Our Homestead animals and poultry. The Goats

My daughters started milking goats at age ten, seven and five. They each milk their own goat and have over the years raised Jersey heifers on the milk and kept the family supplied with milk through the warmer months. When Madeleine and Stephanie were small their goats Dona and Spooky were their riding goats and they entertained many passing motorists when they were out in the field.

	We have five does and a buck from our original herd, a Saanen named Robbi, three Saanen/Alpine crosses Dona, Spooky & Ivory, and a Toggenburg/Alpine Iris, and our old Alpine buck Muddy. We now have a new buck, a young Nubian named ? and two Nubian does Nora and Lilly. left - Stephanie usind sweet feed to bribe the new goats into loving her...

---

The Sheep


Once upon a time we had a flock of sheep, but after some problems with them over the years the final straw was not being able to find a shearer. Now sheep aren't the friendliest or smartest of creatures, if an unshorn ewe lambs in winter, she doesn't figure out that it's cold and often drops her lambs right onto frozen ground or snow... I've found too many lambsicles over the years, so two years ago I decided that the sheep could all go... all except for one ewe who we call Bev [after the lady who gave her to us]. Bev was a yearling when she came to live with us, but in the summer she went to a retirement home along with a couple of kids and some hens, this happened for three summers. Bev was a hopeless mother and never had any lambs to take along with her. The people there loved their mini-farm but some busy body called the authorities and they were no longer allowed farm animals in their courtyard.


After three summers of being spoiled Bev became quite unsheeplike, she likes human company and even played tag with our collie Tessa, taking turns in chasing each other. During the coldest nights this winter I saw Bev and Tessa curled up asleep together a couple of times.


Three years ago we managed to keep her lamb alive, we had to tie her to let it feed, because she was so obsessed with licking it the poor thing couldn't get to the udder... the puzzle as to why her lambs never survived was solved. Her last lamb was delivered by my daughter two years ago, she had been laboring for a while when we found her distressed and the lamb was dead... "ship her too" Dick said when we sold off the sheep, but I couldn't do that, she was Bev!


Two weeks ago Dick told me that Bev's udder was filling up. I was so excited, we had her with an Icelandic ram last year and had hoped that she would have lambs, now it was obvious that they had a romantic liaison last fall. As is usual on the Funny Farm we brought her into the heated, attached garage [hey it's better than the basement because it has windows] and locked her in a quickly put together 8 X 5 pen. She was not happy, but it was cold and the coyotes have been howling lately. I didn't want lambsicles and I didn't want a ewe or lambs killed if she decided to go off into the woods to have her lambs.

Tonight she delivered twins, her first non-single birth [you can tell we are really serious farmers keeping a ewe who only has single lambs], and guess what, one can feed while she licks the other one! These are her first lambs who didn't require assistance to feed. We have named her white ewe lamb Patricia, Paddy for short and the ram lamb [he's a pinto] is named Patrick, Breakfast Pattie for short. Paddy already seems to have her mother's temperament and comes to people to be petted!

---

Our Poultry - pictures coming soon

We have two rare breeds of ducks, Cayugas and Welsh Harlequin and hopefully we will have purebred eggs from each of these breeds for sale this year.

We also have a rare breed of goose, the American Buff goose, decended from the wild Greylag goose. They are one of the best natured of domestic goose breeds. We will have a few fertile eggs available very soon.

Most of our chickens are cross bred laying hens, they are great for supplying us with eggs and each year a few sneak off and make a nest where they can hide their eggs from predators [including us] and often manage to hatch them out. The best hatch so far was nineteen chicks from one hen.

We now have the Bantam breeds - Seramas, Silkies, Mille d'fleur, Self Blue d'Uccles, Porcelain d'Uccles, Cochins & B.B. Red Old English. Our purebred standard breeds are Egyptian Fayoumis & Penedesenca.

We also have Lavendar Guineas, Buff Geese, Welsh Harlequin & Cayuga Ducks.

We hope to be able to ship fertile eggs from these breeds available in 2009.

back to my index page