Doing a double take

Posted by kenleighacres on May 4, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep, Lambing, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 3 Comments

Did you know that Jacobs and Black Welsh Mountain sheep are unique in the fact they are dominantly black genetically?  I knew Jacobs were, but I didn’t know there were only two breeds of sheep like this.  All other breeds must either be colored or have a recessive colored gene to throw colored offspring. 

This is what a typical Jacob cross looks like.  Mostly black with splashes of white, usually on the head.

My sister bought a few sheep from us a couple years ago – a Jacob ram and a some crossbred ewes.  Imagine my surprise when she sent me this picture…

The dad was a purebred Jacob and the mom was a Jacob x Bluefaced Leicester.  Not only is he Jacob looking, but he is also lilac colored.  We expected her lamb to look like her – black with a bit of white.

Everytime I think I understand this breed, even just a little bit – something like this happens. 

5 more = 53

Posted by kenleighacres on May 3, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep, Lambing, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . 4 Comments

Our last lamb was born on Friday morning, bringing the total number of lambs born in 2010 to 53!

Here is the new little guy and his protective mama.

His name is Prescott and he has the cutest little polka dots on his nose. 

This is Paulina and she is growing very fast.  She gained 5 lbs. in the first week!

Little Glenada

and her lilac sister, Willamina.

She reminds me of a stuffed animal.

Jasper, another pretty lilac.

It is hard to believe they will look like this…

and this…

in a few months!  This is Nyssa and her mom Azera.

Our first lambs are leaving on Saturday!

Time to go outside!

Posted by kenleighacres on May 3, 2010
Posted in: Chickens, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 2 Comments

That is what I told the chicks this morning.  They have started roosting on the side of the brooder and I found poop on top of one of the dog kennels. 

They are in the ugly duckling stage 🙂

I LOVE the colors in these chicks.

The blue laced red wyandottes were only available in straight run (unsexed) and it looks like there is one rooster.  That is better than I expected and hope it stays that way!

I think they enjoyed exploring the big pen and tonight is supposed to be pretty mild temperature wise and the dog room smells SO much better tonight!

Look at who else was outside this weekend!  Two VERY protective parents and their 4 babies.  These are at a friend’s house.

The weather was beautiful today and it was nice to enjoy the outdoors again!

Patience…

Posted by kenleighacres on April 30, 2010
Posted in: family, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . 4 Comments

is something I am always working on.  It is not something that comes naturally and I count to 10 a lot 🙂  It certainly is a virtue!

This girl has a lot of it…

she has such a sweet, calm, relaxed demeanor. 

Her name is ‘Patience’ and that is not a coincidence!  Her mother was  obnoxious and refused to accept her brother.  He ended up becoming a bottle lamb and this little girl just went with the flow.  Even when her mother was being mean to her brother and I was constantly interfering trying different techniques she was just a mellow little lamb.  

I have no use for ewes that reject lambs and I was looking for some patience, so the name made sense! 

She wasn’t on the ‘keep’ list due to her dark coloring, but she stayed and I am so thankful she did.  She has become VERY friendly and loves to have her belly scratched in the morning and look what she had…

a beautiful ewe lamb with the same, sweet personality!

Patience has proven to be an excellent mother and is handling it with the same laidback, patient approach as she does everything.

Yes, we are lambing again 🙂 

We have 4 ewes bred to Patchwork Abraham and 3 of them have lambed so far.

 

He is maturing into a handsome young man and his lambs are all darling.

As soon as the last girl lambs, I will share pictures of all of them.  She is teaching me how to be patient 😉

Deuce and friends

Posted by kenleighacres on April 24, 2010
Posted in: Lab, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 2 Comments

Remember Deuce…

our cute little black lab puppy…

look at her now – all grown up!

She is a great dog and very smart.

My husband has joined a local retriever club and they are training several times a week.  Both of them are thoroughly enjoying it.  She LOVES the water!

It is always a joy to see dogs doing what they were originally bred for.

Look at the ‘crazed’ look on this dog’s face! 

Ah, mission accomplished – bringing the bumper back.

The power that they have to move through the water like this is amazing.

Radar is a BIG boy, but look at how graceful he is…

They were all happy dogs at the end of training!

 

Likes and dislikes…

Posted by kenleighacres on April 21, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , . 6 Comments

While I was rebedding the barn yesterday, I was thinking about how much I dislike this job.  It took almost 700 lbs. of straw and 2 hours.  I started thinking about what I like and dislike – it helped pass the time 🙂

My son was a great help and this is a BIG like.

The sheep have started spending all day on the grass and I am feeding a lot less hay – LIKE!!!

I know we need the gray, rainy days – but that doesn’t mean I have to like them.

I also do not like my sheep complaining to me about it raining and that I need to hurry up!

I like seeing how big our lambs are getting – WOW!

