News From the Farm!
April 2006
We purchased our first American Guinea Hog after several years of deliberation. He's a handsome boar with loads of personality, a gentle disposition, an impressive name, and genetics not found on the West coast at this time. Jon was adamant about not having more pigs, but after this guy arrived, Jon can be found daily in his pen, giving him a scratch and calling him "Wilbur." Go figure. Wilbur's nom de reality is Colossus, and he will get girlfriends soon; the gene pool and numbers of this breed is tiny and we have been on a waiting list since last year for gilts.
Our ewes are bagged up and ready to go. The anticipation is nearly killing me! You would think after 7 years of lambing the novelty would wear off, but it doesn't. Our lambs will be later than most farms this year because I got my breeding groups together quite late last fall. Soon, soon!
April 19, 2006
The first lambs of the season are born on our farm; two sets of twins! Our theme for this year is "Ain't Life Great?" and have lots of really fun names for these adorable little lambies.
May 2006
Lambing season is in full swing! Lots of Soay babies are being born, with more variety of color this year than we have seen in the past. Our years of careful planning have paid off... what fun! Lambing season is like Christmas; you get up each morning and the excitement of what you might find out in the pasture is nearly uncontainable, and always a surprise. We don't have to do much during lambing season except catch the lamb on the day it's born to determine the sex and who its mother is. By Day Two, the lambs are too fast to catch easily. We don't iodine their navels, no need to dock tails, no need for shots... these really are easy keepers, and we strive to keep them that way!
Our 3rd hatch of eggs is in the incubator; all Marans this time. I had Blue Wheaten Ameraucana eggs ready for the last hatch, but not enough interest at the time to justify using my incubator space for them. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I had started my 2nd hatch (Marans and Buff Orpington) and had taken my breeding groups apart, then I had several calls for BW Ameraucanas. So I put my Ameraucanas back into a breeding group, and will be able to collect eggs for hatching in a few more weeks. We wait a minimum of 3 weeks between exposure to other roosters, in order to assure purity of the progeny.
We had a load of logs delivered this month. After penciling out the time and costs of driving up into the hills to get loads of firewood, we learned years ago that it is cheaper to have 24 tons of logs delivered at once, and cut, split and stack it at our leisure when we have a couple hours here and a couple hours there. We have been going this route for 6 or 7 years now. Jon figures that this comes to about $30 or $40 per cord of wood after we have cut, split and stacked it, and we spend less time and gas money than if we had driven to the woods to collect firewood.
May 25, 2006
Ethan's dog has a collection of unbroken eggshells and intact butter wrappers by the back door. Henry fishes them out of the trash and carries them to his hideout where he can lick them clean without observation! It’s one more thing for Momma to do, but that’s okay; I find it amusing. Besides, Ethan is doing most of my heavy chores for me, and Jon’s doing the rest. I'm still on “light duty" while my shoulder heals.
Lambing season is winding down, and the “lamb races” are great fun to watch. With all the variety we have this year, it’s quite a colorful blur when they run past.
We moved the 2nd hatch of chicks outside into the oldest chicken tractor, which has the nest box temporarily blocked off and a heat lamp in the roost area. We have learned to block off the nest box when raising chicks because the boys learn that it’s cozy to sleep in it and thus break eggs that the girls leave there. The 3rd hatch is nearly finished, and the incubator gets turned off tomorrow. We have learned not to encourage late hatchers; they are usually weak, and under a broody hen would have been abandoned.
We moved our Marans and Buff Orp roosters into a chicken tractor to keep them away from our free-ranging Ameraucana hens. It’s truly an egg hunt every day to find where they have stashed those pretty eggs! I need to move the Ameraucana girls into “the big house” and lock them in before I begin collecting their eggs for our last hatch of the year. Our A-frame chicken tractor houses our other hens nicely, but this particular group of hens are escape artists and have managed to get out of it easily every time we have tried to house them there. So it’s “lock down” for them for a week while I'm collecting their eggs! After I have the number and quality of eggs that I need from these jail birds, we are back to free-ranging!
