Meet Willow and Birch

Willow and Birch are the ranches first sheep and we are in love with them! Both were not handled much when they were younger so they are still warming up to us but they are getting along great with the goats.

Willow is a 6-month-old Royal White and Black Belly mix ewe (plus some other things but not sure exactly). Which means she is the mixture of a hair sheep and wool sheep. This combo is perfect for the ranch because we can use her wool (and if her kids have wool) to make dryer balls; plus hair sheep are a much milder meat so when it comes to feeder lambs the meat should be a much better quality.

Shang and Elsa meeting Willow.

Birch is a 6-month-old Desert Painted Lamb and I just have to take a moment to appreciate his coloring. A Desert Painted Lamb is considered a purebred mixture of Mouflons and Black belly sheep. Which are both hair sheep and great for people whom have issues with lanolin and don't necessarily want goats. I do have to say he is a very good companion for willow ever since they were introduced to each other she has not left his side.

Meet Elsa and Anna

They are 1 year old boer goat does who we purchased from a wonderful family who were moving and couldn't take them with them. We were delaying this post because they are kinda bullies and we were debating getting rid of them. Now that we have them separated they are doing grate and we are happy to have them. Anna and Elsa are from the same herd but are distant cousins who act more like sisters. We believe Anna is about 3-4 months younger then Elsa but are both about one year old. They are very bossy but can be supper sweet when they want to.

Since they are meat goats we will be breeding them to raise their babies for meat. which will be hard but it is a necessity of life and I would rather know how my animals are treated before being taken for food.

Meet the Chickens

Tuesday me my mom and sister in law went and picked up 15 adorable baby chicks. As of right now we believe they are all hens but we won't know until they start laying eggs. We decided to purchase vaccine free chicks which are being fed unmedicated hormone free feed. We made this choice because we our selves do not get vaccinated and want to be independent from the outside world when it comes to our animals. It has been interesting getting used to them and learning how to handle them but they are all great. So far we can only distinctively identify 2 of the 15 their names are Diamond (white/black) and Carol (black/yellow) I will add pictures of these two tomorrow. They already know how to catch bugs to today as we were filling their feeders one caught a mosquito hawk and shared it with the others. I can't wait to see them all grown up.

Photo cred: Natasha Robison (Natasha Robison Photography)

Meet Shangri-la

I am sorry everyone this for some reason reverted to a draft and got deleted. 

Shangri-la is a 3 year old nigerian dwarf who joined us 2 weeks ago and is best friends with Sandy. She is such a sweet girl and loves to follow me around the property. Overall she is very energetic and curious as we were working on the shelter she would try to climb on the ladders. This will be her second breeding and kidding season. Her first kidding season gave her previous owners 3 beautiful bucks, so we are hoping for does this year.

My whole family agrees that she looks like a donkey with her frosted ears and nose but she is a still pretty cute. And judges seem to agree last year at kern county fair she won 2nd place.

Meet Sandy

Sandy is the very first goat to step foot on to our ranch and we must say she is beautiful! At just 1 year old Sandy is carrying her first baby and will be due to kid in July. And with kids comes milk so once all the kids are weaned we will be able to start serving you goat milk products. It took a while to decide on a name moon, crater, mars but in the end she will always be Sandy. Why you may ask because it is a derivative of Alexandra and the Alexandars were the previous owners of our land plus living in the desert there is sand everywhere so it was fitting.  

 

Overall she is very well mannered and loving but still is shy around new people. She always wants to eat whats on the other side of the fence rather than whats in her pasture so I guess you could say she is a "the grass is always greener on the other side" type of goat.

Meet the Dogs

We would like to introduce to all of you out there our faithful dogs. Each one of them is a very special piece of our family and I don't know what we would do without them.

 First up is our puggle Pistol-annie she is our alarm system and keeps the other dogs in check when needed. She definitely lives up to her name and is full of energy 24/7. 

 Next is our rescue dog Emmie we aren't really sure what she is but we believe she is a walker hound lab mix. She has taken on the role of guard dog and occasionally the escape artist. She is a very faithful dog and takes her job pretty seriously. 

 Hunter is not a permanent resident on the ranch but comes to live with us occasionally. He has been having really bad allergies where he lives now so he will be coming to live with us until his family moves to a better environment. While he is here his job is to keep track of everyone whether it's people, goats or dogs. He is also a very faithful protector.

And last but not least our oldest dog Snickers she is a 15 year old beagle and doesn't really do much but she is the best dog we could ask for.

Sorry again for the delay it did not publish when we originally finished the post.