NEW Additions: Alpacas and a Llama!

The last week of April we left for a fun family vacation. We visited Gatlinburg, TN and the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter in Kentucky. Our kids highlight was the petting zoo, go figure! Although we aren't ready for camel rides, ostriches or wallabies we did fall in love with the alpacas! 

So when we got back home, on May 4th, His Way Farm and Exotics delivered two male alpacas and a female llama.

      
We had them sheared, their feet and teeth trimmed right away, and built them a pen to quarantine them from other animals until we could have our farm vet out to verify their health.

Aren't they adorable!?! <3

Our sweet alpacas and llamas are so friendly. At our last open farm days kids and adults enjoyed feeding them. The two boys came from a petting zoo situation and we will have them ready to travel as an add on soon. Our big llama girl will begin her packing training soon with a long term goal of having her trained as a therapy llama!

Click here for a video on Facebook

Posted by Shannon

Spring abundance!

This spring we were thrilled to see our new garden boxes producing tiny green babies! As a wife, mom then farmer my priorities are hubby, kids, animals THEN last plants so I tend to not garden well or keep up with it all. My gardening style is lots of good compost soil, plant seeds and pray....  

Our baby goats are weaned and growing!

We built our grape trellis last year and this year that paid off when we found an abundance of baby grape clusters gathered underneath its leaves!

With all our goat babies weaned we had lots of goat milk to go around!

Chickens and ducks were back to producing their eggs in full force! We were collecting more than four dozen clean, colorful, farm fresh, non-GMO eggs a day!

Whatever eggs we didn't sell every week we put in our incubator for baby chicks!

And our mama ducks, geese and guineas also hatched out several clutches of ducklings, goslings and keets!

Cookies&Cream, our black/white Holland Lop, is a favorite bunny to snuggle in our traveling farm tent. Axle is our huge tan English Lop with the ears so long he trips over them! We were happy to announce that they had seven healthy babies who will be weaned by July 1st. 

And finally our two mama cows gave birth to sweet new calves. Buttercream had an easy delivery to her 2nd calf, a healthy little girl. We named her Kitty!

And a new baby means we are back to milking every morning! 

Our sweet Rosie had a difficult and long labor and gave birth to her 1st calf, a deformed little boy! After a visit to the vet we were told little Quasimodo should get along just fine even with his funny hunchback on his neck. 

How I missed my quiet mornings in the barn under my cows!

But the workout after is pretty intense. The stainless steel milk bucket weighs 25lbs plus each gallon of milk weighs between 8-12lbs and we get an average of 2 gallons per cow. So with each cow you are lifting and balancing 50lbs to pour into 1/2 gallon jars without spilling!

The beauty of three days of healthy, farm fresh, non-GMO, grain free, raw milk from our two family cows!

Posted by Shannon

Fun Farm T-Shirts - $10

We had fun t-shirts made about all the memorable activities on our farm! Check them out! We sell all sizes, youth and adult, for $10.

Oh, this last shirt, what is it about you ask? Click here to hear a hilarious voicemail left on our answering machine!

Posted by Shannon

Puppies are 8 weeks old!

It is finally that time. Puppies are 8 weeks old and ready to move into their own families! They are huge (some are 12lbs), SO fluffy and have been a ton of fun! 

This whole experience, although a lot of work, has been sweet, full of joy and rewarding. We adore our new puppy families and are happy to see them off but will miss them here.   

Having 7 kids, 11 dogs and our friend, Emily, and her 2 kids at the vet was quite the experience (for everyone involved I am sure) but it added closure to this whole puppy experience! 

Eight week update:

Pink girl, weighs 11lb 5oz!

Purple girl weighs 10lb 5oz and is being snuggled in the Snipes family!

Yellow girl weighs 8lb 6oz!

Blue boy weighs 11lb 3oz and is being spoiled by his mama, Madi! Can't wait to hear about his therapy training program!

Dark green boy weighs 12lb 1oz and is getting snuggled by the Missimers! 

White girl weighs 9lb 6oz and is being adored by the Huff family!

Brown boy weighs 11lb 2oz!

Pic coming Monday, May 8th

Light green boy weighs 12lb 6oz and is loving the Bidwell's growing family!

Grey girl weighs 12lbs and is excited about guarding the Garrett farm!

All 9 puppies have had families waiting on them since only 10 days after mama Suzy's conception. We get asked, A TON, if any pups are available or when we are going to have another litter. Although we are undecided as to if or when another litter may happen, as it all depends on the health and well-being of mama and it certainly will not be her next heat cycle, I can put you on our tentative future puppy list  or I can let you know when other farmer friends have a healthy litter of similar breed dogs (which I know of a few now at time of posting this!)

Our sweet Sarge man is the reason most of these families were so excited to bring home one of our pups. He is just an amazing dog, you only have to meet him once to just fall completely in LOVE! <3

 When the puppies are away the parents play! :D

My baby did a great job caring for her babies! <3

Posted by Shannon