Today we brought home our new additions to the farm. Meet Mr. Freezer. He is a holstein bull calf that will be fed up and butchered to feed our family. We purchased two holstein bull calves this fall that both ended up dying in the sub-zero winter of North Idaho. Hopefully, this guy will fare much better and fill our freezer.
These are our three lovely ladies. All three are bred and should kid around the first couple of weeks of April. They reportedly are easy lambers and with twins. The white is a suffock and romanov cross and comes bearing the name Lamb Lamb. The other two are suffock and southdown crosses and don't really have names so we will be open to all suggestions.
This brings the animal tally as follows:
- 4 horses (Lena, Tanner, Hoss, and Pearl)
- 3 cows (Gertie, Betty, and Mr. Freezer)
- 3 pigs (Patrick, Petunia, and Spam)
- 2 goats (Rosie and Peanut)
- 3 sheep (Lamb Lamb, ? and ?)
- 16 chickens
Other animals that will be coming to live on Bent Tree Farm this spring, include: pastured meat birds. I would love to have a dairy cow but that's still in the discussion stage. In order for these animals to provide for our self-sufficiency, we must grow a majority of their food. We ordered mangel seeds that we will sow in the pasture. Growing mangels is a new venture for us but through our studies looks to be a very good source of sustenance through the winter months. It has also been suggested that we plant amaranth and comfry. What are you all planting to feed your animals? Please share your successes and failures so that we can learn from each other!!
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2 comments:
Black crowder, sunflower, beets, popcorn, kale. That's what we grow for our feed. And our bartering with a neighbor for green wheat. (not great for horses, wonderful for dairy cows)
Congrats on the new additions. Good looking boy you have there.
as for names, well I have a sheep named donkey. So I might not be much of a help. If they come to us without a name, we tend to name them after a part of their journey to us. Or in the case of our dogs, have a theme, like things you would find in a hardware store, Link, Buckets, Sprocket. :D
never heard of black crowder. will be doing some more research. Thanks for the post and the info.
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