Environmental Farm Plan

I feel so official! Please to announce that we have completed our Environmental Farm Plan. Worked it through with George Powell, who did a great job. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the information he was able to bring to the table, like my soil data. Soil is measured from 1 to 7 - 1 being the best in the province and 7 being the worst in the province. I am thrilled to find out that we are in the 2 -3 zone for soil type. Yeah!! Makes me want to start gardening right now - what I'm planting next year just got a whole lot broader.

Our biogeoclimatic classification is sub-boreal spruce; no real surprise there, look out the window and see a lot of spruce. All told it was a great process and I would highly recommend that if you haven't done the process, you give George a call and try it out. And this is an unsolicited reference!

New Sheep in the Pen

So we finally managed to bring home our new sheep. The day dawned bright and early and I whipped through morning chores in record time and was on the road. First stop was 100 Mile House to pick up the stock trailer I was using and the first 3 sheep from New Cal Rabbit Farm. These are older ewes and really friendly. Since they are more "experienced", we will probably keep them for at least two batches of babies and then reassess their condition. Since two batches will be about 1.5 years they are still going to be here for awhile. The other 3 sheep we picked up from a smaller sheep farm, Thackerville, in the Savona area. These are younger ewes, in absolutely great condition, just coming on a year in the spring. We won't be breeding them until the new year and these will be with us for a long time.

Okay, some pics of the new girls:

So this is the first old girl. Great colour and incredibly soft.
I believe that these three girls are a cross of katahdin and something.
It's the something I haven't figured out.
 But they are very similar to our Bayberry
and Bunchberry in hair, colour and markings.

We haven't named them yet, so this is girl #2. Her wool is this dark greyish colour with the black markings.She's a little more standoffish then the other two.

This is girl#3. I love her black and white markings.
Her cheeks are incredibly soft. These three are all a fairly
good size - easily over 150 lb each and tall. Since they
have been bred with our Dorper Ram (hopefully!! by now)
it will be exciting to see what kind of colours the babies have.

This is new young girl #1. We also haven't named these ones yet. She is the only one of this bunch to have the interesting patches on her face. Helps to tell her apart. These three are still quite shy with people but have integrated into the herd really well.

This is new young girl #2. What I really like about
these girls is how clean their head, neck and legs are.
 By clean, we mean that the wool/hair is very short
giving them a clean cut look. Particularly having clean legs
just makes them so much easier to care for. They are also
very square, put together quite well. I don't believe they have quite
 finished growing yet, so we will see what their final size
 turns out to be - give them another six months or
so to grow out. But so far they are really nice.

New Girl #2 - #3 looks just like her and was being camera shy, so #2 is standing in. We'll have to put necklaces on them to tell them apart! With their white colouring and the ram being a black-headed dorper, the lambs could be anything from pure white, pure black or a patchwork of colours - like a holstein cow, all black and white patches. I can hardly wait!

 In the meantime, we have one sheep (Big Bertha or BB for short) which we purchased from a 4H'er earlier this fall, who is pregnant, but probably not due in December like we were hoping  - or if she is it will be the end of December. I have been watching her but we are at least a month or two away.

And of course, not satisfied with the ewes in the pen with him, the ram jumped TWO fences to check out some ewes in a different pen. So I'm hoping that he was able to control himself until we got him back in his pen. (hahahaha!!!) At this rate I'm thinking deer fencing might be an option for him!

Chick Update

Back in October we posted some information on a hen that actually hatched out 4 chicks. She was doing a great job. Unfortunately, it was October and the weather started to turn and despite her best efforts she lost two of the chicks. I was amazed at how good she was with the chicks. She had hiding holes all over the them. The problem is that in October there just isn't enough ground cover to help keep them warm or covered and between rain and cold, the weather got the best of them.

So we brought the last two in the house. Over the years we have kept numerous cages that we have used for various animals, like gerbils and rabbits, and these make excellent cages for little chicks. They are in a small one right now and then as they get bigger we will continue to move them into bigger cages. Works really well! So right now they are in a guinea pig size cage located right beside the fireplace. This is a great place for them as it keeps them warm and we don't have to worry about lights.

Yesterday, the biggest one (which I believe is a male) decided he was big enough to jump up to the top of their cage. I've been keeping the top open because when they are little they can't reach it. But now they can. So, on went the lid to keep them in. Of course, that doesn't mean they are always in their cage. I've been teaching them to be handled and to sit nicely on hands and shoulders. So they regularly get time out to get handled. They are both coming along very nicely.

The chicks hanging out on my arm.

This is the big guy - so interesting
watching the way the different feathers come in.

Another shot of the big guy. See the way his beak has more prominent ridges and his tail is a little more developed.

This is the little girl. Her beak doesn't have the same prominent ridges and her tail is not as developed. She is also physically smaller than the other one.

We always try to have a few hens and roosters that can be easily handled. It makes handling them for moving and catching so much easier. The other chickens learn by watching and when they see other chickens being caught easily and handled, they are much easier to handle. And it makes it nice when people come to see because then we can catch up a few chickens for people to pet - always a popular activity.

So, the chicks are doing fine. Their feathers are starting to come in - mostly black and white on the body, but their heads have some different colours so we will see where they end up. It will still take another month for them to be fully feathered and a number of months before they can go out, but they are doing really well.

How Much Hay?

One of the interesting things about ranching is figuring out how much everyone is going to eat over the next year. Between the horses, cows, sheep, llamas, pigs and chickens we go through a fair chunk of hay, grain and various feeds. We have been busy bringing in hay for this winter and having some fun moving it around. And what fun the cats are playing tag and jumping around. 

Sierra playing around with Chip on the hay

Chipmunk playing around and trying to look cool doing it!



Hay bales - 100 bales between 900-100 lbs each