Bunnies

On March 17th we went down to the Jackson Livestock Exchange Exotic Animal and Poultry Auction. We came home with 3 Mini Lop rabbits. The 2 dark ones are does (Floppsie & Moppsie), and the white one is the buck (Peter). In the up coming months we will probably be having baby mini lops for sale. The girls were very excited with their new bunnies and keep asking to give them  carrots. I think they have watched to much Bugs Bunny.

Chicks Coming Out Our Ears!

On Saturday we received our 130 laying chicks in the mail. The mail lady called, and we ran down to pick up 2 big peeping boxes of chicks. We brought them home and dunked each chicks beak in the water. You must dip their beaks in the water so they learn how to drink and know where the water is. The brooder area has 2 heat lamps hooked up to a thermostat so that when it gets to hot in there it turns them off. Currently it stays around 90 degrees, nice and toasty. The girls were very excited with the new chicks, especially Shohannah as these were her first chicks. In about 17 weeks they will start laying eggs, they'll start out smaller sized and slowly grow to be to big for the cartons. When they first start laying we usually get quite a few double yolked. You can always tell when they have a double yolk, because they are the size of a regular egg or slightly bigger when the other are pullet sized.

Today we went to Runnings, the area farm store, and pickd up 50 broiler chicks. They will be ready for butcher in a few months. I tend to like my chickens bigger, 8-10 lbs.  One year we got behind on getting them into the butcher and they weighed around 15 lbs. They looked like turkeys. I usually end up butchering a few of them myself before I take them to the butcher. I like the butchering part, just not the nasty wet feathers smell.

Chick Prep



Today we are prepping the chick brooder area for the baby chicks that will be arriving later today. Every spring we order around 125 chicks from McMurray's Hatchery down in Iowa. They hatch them on a Fri and ship them USPS on Sat mornings. They will arrive down in Windom later this afternoon, then the post office calls an says they are there, and we go get them. The chicks are Pearl White Leghorn pullets and are wonderful layers.



Pearl White Leghorn

Stubborn Kombucha

Courtesy  of Wikipedia

For the past few months I have been brewing kombucha. The girls LOVE it, and it makes for a good substitution for pop. But I have a very stubborn Kombucha scoby, it never makes a baby like it should. Every batch of kombucha you brew is suppose to make a baby "bucha" scoby on the top covering the hole, but mine refuses to. The health benefits of drinking kombucha are amazing, as it have many vitamins and important acids. Culturesforhealth.com is where I purchase all of my fermenting and cheese making things. They have a wonderfully helpful Facebook page, and if for some unknown reason your culture doesn't culture they will even sent you a new one. So if you are intersted in making kefir, kombucha or your own cheeses i encourage you to check out Cultures for Health.

Popsicle, Ginger, & Bottle Babies

Last Friday we drove over by Mankato and looked at 2 bred ewes. One was black and named Popsicle and the other brown named Ginger. Popsicle is an Icelandic and Ginger is a Shetland. They are not very big, probably only 30 in tall. Our dogs are bigger than then. For time being they are living in the round corn crib, they seem to like it in there. Llamie the llama, Goat, and Aber the pig were quite interested in them when they arrived, ears all perked up and looking through an over the fence. They are still a little skittish,  but with time i think they will come around. The guy said that they would probably lamb around mid April and should both have twins.

For the past few weeks I have had an add on Craigslist looking for some bottle lambs and bottle kids(goats). I have gotten a fair amount of calls on it. One guy will have 10-20 bucklings the end of March thru the end of April. Another guy called saying he has 45 Boer does, and if he has triplets he'll give me a call, since its hard for does to care for more than two kids. The goat market is very good at the moment so I am hoping that I can sell them when they are weaned for a fair price. Maybe even make enough to buy another Icelandic ewe or ram :)  I have enough room in the barn for 20-30 babies, but I am hoping to sell all the hay and use the other 2/3 of the shed. Come spring I want Travis to help over haul my out door pens so that they are more efficient. Right now I have 2 pens that are electric fence, but our goat doesnt seem to like to stay in, and I dont know how well Aber will do with just an electric wire. He's kind of a pushy pig, but come spring he'll probably be living in the freezer as long as "2 daughters" dont make a big fuss about it, beings he's thier pig.

Sunshine and Sheep

"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" Psalm 118:24
After yesterday and its pea soup fog, today is looking BEAUTIFUL! The snow is melting and it's a nice 40 degrees outside.

Today has been a day of planning. The girls and I have been preparing our hay shed for lambs the past couple weeks. They have been very excitedly helping make pens, hang lights, and make milk buckets. We have some bottle dairy bucklings lined up to arrive between the end of March and the end of April. The guy has 11 does and is expecting 10-20 buckling kids. For anyone that doesn't know what a buckling is, it's a baby boy goat.

Lamb pens

This weekend we will be going to look at a bred Icelandic ewe and a bred Shetland ewe. My end goal is to have purebred Icelandic sheep, so I thought I would start with these two and see how it goes.



Photo Courtesy of http://www.isbona.com/

The Icelandic sheep is one of the world's oldest and purest breeds of sheep. Throughout its 1100 years of history, the Icelandic breed has been truly triple-purpose, treasured for its meat, fiber and milk.

Come this spring, I am hopeing to fence off some of our south yard between the well house an chicken house for the sheep to graze in.

Giggling Girls

I have come to the conclusion that when you put 2 little girls in their room to take a nap there will be giggling. LOTS of giggling!! I have a monitor in their room, and most days i hear lots of giggling and jumping on the bed. There usually is also a little arguing over which "stuffies"(stuffed animals) get to sleep with them. Suzy has her 2 piggies, and they go everywhere with her- the barn, to town, get the mail... Savannah has her lambs, but they mostly stay put in her bed. Then there are bears, other pigs, puppies an cats that get divvied up. Some days they end up falling asleep and other days its a no go. So far today is sounding like a no go.