The critters on Cranberry Acre
January,14, 2016
The beginning of a new year and we now have 2 new members to the farm. We have Snowball...
January,14, 2016
The beginning of a new year and we now have 2 new members to the farm. We have Snowball...
and we do have a new duck. She is a Muscovy duck, but right now I do not have pictures of her yet.
We still have our old girl Mrs. Silver,
We also have a new family member in the house.
His name is Dingo, We got him last year and he is great edition to our family.
He has adjusted very well to our family.
Last year we lost our barn cat, Ms. Pico. I can't tell you how horrible it was to loose her. This baby girl never left our property, but she was killed by someones dog coming to my property. I am still heart broken with her death and took me a long time to get over it. I can't stress enough to people how important it is to, be responsible with your animals. If an animal leaves your property and you know it's a danger, then be responsible and restrain it. I miss her little mows as we came outside to feed.
Sept 1, 2014
I didn't realize how long it has been since I had updated this page, until I saw the pictures of the chicks that are pretty much chickens now!
I didn't realize how long it has been since I had updated this page, until I saw the pictures of the chicks that are pretty much chickens now!
Wow! I need to get on the ball with this, so much to remember, when doing this. I wanted to just share some pictures of everyone, since they have grown so much. We are still in the process of getting the barn renovation started, but this will be done before Winter.
Ms. Coal during the hay party last week!! She needed to get a rest from it all and got some water.
Mr. Luther, poor man, the Does have just been crazy and he has no clue what they are are doing. We had a 2 week span where every Doe was in heat and he thought they had lost their minds.
The ever so talkative Ms. Puffy Cheeks. Always keeping me up to date on the problems in the pasture.
Ms. Short Stuff, always making sure that we are staying out of her business. She needs to keep an eye on us, because you never know when we are going to find that nest of her's.
Still fighting over who is Queen of the Pasture, Sparkles and Bella.
Lovey Duck who is now making her own way on Cranberry Acre. Making sure we greet her when we come home by Quacking at us until we answer.
Ms. Sunshine is our chick with the crooked beak. She is doing great and doesn't seem to mind that she has a crooked beak.
Ms. JoJo, well she is one crazy and silly goat. Sometimes a pain in the bottom, but she is ours and she has a date at the end of the month with a very cute buck. We are very picky so we were searching for the right cutie for our Ms. JoJo and I can't wait for babies!!
Pico and her most favorite place to lay our, except for the fact it is right at the back door and I trip over her every time I go to the barn, but it's her spot.
Ms. Griffin, she is getting big and still stays by her mom's side, but she seems to now get fed up with her Mother's tricks, so maybe there is hope for her after all!!
May 26, 2014
The Babies are so Big
I just can't believe how fast they grow. All of them are flying around and trying to get up higher on things. Their Big Girl feathers are coming in, but they still have some fluff!
Our little snuggle bird, Chocolate is getting so big too. I think she is developing ear tuffs, I can't wait to see. I think they are so cute with ear tuffs!
The Silkies are also growing up fast. Ms. Copper is the quite one out of the 2 and Ms.Coal is the boss!
Ms. Coal investigating the camera. I have been putting them out in the pasture the past few days, but they ask to be let in the chicken yard. I think they feel a lot safer with a fence in between them and the bigger birds.
May 19, 2014
The new fence
The day is finally here!
We have had a pretty productive week, yet again at Cranberry Acre. I didn't think, do to time, that we would get this fence moved until Fall, but here it is in the back of my Suburban!
If you remember I have battling the goats on my back stairs.
( Winter )
Bringing in wood, putting clothes on the line or just trying to simply get out the door!
The idea for the fence was to split the back yard into two fields. A Spring and Summer one, then a Fall to Winter field, but we wanted to be able to have the goats go in the barn if they needed to. The solution was to try and make a swing gate to separate the fields at the door of our barn.
My husband, Wayne marked all the areas that the poles were going with spray paint X's and measured out our new perimeter. I was so excited!
He then started digging out each hole and setting them with concrete.
