More
Maya’s Copperhead Bite Update
The photo shows Maya's copperhead bite a couple days after it occurred. Maya, one of our German Shepherds was recently bitten by a copperhead, Agkistrodon contortrix (see my blog: http://goliadfarms.com/mayas-copperhead-bite/), which are very active at this time of the year. Fortunately, ... Read More
Maya’s Copperhead Bite
The photo shows Maya’s foot, swollen from a copperhead bite a couple of hours earlier. Maya is one of our German Shepherd Dogs (GSD). She’s just less than 22 months old and lives here with her brother, Oso, and mother Tally. Here are some links to earlier blogs about the GSDs: ... Read More