Donna's Cottage

My Barnyard Friends

My "friends" on my little homestead consist of one horse, six Finn sheep, five dairy goats, seven chickens and seven angora rabbits.

I'll start with the first critter to come to my homestead and that was Napolean, my six year old Haflinger/Percheron horse.  He is three-quarters Halflinger and one-quarter Percheron.  He looks just like his Dad kind of took Mom's size.  He's about 15 hands I would say.  I bought him to be a buggy horse as that is the mode of transportation I want to use when all is said and done.  He is also strong enough to pull farm implements such as a manure spreader.  I will ride him as soon as I find a saddle to fit him. The one I used last year has gotten too small. It's probably my fault because I do tend to spoil him.  He is a good boy though.

Then came the bunnies.  I started out with one Satin angora buck and have progressed to three does and four bucks.  I have no earthly idea why because I will never breed them, or at least I don't think I will.  I hand pluck their fiber and sell it and have also blended some with my Finn wool and spun that and have tried to spin plain angora but that is kind of tricky. At present I have my does are Wicket, Cocoa Channel and Lady Bug and my bucks are Mad Mardigan, Jimmy Jones (after the football coach), Charlie Brown and Ghostbuster.

The next set of critters to come to me were my sheep.  I started out with three Finns, added two purebred Icelandics and a Tunis/Merino/icelandic cross.  The two Icelandics didn't last long, actually from Thursday to Saturday, because they are what they call a Primitive Breed, and have no flocking instinct at all.  They got out the day they were brought home and it was really a nightmare.  Oh yeah, it's funny now but I can tell you it wasn't then.  The Tunis/Merino/Icelandic cross, who I named Prissy because she was always standoffish from the Finns, just went to another farm as part of a barter.  Now I have an all Finn flock consisting of Lilly, Sarah, Gabby, Bonnie, Dixie Little and Little Sister.  Lilly, Sarah, Gabby and Dixie Little all came from the same farm and are white.  Bonnie and Little Sister are from the same flock, are black and yes, they are really sisters.

Then came the goats.  What was I thinking.  I was thinking, how cute and I can have my own milk so on December 30, 2007 Lexy and I went almost to Canada to pick up a Nubian doe named Phoebe and a LaMancha doe named Squirt.  Phoebe is jet black and Squirt is black and white.  I bought them as bred does but as Our Heavenly Father know what is best they were not.  They were so small when they both came home in the same large dog crate.  I was disappointed but also relieved as I knew they were too small to be delivering kids.  Before they came I had made arrangements to buy an Alpine/Nubian cross from a friend.  She was bred and I asked her if she would keep her until she had her babies as I had no experience and the babies would born in the middle of winter.  She agreed and Maples the pushy Alpine/Nubian with a set of  horns came to me in May along with Snowball, a little, you guessed it, white Sannen/Boar cross, also with little horns. Then a week ago Lollipop the big brown Nubian came along.  So, now I'm milking two goats and loving every minute of it.  It took about a week for Lollipop and I to get used to one another but now everything is going fine, except Maples is now pushier than ever and that kind of worries me.  The past couple of days though she seems to have settled down.  This year, probably in November or December, I will get Maples, Lollipop and Phoebe bred.  Squirt the LaMancha is going to the lady I got Maples from as part of a barter.  She is really pushy too and I can only handle one pushy goat on my farm at a time.

Two weeks ago I bartered goats milk and cheese for seven hens.  Next week I'm getting 11 more hens because I have a lot of people who want eggs.  I love to watch the hens.  I wanted a rooster but when I asked the lady across the street if she would mind if I got chickens she asked me if I was getting roosters and I said probably at least one and she wasn't too happy so I won't get one.  In the spring I want to order some Barred Rocks because I've had them before and I know they lay eggs well and a lot of them.