This is the swing gate that will separate each field and still allow the animals back in the barn when they need to be. We had to purchase a gate, but we reused most everything else from the old fence line.
My fence is away from my stairs and we have reclaimed some yard back on the side of the house. My husband decided to go ahead and buy an extra gate, so we would have doors for each field. I'm so happy, no more goat Poo on the stairs! The goats.....Well not so happy, it was their sun bathing stairs, so they were not so happy the first morning and we did hear about it.
May 12, 2014
We have new babies on the Farm
Last week we were waiting for our new babies to arrive. Seemed like Thursday would never come, but it did and now we have 10 new babies. In this group we have 4 new pets, the kids and I have agreed on naming the other chicks, Dinner 1 thru 6!
Ms. Ayla watching TV with here new chick "Chocolate", yes I said Chocolate and her other chick is Fudge!
When getting ready for Market, I started the Dryer so clothes would be ready to fold when I got home. Ms. Griffin LOVES the dryer, because she gets her morning facial that way. She will stand under the vent until it stops making sure she gets every side of her face. One very silly goat!
At the Market on Friday I came home with the much anticipated Silky chicks from a friend at the market. Wyatt has been missing his Silky chick since she passed last Fall and just could not wait to receive one again. It was an emotional thing for him, we didn't expect him to cry, but he did. He now is the proud owner of Copper the Silky chick!
Ayla kept changing Charcoal's name every chance she could get, but it has stayed Charcoal( Coal for short ), for at least a day, so we are good!
My laundry room has become a nursery again, filled with little chirps and squeaks, I love it!
May 5, 2014
Crazy Critters!
Friday I had gotten a load of hay from a good friend and one of the bales had fallen apart, so we dumped it right over the fence. Talk about a love fest, the goats, chickens and even the Stooges, stayed in one place just playing in the hay.
Mr. Luther just couldn't handle it and was rolling all over the hay. Made me wonder if there is Goat Nip in the world, because it looked like it on Cranberry Acre that day!
Oh and Ms. Bella picked the biggest and tallest pile of hay, of course she is Queen Bee!
April 28, 2014
Cranberry Acre has been in mourning since Wednesday over the decision to put our dear and loyal friend to sleep on Friday.
Corona was our dog for almost 16 years. She was the best dog I have ever owned and known in my years as a Vet Technician. I have never felt such loss and emptiness in a home before. We haven't healed from the loss this weekend, but we have tried to keep things moving here so we don't get lost in the sorrow of it all. She will be missed more than she probably knew she would be.
She now gets to spend her days under a Maple tree in the Orchard. We planted a Forsythia bush on the grave so she will shine every Spring!
Let's start at the middle of our farm. This 100 year old two story shed is now our barn. This has become our logo to the products I sew and make. Let me give you a small tour of the place as it first looked.
We only bought the chicken wire to build this. The rest of the wood and nesting boxes were things that people were going to throw away or we took something apart, so we saved it for a rainy day.
These are the stairs that lead up to our grain room and hayloft. The rest of that area is where our five goats sleep and stay in when it rains. They sooooo hate the rain.
I'll get pictures of it as it looks now, but this is now our pasture. The whole back yard! Been a challenge, but think we have come up with a solution to the problem. Problem being.....
This is what I'm greeted with every morning! We are now going to move the fence back and make two pastures to rotate goats. Imagine trying to put clothes on the line while kicking back five goats who would like to come in and enjoy the finer things in life! The two goats in the door window are Ms.Bella and Ms.Sparkles our first babies on the farm.
Our newest additions came to us last year. This is Ms. Jojo and her son Luther.
This is Luther with his sister, Griffin.
They are French Alpines and we plan to breed Jojo again, so we can have milk. Some of us in the family have lactose problems, so we are trying goat milk!
We have chickens all the time. We have some as pets, who get names and then yes we have our chickens we do not name. They end up in the stew pot, in about a year. This is Ms.Cookie, our first and very loved chicken. My daughter miss her to this day!
