Today I’m going to introduce you to all the animals we have on our farm!
Chickens
First, the chickens, AKA, the gateway animal! We’ve kept chickens on and off for the past 12 years. We really love the fresh eggs, and they are very easy animals to care for. We have about 35 laying hens and 3 roosters right now. Dale is one of those roosters, a Buff Orpington who is about 3 years old.
4 years ago, we got 10 Buff Orpington chicks from a friend of a friend. Ben began taking care of them, and recently has begun to pay for their feed and sell the eggs. Occasionally he buys new chicks, and a few weeks ago bought some new Buff Orpingtons and some Silver Laced Wyandottes. The Wyandottes are pictured below.
Sheep
Next up, one of the biggest animals on our farm, our sheep! In March we bought three pregnant ewes and named them Thelma Lou, Hilda Mae, and Juanita. For those of you who were unfortunate enough to grow up not knowing what The Andy Griffith show is, first, let me apologize for what must have been a sad childhood, and explain to you that these sheep are named for each of Barney Fife’s girlfriends on the show.
Anyway, at the end of April, they began giving birth. Thelma Lou had her baby first, a ewe lamb that we named Charlotte (Opie’s girlfriend from one of the early seasons of the show), and the other girls followed suit. Hilda Mae’s girl we named Charlene, (for Charlene Darling) and Juanita’s was named Ellie (One of Andy’s girlfriends early on). Hopefully, many of you will know these names, but for those of you who don’t, this is one of our family’s favorite shows. We will get plenty of future sheep names from this show.
The sheep are mostly Sam’s responsiblility. He moves them to fresh grass and goes out to spend time with them. The babies are seperated from their mommas right now, and he is spending time with them, training them to follow where he leads, and come when he calls.
Sage
This is Sage, our farm dog. Unlike most of our animals, she was one that was a bit harder to name. We got her from the Amish in January, and she is still a puppy, a little under a year old. The four of us kids had originally picked out her brother (they looked almost exactly alike) but there was a bit of a mix up. When we went to go pick her up, she was a girl, and a few things changed. We’d picked out several boy names, but couldn’t use them so she lived with us for several days before being named. Ben still claims that he never agreed to name her Sage, but it’s a bit late to change it now!
She’s a bit of a handful, and we’ve had some training issues, but she is getting better, and is really fun to be around when she acts good. She’s very friendly and loving, and loves everyone except the neighbors dogs! We aren’t actually sure what breed she is, we were told that she is an Australian Shepherd/English Shepherd mix, but she looks a lot like a lab. While her mother was an English Shepherd, and the family we got her from did have an Australian Shepherd at their house, some things could have happened, so we don’t know what we got, but she’s a good dog.
Shelia
This is our cat, Shelia. We had a few cats before we got her, but different things happened to them, and we never had them long. One day she started showing up around the house and hanging out, and would disappear and come back after a few days, and then one day she looked a little fat… One thing lead to another, and she had four kittens in our garage, so we decided that she liked us and wanted to stay. She is a great hunter and is always bringing up her kills. Our other cats were a bit wimpy, so we’re glad to have a good mouser.
Our Hope
We are looking forward to getting some meat chickens and also growing our flock of sheep in the spring. All the animals on our farm serve a big purpose, even if that purpose is to be a friend and companion, and we try to care for them to the best of our ability to fulfil our purpose to take care of the things that God has given us. We are very thankful for each animal on our farm, and blessed to have them