We started out by growing our own organic vegetables and raising rabbits at
first we only had New Zealand white. We have since added a New Zealand Black
and 4 English Spot Rabbits. The rabbits supply us with meat and the best possible
organic fertilizer, which we use in our garden and sell of for others to use
in theirs. Next year we added some brown egg laying chickens so we would be
able to supply ourselves with eggs and chicken meat.
Today we have an abundance of different kinds of birds. The majority of our
birds can be found on
the American Livestock
Breeds Conservancy List of rare breeds.
Our egg layer pen has a colorful array of different breeds of
chickens. We have Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Australorps, Barred Plymouth Rocks, and a few
Wyandottes. In the spring we buy about 100 hatching eggs and hatch them. We keep between 10 to 15 of the
chicks and sell the rest as straight run.
The eggs from the other birds are primarily used for hatching, though we also
use duck eggs for consumption. We sell some hatching eggs and hatch the rest
here at the farm. Some of them to replenish the flock we already have and some
of them to sell as live birds.
Apart from all the birds we also raise worms for use in composting.
If you are interested in getting started with composting we would be more than
happy to help get you started. We have worms available for purchase for that
purpose. You can
read more here.
Beside the farm animals we also have a lot of dogs and cats.
The dogs are primarily a hobby, though the two big ones are hunters. While we are not breeders
we do occasionally raise a litter of Chihuahuas. 7 of our dogs are our own puppies.
The cats serve two purposes, they are pets but they are also a great means of keeping
down the rodent and snake population, which is a big deal on a farm. The cats even keeps down the
snake population around here.
All of our animals from the tiny baby chicks to our retired adults are very important to us. In many ways
all of our breeding stock is part of the family, though not all of them live in the house. We strive to
have happy and healthy animals whether it is our birds or our dogs and cats.
The well being of all of them is always the most important thing for us. We truly love our animals and we
strongly believe in animal welfare. That doesn't exclude using young rabbits, ducks, chicks, geese or
turkeys in our kitchen. What it does mean is that we try to make sure our animals gets the best food and
as much greens as possible, either through foraging or through greens cut and put in their pens every
morning and afternoon.