We also last year raised some Bantams chicks and also three Guineas. At the time I do not have Photos of them, but will have them up soon. Due to a Hawk, we are down to two Bantams, named Short stuff and Puffy cheeks, they now live in the nursery in the barn and stay close to the barn when they venture out. They don't go out to the orchard anymore. Now we have these three guineas, named Larry, Mo and Curly, all I can say is the names picked for these feathered clowns couldn't have been better.
I couldn't leave the farm page without introducing our oldest girl. This is Ms. Silver. She is 4 years old and is still laying the prettiest blue eggs to this day. I will have to say she is my favorite Farm critter here. Just a great bird.
This is our barn now!
Plans for this year is a milking stall built off the side, and hopefully also a new pen for the goats. We are also the end of this month getting chicks to raise.
Here is the flock as it stands now in our Orchard Garden area. Ms. Silver, Red, Larry , Mo and Curly!
We ended up keeping Mr. Luther, who at first I was going to sell, but lost the argument with my son and daughter. We are now teaching him to be leashed walked. My plan is to teach him to pull a small cart. He thinks he is a dog, loves my daughter Ayla, who is with him in the picture. I will have to say he is something special.
Luther's sister, Ms. Griffin. She has grown up and chased me down yesterday to get her picture made. Camera Hog!
Hay Racks
We needed to get some hay racks for the barn, so I started looking on line for some. I was not prepared for the prices of these rather simple metal racks! I wanted at least 4, but really couldn't spend the money on the one. Really, $50 was the cheapest and it looked like JoJo could bend it in two. We went on line started looking around for home made hay racks, they were nice, but we didn't have the time to spend on building these right now. We saw a picture of a 50 gallon bin on railroad ties on the ground. Nice idea but, that would be a mountain to climb for them and it would be broken in an hour! We came up with this....
These are 10 gallon storage bins with a slit cut into them, just enough to get their noses in. Luther and Griffin have a skill of getting their whole heads in there, but the bins are low enough that they won't get stuck ( I have watched, I'm a worried Mommy).
Each bin has a wood brace on the inside, also a washer, to help mount the bin to a wall, so it won't be torn down so easily.
We also braced the bottom of the bin to a piece of wood, so it had something to rest on and wouldn't flop around when the goats pulled out the hay.
These bins cost around $5 a piece, not $50 each! Big difference, and really I like this because the hay doesn't get wet in the rain or snow. Also my crazy goats will not be able to play king of the mountain on a 10 gallon storage bin :)
Have to share, Sparkles loves to lean up against and take a nap. She does it about every afternoon before the sun goes down. Crazy goat!
March 27, 2014
Wanted to share some books that I think are a must have for a small farm. Now I’ve been around animals all my life and have been in Veterinary medicine for 13 years, but I couldn’t have done it without the help of these books and probably would have made bigger mistakes.
One of these books is “ The Backyard Homestead: Guide to raising Farm Animals”.
Wanted to share some books that I think are a must have for a small farm. Now I’ve been around animals all my life and have been in Veterinary medicine for 13 years, but I couldn’t have done it without the help of these books and probably would have made bigger mistakes.
One of these books is “ The Backyard Homestead: Guide to raising Farm Animals”.
This book is a great guide for what you need, and treas of animals on your farm.
Another book that helps with your layout on an acre or less is , " The Backyard Homestead".
Great Book and my first when I thought about the layout to our one acre farm. A must have I believe before you start!
Now if you are going to try to have a farm with critters, you need to know about what types of miniature livestock is out there. This book helped us decide on what would be more beneficial to our one acre farm and would fit in size, at Cranberry Acre.
Also Stoey's guide to chickens is a great starter book for the feathered critters!
A book which was such a great find at a yardsale, you may be able to find it on ebay or Amazon, I have seen them there. Is "Farmer's Shop Book". It was written in th elate 20's early 30's and is wonderful. The knowledge in this book is amazing and has things you never would have thought of. Everything you thought you needed to buy, well this book tell's you how to make it. I will time to time post some things from this book to help share in it's rich knowledge.
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