Dawn's House
The Misting System for Dawn's Animals
So the stupid hot weather is upon us and hens need to stay cool, heat is not good for them, and in my opinion heat isn’t good period!! My hubby Gary and all his awesome handiness, put together a misting system for them to help them stay cool, as you see it starts with the hose on the ground and go ups the tree with all the gadget thingy mebobbers!!
The hens LOVE it! This is their favorite tree to hang out by so now it is officially their hang out when it’s too dang hot out! They love to stand there and get misted!
While the goats on the other hand hate the mister! And that’s because they don’t like getting wet at all, the hens try and talk them into joining them but they will have none of it!
And who is missing from this group you ask? Yes that’s right no Rooster…..it’s a more peaceful place now that’s for sure and the hens don’t miss him one bit they have gone on acting as if they never even knew he existed! I miss him a little, not his attacks but just his presence, but now he can live out his days making baby chicks!!
Butt Roast, Spare Rib and Wilbur!!!
I gotta tell you one of my highlights of the day is when I tend to our pigs (soon to be hogs!) they are just such a joy to raise, I LOVE piggies!! These 3 are growing fast but thankfully I still have at least 4 months with them until its harvest time, I hope you enjoy the recent photos I took of the little boogers!
Well first I wanted to share with you these AWESOME cutting boards I found! Perfect for cutting up some fruit and veggies for the pigs that they just love to chow down on.
Ok hello how f-ing cute are they??!!!
Here are their 2 mud poop pits they have made….a little on the nasty side but fun for them!!
One of their favorite things to do is get mud and poop all over my shoes while biting at my feet! Their second favorite thing to do is use my leg as a scratching post!! So silly!
It’s mud pit poop party time!! this always makes me laugh watching them roll around and digging, and then just making themselves comfortable and laying down in the pit!
Chickens, Pigs & The Rooster!
Oh my gosh they are getting so much bigger already! look at the mud pit these 3 little piggies have created for themselves! And they are in hog heaven!! Digging and playing with branches are two of their favorite things, love love love them!
Of course they love their pig feed but piggies also love salad and apples, its chow down time!
Yes the Rooster is still around……for now! It’s time for the chickens to get some yummy bread pieces, one of our brown hens is so excited she flew a little to get to where the bread was faster! These damn chickens are so fun to watch!
Hope you enjoyed the latest happenings with the hens and hogs, well not quite hogs yet but soon!!
Dawn's New Piggies!
So exciting we just picked up 5 ½ week old little piggies, 3 of them, yes 3 little pigs! My close friend Stephanie that lives in Reno with her hubby and little girl Sam wanted a pig and we agreed to raise it for them. So Sammers was so excited to pick out her pig at Riverbank Farms where we get our Berkshire pigs and she named him Wilbur! My husband Gary named our 2 Butt Shoulder and Spare Rib, I have learned whether they are named or not I love and miss them the same when harvest time comes….here are a bunch of different shots of the super cute babies, who will be huge hogs in no time at all!! I can’t believe how friendly these 3 are already, usually when we get them home they are a little skittish and don’t come up to you until a month later but these 3 are already coming up to us and nibbling on our feet plus they let me pet them and rub their bellies which usually doesn’t happen until at least 2 months…these 3 are gonna be a fun playful handful!!
The weather where we live has been rainy, rainy, rainy these past few days. And for whatever reason goats are not big fans of rain, or course if you don’t give them the choice of shelter they will have to be in the rain but given the choice most goats will choose shelter!! So our 4 goats have been keeping dry inside the barn these past few days and I think they have gotten stir crazy!!
Yahoooo finally the rain let up so first I went to Jim Dog and Billy’s stall to let them out, look how messy they made their stall as they played and ran around inside! Oh and of course on their way out of the barn they first have to stop and start eating from the hay stack!!
Douglas and Bernard so silly, it looks like they are saying “please tell us the rain has stopped so we can go out now!” Douglas went out immediately once their stall door was open but Bernard was a little hesitant trying to make sure he won’t get wet…so silly!!!
Pigs, Chickens, Goats... Oh My!
Sweet little piggies, well not so little anymore! This is there feeder that holds a shit load of food for them, while keeping the damn rats out of their food!
Unlike our first 2 pigs, these two right away knew how to work their automatic water system, smart smart smart…
They love to use this post to itch a scratch and to also nibble on the wood, silly pigs!
Their favorite thing to do, dig!!