Finding locally grown hay has been tricky this year. A combination of strange weather, creeping development, and new land owners who don't understand our climate have reduced the number of hay fields from our "menu." Here's an example of a situation to avoid: Jon visited a good looking pasture and asked the owner when the newly cut hay would be baled, because he was concerned about the wetness of the field. He was told by the owner that the hay was high quality, would be baled that day. Jon picked up a handful from the windrow and showed her just how wet it was and that it needed to be turned over again, needed at least another day to dry, and that we could never feed it to our valuable sheep if it was baled that day. They went ahead and baled it. It's too bad that a field of good hay was mismanaged. This was something that could have been avoided, and it's too bad that someone (not us!) will be feeding moldy hay to their livestock.
June 7, 2006
Our best Blue Wheaten Ameraucana rooster and hens have been "in the big house" long enough that we can begin collecting their eggs. I hope to begin our last hatch of the year in a week or two. We may have some chicks from this hatch available.
Our American Guinea Hog gilts are arriving this month! Colossus (aka Wilbur) will thankfully have girlfriends very soon. In the meantime he has been a wonderful ambassador for the breed, enchanting everyone who visits us. It's quite amusing that the men who visit will tell me "Don't show this pig to my wife; she'll want some!" and I later find out from the wife that it's her husband who was totally charmed by our Wilbur and wants a couple of these little pigs.
We had our annual Voluntary Scrapie Flock Inspection this week, which meant that we had some ear tagging to do beforehand. I took lots of notes about the lambs, including who has the finest fleece, which lambs have grown considerably, who is growing horns and which lambs still appear polled, etc. Between my flock and my son's, we have 140 Soay sheep, and I caught nearly all of them, one by one, for inspection while Ethan ran gates and the State Vet checked off each sheep on my chart. So much for "light duty." I had a nap after the Vet left!
June 15, 2006
We are currently determining whether to keep Soay sheep or not. If not, we will have some premium Soay sheep available for sale, UNRELATED to most of what is "out there." My 15-year-old has already decided to sell all of his premium Soay flock and begin breeding some other rare livestock.
I am currently searching for a suitable breed that even compares with Soay sheep. When I find one, staying off the Breed Association's Board will allow me to have a life again; the past 5 years of my life have been devoted to organizing and doing the lion's share of keeping the Soay association going, with little thanks and much criticism. I hear this again and again from people that have volunteered their time to breed associations. Why can't breeders just breed livestock and be nice? It's a crazy world; I just live here.
The good news is that if we go in another direction, we will be able to keep fewer sheep, allowing us to have a wider variety of other species. Pasture space has been at such a premium on our farm while we have striven to preserve 10 (yes, TEN!) bloodlines of Soay sheep, which is without doubt THE most diverse Soay flock in all of North America.
June 21, 2006
Our Guinea Hog gilts arrived today! And haying season finally begins later this week now that dry weather is here.
THE MOST DIVERSE flock of Soay sheep is now available. We have decided to sell the majority of our Soay sheep. This is a decision I have agonized over for years, and now that it has been made with finality, the sense of relief is astonishing! New projects (on a smaller and more enjoyable scale) are looming, with much anticipation! I can hardly wait!
July 2006
We and our livestock weathered the unusually hot temperatures this month. We moved all of our livestock into pastures that had the most shade, did our chores early in the morning, making sure everyone's water tanks were topped off, and doing the feeding in the evening or even late at night if the day had been particularly hot. I positioned our Guinea Hogs' pen under the Transparent Apple tree, where they would not only have shade during the day, but they became accustomed to food falling from the sky... apples fell from the tree throughout the day! Pigs are superb for cleaning up under apple trees, and I have been moving their pen around the tree as necessary, with the result that we don't have the mess we have often had under the tree, nor the yellow jacket problem that goes with rotting fruit. I think by this time our pigs are probably just a bit tired of apples, but they get supplemented with other foods each day as well, so their diet is well rounded. If we were eating any of these pigs, they would taste wonderful after being apple-fed, but this trio is the beginning of our breeding stock, and we are expecting our first litters in 2007.