I really dislike seeing Chance on the wrong side of the fence.  She allows herself 24/7 access to the pasture and she is getting very fat.  I keep hoping that she won’t be able to jump with the extra weight, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Here are some of the girls I like – Aloha, Mollala, and Paisley…

and the boys I like –

Riddle

Buchanan

and Hermiston.

The thing I liked most about yesterday was the clean barn and hearing the sheep run over the crisp straw 🙂 

There are geese everywhere!

Posted by kenleighacres on April 20, 2010
Posted in: Border Collie. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

We had a great weekend – warm weather was abundant and it was starting to feel like Spring – and everytime I turned around, it seemed like I was seeing geese!!!

Kate and I made our usual rounds at the college.  Here she is looking across the track at some geese.  She has this job figured out!!!

What a great job this is!  I love listening to the geese and seeing them in flight.

The geese have called this field ‘home’ for quite awhile and are reluctant to leave… 

some more than others.

Most of them are paired up and are either sitting on nests or getting ready to…

and some have already hatched out their babies!  I attended a lure coursing practice on Sunday and there were two pairs of geese with goslings.

Our little pond has a pair of geese that fly in and spend most of the day here.  I would love to know where they go at night.

They are beautiful birds!

S is for…

Posted by kenleighacres on April 18, 2010
Posted in: family. Tagged: , . 7 Comments

Snake!

We have our first pet snake in the household 🙂

Now that the sun has come out – my son has been finding snakes everywhere.  He has been setting up little traps trying to catch them without any luck.  He found 5 yesterday, but I was too late to catch them – they had already crawled into the tall grass. 

Then we found this beauty…

I was a little surprised when I picked it up because I was expecting it to be a Garter snake.

Garter snakes are pretty boring looking…

 and this snake, with the vibrant orange underside, definitely isn’t boring.

When I was a kid, we used to catch snakes all the time, and we never caught a snake this cool!!!  I have fond memories of catching and keeping ‘pet’ snakes, so when my son asked if he could keep it as a pet my answer was yes!  First though, I had to figure out what kind of snake it was…

It turns out to be a Ringneck Snake.  It is a common snake, but is nocturnal and secretive.  

Thanks to Bindi the Jungle Girl (his first crush) he has excellent snake handling skills 🙂

The first item on today’s ‘to do’ list was to get an aquarium and set-up a snake habitat – complete with crickets, earthworms, moist dirt, moss, and lots of good hiding spots.

He/she/it seems to be enjoying the surroundings and my son is thrilled to have a ‘pet’ snake!

Hangin’ with the peeps

Posted by kenleighacres on April 15, 2010
Posted in: Chickens, family, Farm Life. Tagged: , , , . 6 Comments

For the people who enjoy pictures of chicks and those living vicariously through us 🙂

We took some of the chicks out for a little sunshine this afternoon. 

They had fun scratching at the ground, looking for tasty little morsels.

You can already see differences in the breeds…

for example, the Silver Spangled Hamburgs like to be UP.  They jumped up on the edge of the box while we were carrying them outside and my son had fun having them walk up and down his arm. 

The BLR Wyandottes are the mellowest of the group and have no problem being picked up over and over again 🙂

The Cukoo Marans are kind of middle of the road.

I’m sure they will all be used to being handled in a few weeks!

You can really see the colors in the BLR Wyandottes in the sunlight.

The following aren’t chicks or peeps, but they are hangin’ out!

My son is still working on his cat – down to just eyes and ears.  While he has been working on it,  I have gotten quite a few woolly sheep made.  You can see close-ups of them in my Etsy shop.

I’ll leave you with one more picture of the peeps!

Our new egg layers

Posted by kenleighacres on April 13, 2010
Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life. Tagged: , , , . 6 Comments

A few weeks ago we ordered chicks through McMurray Hatchery and they were scheduled to arrive sometime this week.  They arrived yesterday… while I was gone for the day!  Luckily my husband was home and was able to go into to town and pick them up. 

Nothing like a box FULL of chirping chicks!

The minimum order is 25 and that is a LOT more than I wanted/needed.  So, I asked my dad, brother, and sister and they all wanted some.  The total came to 51 chicks of 13 different breeds!

We received a total of 55 chicks and I split them into two different boxes.

Box #1

Box #2

Now came the fun part – we had to figure out which chicks belonged to who???  My sister came over to help and pick up her chicks.

Gracie Ann had fun helping.

 

Some were easy to tell apart – New Hampshire Red on the left and a Phoenix on the right.  Some were not so easy.  My brother ordered some Buff Orpingtons and my sister ordered the New Hampshires – they look very similar and were very hard to tell apart.  Luckily they weren’t picky!  

 

This chick is a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and I am so excited about this breed. 

Here is an adult – I love the colors. 

I also ordered some Cukoo Marans, Lakenvelders, and Silver Spangled Hamburgs.

This is the first time I have ordered chicks through the mail and am very pleased with the results.  The chicks arrived in good health and we were able to get the breeds we wanted.

I’m glad I only have 10 to raise and not 55 🙂