Snow Dog

"Did someone say Let's go outside?" Sara LOVES the snow!



Sara loves to catch snowballs. (Faith wanted to see posts of a snowball fight!)


She is so acrobatic, and when the snow gets deeper she will burrow down into it and tunnel like a mole.


Gidget has had enough of the snow and wants to go back inside, NOW!


Sara on the other hand refuses to come in, and lays down in hopes I won't get the Commander to carry her in. "It's the most wonderful time of the year...."

Good Morning Winter

We awoke this morning to a Winter Wonder Land!


The Guineas spent the night outside the coop and I was worried about how they survived the snow so I was relieved to see the first one peeking out at me.


A flock of Guineas on top of the Coop. I put some scratch out for them under the coop, I hope they find it.


Sara LOVES the snow, we can't keep her inside. She blends right in with the Birch trees.


The sheep are not at all excited to see the snow.


The snow was so heavy that we had to walk the fence lines to make sure no damage had been done.


Several of my Birch trees couldn't handle the weight.


There are a lot of broken branches that will need to be cleaned up.


It sure is beautiful outside, so long as I don't have to drive.

Silent Night

Winter storm watch tonight, 5-9" of snow expected.


The snow was so heavy that the netting over the chicken coop tore away, so with complete freedom available the guineas chose to sleep outside for the night.


The snow is wet and heavy and is sticking to everything, it is so beautiful outside.

Injured Chicken!

When I got home today we found one of my beautiful chickens was laying injured amongst the leaves in the goat pen. She was limping on her good leg and then burrowing into the leaves. It was nice to see that one of her sisters refused to leave her side.


We brought her inside and examined her, it looked like she had a puncture wound and a possible broken leg. I put some neo-sporin on the open wound and gave her some chicken electrolytes with a bit of aspirin mixed in.


I didn't have any tongue depressors to use as a splint so I substituted some card stock as a replacement.


The card stock was covered with some vet wrap to hold it in place.


The chicken has been moved inside to Sara's kennel to see how she does. I read that injured chickens are attacked by their coop mates, I'm not sure if that is true but I don't want to take any chances.

I'm not sure if a chicken can survive a broken/injured leg, but I hope so.

Sara wants her kennel back and Patch, Mocha, and Chai Chai are very interested in our visitor, but they had better get used to it as the kennel may have to house kids and/or lambs this Spring.

I Smiled all the way Home

I picked up Addison and Becca Boo after the breeder called and told me to expect "kids" around April Fools day. They were a bit stinky after having spent a week with a handsome buck, but I was so happy to have them home.


Addison checked out the barn to make sure nothing had changed, now that the Queen is home things have to be just so.


Becca Boo seemed very happy to be home but she was so dirty. I had to take a few baby wipes to clean up her white fur.


Chip was so excited that he started to make his strange noises and clicking sounds to get the girls attention. Everyone had to reestablish the "pecking" order so Chip immediately challenged Addison and Becca for dominance. Addison ended up as Queen again, once that was established the others calmed down.


I saw blood on Becca's head and was worried until I realized it had come from Chips scurs. If I hadn't read about Reggie's scurs over at Critter Farm I would have been mortified. I cleaned the blood of Becca's head and put some blood stop and neosporin on Chip and everyone is one big happy family again, until April 1st!

When Worlds Collide

Chip and Gidget were so lonely while Addison and Becka Boo were gone that I decided to take them with me at night when I fed the rest of the animals. They seemed to take this as an invitation to sample everyone's food. Here Gidget and Chip belly up with the ewes.


Kia isn't sure what to make of her dinner guests.


The fence doesn't stop them from helping themselves to the rams food. I am obviously more wary of the rams that the goats are.


Even the chickens weren't immune. They have one poor pine tree in their coop area and the goats decided it was too tasty to pass up. I'm not sure the goats were as much help as I thought they would be.

Mystery Date

Do you remember the game Mystery Date? Well, the girls got ready yesterday and the boys did the same today. I lured the rams into the hillbilly sheep shed with some grain, and quickly closed the kennel door. The Commander went in to get them one by one and it was a bit frightening at times. Alder panicked immediately and rammed his head into the door space. Fortunately I was holding it and he was stuck, our first volunteer. The next time the Commander went in Killarney went crazy and ran full speed into a kennel panel.

We had Sara stand right by the rams as the Commander held them, it seemed to settle them down a bit. Each boy had his hooves trimmed, got a dab of wormer and pro-biotics, and had some "knit" killer spread into his wool. I checked their eyes for worm induced anemia and they all looked good, and they had no knits that I could find. The Commander said that the rams were a lot stronger than the girls. I can't imagine doing this with full sized sheep unless we had the proper restraint equipment.



This is Alder, his most redeeming breeding trait is that he carries the triplet gene. He is the second largest and has show some breeding interest.


Ironwood has incredible horns, but he is the smallest of the rams.


Killarney is the largest, and carries the "polled" gene. He also seems to be the least afraid of us, and if he gets too friendly he will have to be culled. A friendly ram can be dangerous. With that in mind I decided to give Killarney the opportunity to meet the girls first, as he may not be around long.


Being a gentleman, the first thing Killarney did was take the girls out to dinner.


After dinner he took the time to reintroduce himself to everyone. I'm not sure if he knows what he needs to do, but I will be watching him closely. I know that the girls have been in season because I've seen the boys do that upturned lip thing that male sheep do. I don't have any pictures of my own but there are some great ones over at Kenleigh Acres.



Listen to the wonderful guinea hen serenade, mood music?