Farmtastic!

We have begun our long time dream of raising farm animals. My favorite thing about our experience so far? Is how we are all learning about raising and caring for animals together as a family since this is new for each of us. Oh and watching the kids (baby goats not our kids) run around with buckets stuck on their heads. We call them bucket heads. That comes in at a close second.

Here are some pictures that show our favorite things about farm life.

Riding to the feed store with Daddy to load up on hay, grain and milk replacer for the calves. And sometimes coming home with a new chick or two.

We have a cool trail in the back of our property that if quite fun to walk through. This was made when we had a path cleared out for our fence to be put in.

Driving daddy's tractor is always a favorite.

The night our animals arrived we were all so excited! A friend of ours picked them up in two different towns in Florida and delivered them for us. It was late by the time he got here so Fletch was already in bed but the rest of us went out to the trailer to meet our new family members.

Colton named his cow Nickleback or Nick or sometimes Nickey. It didn't take these two long to become great friends. Nick was 3 weeks old when we got him and is a Holstein cow.

Gracie named her cow Benedict or Ben or sometimes Benny the Bull. Ben was 1 week old when he came to live with us and is also a Holstein cow.

The lady we purchased them from said we'd have to bottle feed them twice a day. Oh boy, what were we getting ourselves into! Thankfully we realized they would drink their milk from a bucket too which is so much faster and easier. It turns out that it hasn't been much work at all to feed these two.

Handling cows has been a learning experience for all of us. Josh has had bits of experience with farm animals from his high school years but as far as owning and raising them, this is new to all of us.

Gracie picked out Benny because of the heart on his head. I thought Romeo would be the perfect name for him but when we voted Benny one.

And onto the goats! These little guys are so much fun! I really wanted to purchase a few dairy goats and learn how to milk them and make goat cheese and soap but for now we picked up a herd of eight miscellaneous goats to quickly meet our agriculture exemption quota and to try our hand at goat farming. Although they have been perfect at keeping the bushes and weeds at bay along with giving us our much needed tax exemption we think we will sell some and replace them with some dairy goats like I wanted. Most of these goats were used as pasture goats and haven't had much human handling in their lifetime so they are very skittish around humans. All but two are brave enough to come up and eat out of your hand but most don't like to be pet.

We are hoping to buy some babies that we can bottle feed and raise to be friendly little fellas. Oh yea and buy ones that have already been dehorned for safety. Although I think their horns are absolutely beautiful, I just worry that at some point one of our kids will become victim to them. And I don't like how they push each other around with their horns to get to the food. It's just meanness that I won't allow on our farm!

"Prance" as Colton named her is our youngest baby of the three littles. She was born on January 20th but is so skittish, the only way you can hold her is if you manage to catch her which is no easy task. Just ask Josh! But isn't she adorable!

If you look closely in this next picture you'll see Nickey getting ready to suck on Ben's ear. He uses his ear as his 'binky' all the time and it cracks me up!

We love noticing the differences of the personalities of these two. Nick is so sweet and very playful. He loves to run around the yard and play games. Full of energy just as toddlers are! Little Benny is so laid back and calm and lazy. He's a big love bug!

I need to take some recent pictures of these two because they aren't nearly as little anymore. Nick especially is growing up so... fast!

This farming experience has been so great at teaching the kids responsibility. They know if they don't go out twice a day and feed their animals that they will go hungry. This means waking up early even if it's 40 degrees outside and putting on those boots and getting to work!

It's amazing to think just how huge these cows will grow. Look how itty bitty Ben is right now!

This big guy Oakley is the largest and most friendliest goat of our herd. But there is one little problem. He is a male. An unaltered male. So he must go! We are going to weed through our three males who do nothing but chase down the females all day long. What a way to teach the kids about the facts of life though!

From left to right we have, "Black mama", "Brown boy", little girl "Prance", and "mama" (Prance's mama). In the back is the female goat that won't come near anyone. She is so scared of us and we think she's pregnant. Either that or she has a big tumor on her right side. We also think Black Mama is pregnant too. She seems to be growing wider and wider each day. Unless we're just spoiling her with too much sweet feed!

Mama and Prance. Little Prance never leaves Mama's side.