We finished putting up the last of the grass hay during the first heat wave of the summer, and were grateful during the 2nd heat wave that it was already done! After haying season we have been in clean up mode, clearing out the old bedding in the barns, with just one more barn to go. In the past this old bedding has been strategically placed where holes or dips in the pasture could use some filling, but this year Jon didn't have the time or energy for this, so it was put in large piles in the pasture to compost, and will be moved as needed during cooler weather.
It was during the clean up of one of the barns that we discovered a hen sitting on a nest. Due to unaccustomed hot weather on several occasions this summer, we released our best Blue Wheaten Ameraucana rooster and his hens from the henhouse so that they could range and find cool shade, which meant that we were not able to produce a hatch of BWs this year. So imagine my surprise and delight to find that the one BW Ameraucana hen that we were not able to catch during chicken round up (she was hanging out with our 2nd best BW Ameraucana rooster in a difficult to reach pasture) not only was sitting on a nest, but produced a handful of chicks in late July. Yay! I should have caught them on Day One, but was tired and under the weather and so I didn't, and on Day Two found that one of the chicks was missing. That will teach me to put off until tomorrow... They are now safely in the A-frame chicken tractor but still on grass, carefully protected by their mother, eating an organic whole grain mix that I prepare myself, and feathering out nicely.
August 8, 2006
This is not the usual time of year to be raising chicks, but I needed some new breeding stock, so here we are. It's been so warm that I decided to brood them outdoors in one of our chicken tractors. They arrived last week and have a heat lamp in the roost area, access to sunlight and shade at the other end, and are on green grass! So far, so good. I really like having them on pasture from Day One; it's more natural than brooding indoors and I know that they are more likely to be getting what they need in a similar fashion to the 2 batches of chicks being raised by their mothers and who are ranging all over our farm.
I have sold a couple of our many Soay bloodlines. I'm sorry to see them go, for we have worked for many years to preserve these lines. But on the other hand, I'm glad that we have found farmers with good intentions who will take care of them and work with other reputable breeders who are also intent on preserving a line. Already our flock looks rather small to me (if you consider over a hundred to be small), but this is for the best for my pastures, and our diversification. I have 3 more bloodlines available, but they are not leaving until the right person comes along.
We have been mending fences and doing other farm clean up chores. My husband removed the built up bedding from another shed, and dumped it on a barren area that was destroyed by our former pig herd, and I spread it out thickly. That area should recover when the rains begin. Our new pig herd is still being moved about within pig panels and doing a very good job of clean up themselves! Using regular rotation, they are not destroying our pasture, but rejuvenating it.
October 2006
It's been busy around here, but we have our breeding groups together, using 7 rams this fall. My son and I have renewed our decision to disperse our flocks of Soay sheep, each planning to pursue other interests in livestock. We love the breed, but peace of mind requires that we get back to farming and remove ourselves from the arena of breed associations. So now is the time to take advantage of our ROCK BOTTOM prices and valuable, diverse Soay bloodlines not found elsewhere! (I am keeping our Lewis line of Soays, so while we ARE having a major flock dispersal, I'm not getting out completely.)
Our teenage son purchased my American Guinea Hogs in August; this is his interest for now. His flock of rare Soay sheep in a variety of colors is also up for dispersal at extremely low prices. I'm very happy for him about the pigs, and the good news is that I retain visitation rights!
November 13, 2006
Wow! It is SUCH a relief to no longer be the Registrar for Soays of America! About a dozen people who have experienced similar situations after having given years of their lives volunteering for breed organizations have told me that it is a thankless job and you don't realize until you resign just how much time and energy you had spent on it... that you get your life back! Well, I have had my life back for well over a week now, and after resigning this morning from my position as Vice President, I am a completely free woman and it really feels great!
While I am sad that the organization I began back in 2001 is in such turmoil, and that the computer and database are now in inept hands, I hold out hope that the members can wrest control from the acting BOD and elect a valid Board of Directors.
Now that this chapter in my life is over (can you hear me cheering?) I can focus more on my family and livestock. Our sheep and other livestock are faring quite well despite the deluge of rain our area has received. The farm doesn't look very pretty at the moment (some pastures are under water, and others are quite muddy) but we are managing. I'm mentally planning my garden for next year, making plans to buy more bees, and I've even been waking from it-seemed-so-real dreams of lambs being born, even though lambing season doesn't begin until March! And last but certainly not least, I've been spending lots of time with my son. He's been a trooper through all this, and is glad to have his Momma back.