Well we only wanted female chickens, but as you know if you have chickens there is a 5 percent chance when you get your baby chicks that there will be a boy so we have a Rooster!! How pretty is he! And loud!
How funny is this photo of Douglas and Bernard..Douglas sticking his tongue out at the camera just makes me laugh!
Chickens Update, y'all!
Our chickens are getting so big! They aren’t yet laying eggs but should be in a couple of months, they are so funny and cute to watch! Once they get used to their routine of going inside the coop at night we will allow them to roam all over the property so they have more grass to eat!
The white chickens are the meat birds, who will be harvested this weekend, looking forward to all natural chicken but I will miss these sweeties….
Here are the chickens roosts…if you don’t know a roost is where the chickens sleep and just sit on and relax!
As I was leaving the chicken coop I noticed how great the sunset looked and had to take a photo!!
It's Becoming Fall At Dawn's Ranch
Okay so good news bad news….bad news our turkeys are getting butchered this weekend by my husband Gary, Rob and Phil from Longhorn Meat Co. in Auburn, CA. I am just kinda sad to see them go, I am sure they will make tasty turkeys for Thanksgiving but they have really been sweet and funny turkeys and have had one hell of a life at our house!! Good news is one of the female turkeys has been laying eggs so there is a 50/50 chance that we will have baby turkeys!!!! Here are some photos of that to share plus a few extra photos from our casa! Enjoy!
Here are the turkey eggs, the turkey incubator and our turkey incubator calendar…we have to rotate the turkey eggs every 12 hours and we have to make sure the incubator stays at a temp of 100 to 101, after we reach our time frame from the calendar we can check and if any of the eggs are actually babies! That’s when we will know if the male turkey fertilized the females….
Fall/Winter is my FAVORITE time of the year and I LOVE when trees have the fall colors…these are my favorite trees on the property…I love coming home and seeing these trees!!!
Here are the turkeys, gobble gobble who have only 1 more day to live….and a photo of one of our chickens sitting in the window in the chicken coop to bring a smile on the face!!
My good friend Stephanie’s daughter Sam drew this photo for me to put on our fridge, she said it’s me riding a horse!!!
Progress On The Baby Chickens
Howdy All!! Thought I would share with you the progress of our baby chickens who are getting close to not being babies anymore!! Soon they will be moving to their big new chicken coop but until then they are living happily in their brooder. Enjoy the photos!!
No more small feeder or small water dish, they have moved up to much bigger containers now!! I think the feeder holds 40 pounds of chicken feed they are eating like crazy! and the water container holds 7 gallons!!
Remember how little they used to be, holy moly they have grown sooooooo much!! Especially the Leghorns, those are the big white ones. They all are still so fun to watch, the way they interact in their world, their cliques and who’s in charge…..so funny!
Dawn Got More Piggies!
Meet Little Piggy 3 and 4! That’s right no naming of the piggies this time! Rob’s wife Janell suggested 3 and 4 and I like it and caught myself adding the little piggy part when I am out feeding them and watching them play. And yes this 2 will also be harvested, this go around we will give more meat to family, friends and folks in need since we still have a freezer with our previous pigs Pork Chop and Bacon in it. These pigs were bred for the purpose of their meat and since my husband and I LOVE raising them til it’s Harvest time we went ahead and bought these 2 we particularly love Berkshire piggies! They were a little more timid at first than bacon and pork chop but they are warming up quickly to their new home and enjoying themselves. Even though they were born for their meat I believe they should have the best life and treated super good while they are here…how super cute are they!!
I also took these photos of the one of our Turkeys, I love when he puffs up like that so pretty! And how sweet are the goats lounging around and cuddling!!
Dawn's Gets More Chickens
So last week we only had 6 of the 20 chickens home and now all our chickens are here!!! We have 3 Leghorns, 3 Barred Rocks, 3 Rhode Island Reds, 3 Delawares, 3 New Hampshire Reds, 2 Black Sex links and 3 Gold Sex Links, enjoy the photos….
Look at this awesome new temporary house my husband made for the little chickies!! They have 2 big rooms one with their water and one with their food, plenty of room for them to run around and plenty of space for them to sleep, which they do a lot of!! This is where they have to live for about 5 to 6 weeks until they are big enough to move into their chicken coop. we continue to monitor the temperature in their box to make sure it doesn’t get too cold or hot while they are growing..
They are just so cute when they sleep!! Look at them cuddle soooooooo sweet!
Eating, drinking and hanging out, I can watch these chicks for hours!! They are so fascinating to watch how their little social world works!!
