I'm excited to announce that we've TRIPLED the size of our little hobby farm! A family friend was downsizing her farm, and we inherited six beautiful Pygora goats and a big family of chickens.
Obi, Adi, and Hilda (the sheep) meet our new friends.
Pygoras are a multi-purpose breed of goat. A cross of pygmy and angora, they can be used for milk, meat and wool. The former owner has offered to help me learn how to shear and spin the fiber, which I am SUPER excited about!!
After the animals arrived, we took the opportunity to finish expanding our pasture and make some upgrades to the barn area. It was getting a little crowded.
We took down the separating wall (to the left, above) and also removed a whole gob of school bus seats. Yes, we had a pile of school bus seats in the barn.
A new hay feeder.
In preparation for the arrival of more chickens, Hubs helped me make a "chicken corner" instead of having a separate chicken coop. This makes it easy to feed the goats, sheep and chickens all at one time. Over the summer we had eight chickens wandering around. They liked "sharing" food with the goats. With winter coming and tripling the size of our chicken flock, I thought it would be a good time to start giving them real laying mash. Apparently, chickens can eat goat feed but goats aren't supposed to eat chicken feed, so we had to separate the chicken feeding area.
The Chicken Corner, complete with a little chicken door.
We put nesting boxes into the chicken corner as well, and I took the opportunity to refill the boxes with sawdust. Hubs put up a new roosting area (upper right hand corner) as well.
In the future, I look forward to writing about our co-housing experiment with the animals. So far, it has worked out well. The goats act as good guard animals for the chickens so we don't have to lock them up at night. The goats eat up brush, the sheep munches on shorter grass, and the chickens dig through the dirt and pick out bugs.
In the future, I look forward to writing about our co-housing experiment with the animals. So far, it has worked out well. The goats act as good guard animals for the chickens so we don't have to lock them up at night. The goats eat up brush, the sheep munches on shorter grass, and the chickens dig through the dirt and pick out bugs.
Fiona likes the camera.
So far, the new goats are settling in well.
Til next time,
-Bethany
-Bethany
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