November 16, 2006
This website has been receiving some long overdue attention, including many updates and additions. In order to make this very large website easier to navigate, each section has been divided up, with the navigation links streamlined, and related topics easier to find from each sub-set of pages. If you ever get lost, just click on SITE MAP, where you will be able to find all of the topics covered on this site. This task has been long on my "to do" list, but was relegated to a back seat because of my obligations to SOA. Now that I'm a free woman, you can expect updates more often, and useful information added regularly.
December 18, 2006
The shopping is done, the cards are mailed, the tree is trimmed, the stockings are hanging by the chimney with care, and here's a really great musical holiday site showcasing one of my son's favorite holiday songs, thanks to a good friend who sent the link to me. If you like to send "e-cards," this is a fun one to give and receive.
It's been a pleasure to help new shepherds get all set up with nice starter flocks of Soay sheep. Even so, we still have some very nice ewes available that were exposed to one of our many handsome rams.
The critters are fed, the ice has been chipped out of their water tanks, and all have a nice cozy barn to shelter in when they want it, but many are frolicking in the snow! I'm heading back to my comfy overstuffed chair by the fire to do a bit of hand quilting on the huge colorful quilt that's in my hoop.
Many thanks to our loyal customers, and also to the many people who visit our site and write to thank us for the wealth of information. HAPPY HOLIDAYS and best wishes for a wonderful 2007!
February 26, 2007
Spring is coming! The pastures are green and growing, the chickens are in their breeding groups, and our 2007 lambs are expected to begin arriving in March! Yay!
I've been quite literally dreaming for months of lambs being born! We used 7 different Soay rams last fall, and are expecting a wide variety of color and markings in our lamb crop this year. See our For Sale page for more information on animals that we will have available.
Life has been very good for us with one exception; we lost our beloved Great Pyrenees, Emmy Lou, this month. She was truly a sweetheart, and we miss her so very much.
I am keeping up with adding information to this site, but I keep my computer time to an absolute minimum, especially email, so that I can spend the maximum amount of time for my family, pets, livestock and Real Life. If you want a prompt answer from me, then call me!
March 5, 2007
We finished up some sheep-related tasks yesterday, and are all set for lambing season. Yesterday was also the day that we could begin collecting eggs for hatching. Once we have enough to fill an incubator, we will have chicks in 20 to 23 days, since each of our breeds vary regarding incubation. With these things happening, and the nice weather, it really does feel like spring has sprung!
Watch this space for more information as spring brings good things to life on our farm!
March 28, 2007
Our 8th lambing season is here and once again we have some spectacular lambs! Lambing season is so much fun and so easy with these sheep... we never tire of it! We look outside and there are some newborn healthy lambs, often in unexpected colors or markings! We make sure to catch them the first day to verify sex and who is the dam, etc, because by Day Two the lambs can outrun us!
I'm using a "quilt" theme this year for lamb names... as an avid quilter, I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner! Our son is using an Artemis Fowl theme, which is just one of his many favorite series of books. This is his last year breeding Soay sheep, so if you want any breeding stock from Audacious Acres, now is the time to get it!
Chicken eggs are in the incubator, and goslings are coming soon! Woo Hoo!
April 19, 2007
Lambing season is nearly over, and wouldn't you know it... the year that we are reducing our flock is the year that all our plans for color variety are finally coming to fruition! Sigh... at least our buyers have been getting good deals and reaping the benefits of our many years of efforts! We have been working with some very nice people who appreciate our hard work, and this is what makes it all worth while... helping new farmers get started out with good breeding stock. I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm back to being a farmer again, and I had no idea how much I had missed it! It's so easy to get sucked into breed association politics and toxic relationships, and soooooooo not worth it!
We sold our first chicks of the year, have another hatch in the incubator, and more eggs waiting for our new incubator to arrive any day now!
We planted standard (will grow to be full sized) apple trees in various pastures, strategically placing hog panels so that our sheep can't eat the trees before they have a chance to grow up and provide shade. I'm hopeful this will work out as planned. More plans are in the works, and more photos coming soon!