Dawn's Chicken Coop
Howdy All!!!!!!!!!!! So excited we have added chickens and turkeys to our farm family! Right now we just have 6 chickens but we have 12 more baby chicks coming!! I can’t wait to enjoy the fresh eggs once the baby chickens are grown, it’s amazing the difference between a fresh egg and the ones we buy at the store, I love farm fresh eggs! Hope you enjoy the photos..
Meet the baby chicks…here they are playing and eating, they are sooooooooooooooooooooooooo freaken cute. For the first 5 weeks of their life they have to be kept in this tub once they get bigger we can move them into their own Chicken Coop.
How sweet they are sleeping, and they sleep a lot right now as babies!
One of the main reasons when baby chicks are little that you have to keep them in a big tub is because you have to make sure they are kept at certain temperatures. We need to make sure right now with their age that the temperature in the tub is between 90 and 100 degrees no more and no less. So we have this heat lamp and the temp device that is kept in the tub to monitor the temperature and the temp screen that we can have with us to let us know what temp the little chickens are at so we can adjust accordingly, I get up in the middle of the night a few times to make sure the temp is good for them!
Meet our Thanksgiving Turkey’s, my husband Gary’s cousin Alice (adore her) is an Ag Teacher and her father in law was nice enough to let us have a few of his turkeys that they raise to eat for Thanksgiving….. and yes that’s right my husband Gary along with Rob are going to harvest the turkeys themselves, de plucking and all…look for that video on our members site…..my husband and Rob are very excited about this, I again will be drinking the morning this takes place!
Dawn's Pig Pen
Howdy all!! So I took a few photos of the pig pen that the pigs have totally made their own that I thought I would share with you and then a couple of random photos of stuff we have found on the property!! Enjoy!
Okay so how freaky is this spider! Yeah I found it in our bathroom while cleaning! Ewwwwwwwwww! It’s some type of camel spider can you believe it??!?!!
Yep when you hear gun shots in our neighborhood it isn’t crime or gang related, it’s folks doing target practice or hunting…goody, isn’t that special…. here are some old bullets we found buried next to our fence….
The piggies have gone through 2 pools! They are so funny they will lay in them, than dump the water out and play with the pools! They also played with their jolly ball so much they deflated it!!
Pigs need a water source at all times, they don’t sweat so they drink lots of water so we have two water systems set up for them…one is the bowl and they push the button with their nose and it fills up the other is more like a sow’s nipple…
Bacon and Porkchop’s new shit and pee pile, right in front of their gate! Fun for us when we walk in!!
Here are all the different mud piles the pigs have made for themselves!! They love to lay and roll around in the mud!
I always gotta put on ‘pig clothes’ when I go out to the pigs because well, this is what happens their poop and mud get all over! And my shoes get just as much shit and mud on them so for now this is where I take off my shoes in the garage…someday I hope we have a mud room…I have seen them on some people’s farms and ranches so cool!
Dawn's Pigs Are Cookin' In The Sun
Ughhhhhh! The weather has been so hot these past few days, and since pigs don’t sweat I thought I would show you what our awesome sweet piggies Bacon and Porkchop do to stay cool, since pigs don’t sweat you know!!
Bacon and Porkchop love to sleep and lounge in the mud!! The mud helps to keep them cool, so they have made themselves quite the mud puddle! They are so cute with all the mud on their faces!
Have you heard the saying ‘a pig in shit’….well here is an example of where that comes from! This is their kiddie pool they not only like to dip in but also shit and piss in and then roll around in it…ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Since pigs don’t sweat you gotta make sure they have LOTS of water always, so not only do we have buckets filled with water for them but 2 automatic water systems, don’t want our piggies to get thirsty especially in this stupid heat!!
Bacon and Porkchop playing with each other and Porkchop smelling Bacon’s stinky butt!! Can you believe how big they have gotten, sadly it won’t be long until harvest time….booooooooooooooooooooooo
Rob Visits Dawn's Farm
Howdy All! Over the weekend we had Rob and his wife Janell over to eat some grub, drink and to meet our new piggies, it was actually Rob’s first visit to our Farm in progress so he also got to meet our awesome goats as well! So hope you enjoy the photos of Rob’s visit to the Key Farm!!
First things first, start drinking! Rob and Janell are such a sweet good looking couple!
Got our drinks so it’s time to have Rob and Janell meet the piggies, Bacon and Pork Chop…so freaken cute! They enjoyed watching them and like my husband Gary, Rob can’t wait to taste them as well…