Fletch feeding Mr. Oakley

Brown boy is a Pygmy goat but will be going bye bye soon. He is such a pig and horns the babies and mamas out of the way so he can eat all of the food. He's very pretty though. At least he has something going for himself.

Oakley is a Boer goat. Boer goats are raised and sold for their meat. Dinner anyone?

The kids love to snuggle with their cows.

The twins! These are Black Mama's babies. The one on the left doesn't have horns and is a female and the one on the right is a male. We don't know if they dehorned her or if that is just how she is naturally but we're just glad for it. Her brother is going to be leaving soon however because we've read that goats can become pregnant as young as 3 months of age and he already likes to 'have fun' with his sister. We aren't exactly sure of their age but think they are at least 3 months. We've also read that it's not healthy for them to become pregnant at such a young age. No surprise! Can you imagine? Another thing we're learning is that it isn't wrong for goats to be bred to their siblings or even parents. This is practiced by many goat breeders to enhance good qualities in goats. Interesting!

It's pretty cool to think of how Maggie is growing up from a tiny infant surrounded by animals. I hope she never knows a day that animals weren't a huge part of her life. I can't wait to see her running around the pasture in her Wrangler diaper covers (I have them already don't worry) and a pair of pink boots on. And her hair in a little pony on the top of her head, if she ever grows any. Ha!

I like to sing to the cows. "Hey Mr. Knickerbocker boppity-bop. I like a the way, that you boppity-bop" is Nickleback's all time favorite. He says "MOO...ORE" when I sing it to him.

Have you ever sang to cows before? You should try it sometime. They won't even laugh at you, it's GR.R.REAT!

Chow Cow!

Here a Cheep

There a cheep. Everywhere a cheep cheep.
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That's what's going on at our house these days. Chickens are hatching like popcorn kernels.
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We decided to give chicken farming another try. Our first go around was an amazing experience that I am grateful for but the end result was a little distressing. Picking up chicken feathers scattered throughout our yard is not how we wanted to end our brief journey with chickens.
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So now that we can actually keep our chickens and raise them to adulthood we've given it another shot. But this time hasn't been a walk in the park either. The morning after we put our 20 eggs in the incubator for their 21 day incubation period, Colton came in and woke me up saying "one of our eggs is cracking!". He was thinking that a miracle super chick was about to emerge after just a single night of cooking. Well the egg was cooked all right. The little man in the house had pulled a chair up to the incubator, which I thought was out of his reach, (yea I know, nothing is out of Fletcher's reach) and decided to play with the temperature knob. When I went to see this super chick what I saw was a bunch of boiling eggs. The temperature had maxed out at 120 degrees when it is supposed to remain at a constant 99.5 degrees and the eggs were beginning to crack and ooze. Okay, we're not off to a great start so far.
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A few days later we visited a local chicken farm, and a sweet chicken lady sent me home with a fresh batch of eggs to stick in the incubator and told me to toss out the cooked ones as they'd never hatch. I decided to wish for good luck and keep those old eggs in the incubator along with the new fellas just in case. Well, before we knew it we began to hear cheeps coming from the incubator. And on the morning of our homeschool Valentine's day party 3 beautiful chicks came into the world, one with crooked toes and all. No, it's not normal for chicks to have crooked toes but remember, these chicks were partially baked at one point. But it's fitting that crooked toes just happens to be Fletcher's chick which he so lovingly named Zorro. Zorro's alive and well and that's all that matters! We love him just the way he is even if he does walk a little funny!
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While waiting for our other batch to hatch we came home with four new feathered friends after visiting the feed store. We just couldn't resist these fluffy cuties. And before we knew it our new batch was hatching so we have joyful peeps filling up our home these days.
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And here the pictures to go with the story.
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{zorro, just minutes old}


{gracie's barred rock baby named cleopatra}


{an australorp we bought at the feed store}



{the night we first heard the peeps coming from the eggs, fletch was all giggles and said "mom, this is going to be awesome!!!}











{colton's lacy, a silver laced wyandotte}


{fletch calls this one cheep cheep. she is a buff cochin}



{maggie's rhode island red named henrietta. she's a real sweetie!}



{zorro does look a little half baked doesn't he? poor guy!}





{here are our newest hatchlings that arrived february 19th}




{just hatched. not so cute yet, huh?}


{so excited to have another plymouth barred rock. these chicks have always been one of my favorites!!!}