~ Post Script ~
We sold a pregnant MacRae ewe in December, and received a call this evening from the young lady who bought her that this ewe produced triplets today! Triplets are rare for Soay sheep, and the fact that all 3 of the lambs lived is even more rare! I am so pleased for this young lady; what a marvelous way to begin her first ever lambing season!
May 31, 2007
What a great lambing season! It's now over and we are in the process of winding up our Soay Flock Reduction. We are keeping the Lewis line, and a few matriarchs from other lines that we just can't bear to part with; they will live out the rest of their lives with us. The remainder have been sorted into "butcher" and "worthy of keeping or selling." Any from the latter group that don't sell will be butchered in order to make room for our new livestock projects.
Our 2007 hatching season is over, and our chicks are outside in a chicken tractor modified to prevent inadvertent escapes or losses. We had been hatching out chicks with our new and old incubators, which is always fun. Our 2007 season was shorter than I would have liked, and we have made arrangements to prevent this from happening in 2008! However, it's always nice to let the birds out of their breeding groups so that they can free-range; they are happier and so am I. I dislike caging animals, but it's necessary in order to produce purebred chickens.
July 19, 2007
Haying season started later than usual in our area, but we are nearly finished. Everything has been growing, and it's astonishing when we remember how tiny the lambs, goslings and chicks used to be! Our ram lambs have been sorted and removed from their dams... we do not wean the ewe lambs, but leave them with their mothers for natural weaning. Our new geese are only a month old and already have mown the back yard evenly, and fertilized it nicely, too.
My husband picked a few ripe apples from the (established) Transparent tree. Yum! Our plans for planting standard apple trees in our pastures have mostly worked out. About a month ago my husband returned from one of the pastures with a stick and said "Here's your Granny Smith tree!" Other than grumble about the offending ram, there wasn't anything to do but make some modifications to our "Young Apple Tree Protection System" to prevent this from happening again! Said ram was already slated to be utilized for breeding this fall and then become ram-burger!
October 24, 2007
In our efforts to simplify our lives, we are no longer offering chickens for sale. Our Soay Flock Dispersal is nearly over; our son has 5 ewes for sale at this time. We have kept our Lewis Line of American Soay sheep, which are the most productive of all the lines, American or British, that we have had over the years. We will have lambs from this line available in 2008. We will also have Pilgrim Goslings available in 2008, and our son will have American Guinea Hog piglets available!
January 28, 2008
Breeding season is over and now begins the wait until lambing season! We have 2 gorgeous rams for sale, one blonde British Soay and one solid black American Soay. See our Soay Sheep For Sale page for photos and further information. We also separated our Pilgrim geese into breeding groups, and are looking forward to goslings this spring. One of the American Guinea hogs that belong to our son is pregnant and we expect the other to "take" soon.
February 16, 2008
We sold our rams and eagerly await lambing season! We weren't planning on selling any pregnant ewes, but a potential buyer talked us into it. After putting together a flock according to his requests and offering a very reasonable price, he defected to some other breeders who undercut us in price. Come on people.... would you want to work for free? We don't either, and we know those breeders were not making ANY money on the deal. Honest farmers can't do that and remain in business. Backyard breeders who do this are actually HURTING the honest farmers. Don't patronize backyard breeders. It hurts everybody in the long run.
April 13, 2008
WOO HOO! Lambing season has begun on our farm! I had marked our calendar 147 days from the date that we put together breeding groups, and today was the day. Right on schedule, one of last year's ewe lambs produced her first lamb this morning without a hitch. Good girl; that's the way we like them.
April 25, 2008
We are selling all of our Soay sheep! While we have enjoyed working with these sheep over the years, our specific needs required something just a little bigger as well as faster maturing for meat production. We have spent several years focusing our attention in that direction, realizing complete success in the past 2 weeks, as can be seen by my crowing above!
You can take advantage of our years of work breeding quality Soay sheep; we are butchering the Soays that don't meet our standards, and selling the best for a mere $100 per head! We will not ship at this price. Visit our Soay sheep page for more information.
