We've got baby Creme D'Argents!

Fig finally kindled a successful litter of baby Creme D'Argents!

We had 9 little wrigglers born yesterday on the farm and so far mom and babies are doing well.

I can't wait to share photos on here as they grow and change. They will start out an orange color when their fur comes in and then their coats will get their silvering as they get older.






I hope that this litter is the first of many commercial litters to come..

Its March! (and it feels like spring around here)

Since I really don't have much to share in terms of content today, I'll just leave a whole bunch of recent photos to look at.

I'm hard at work on website updating and planning out my staggering of the goat breeding for year round milk production.

First kids will be due in early May as my Myotonic Dandy is confirmed pregnant.

Photos:


The newly red painted bunny barn. The bunny barn is one of my favorite parts of the farm, it is so functional with suspended cages, at autowatering system and such a wonderful open air design.


Rear view of the bunny barn from the future dog (and rabbit) agility field (former goat paddock)


Almond joy


Family affair, Athena with her doelings Latte and Spice


Dudette getting rowdy wanting to play headbutt


Alot of the farm looks like this due to land clearing.


The goat does are an excellent cleanup crew!


You can barely see the old walking path anymore with all the trees coming down.


Goatie gals


Spice, she is for sale $250.00 AGS/ADGA registered


love my goaties


Wind Chime is smiling


So is Caddy


little Latte


Spice again, for sale $250.00 AGS/ADGA registered


Dudette!


Latte!

Quick Website Note

I have been very behind on keeping the farm website www.imaginationacres.com up to date...

Since the farm is very much in a transition stage, especially with the bunnies I took down the specific sections on each species/type of animal the farm raises to do some major overhauls and when those updates are complete the sections will be added back to the website.

The rabbit section will be trimmed down a bit while still offering as much info on how I care for/raise my breeds of rabbits. I will have a new section on buying rabbit meat directly from the farm for both animal and human consumption and a section on rabbit furs too.

Most importantly with the goats I wanted to get new winter fuzzy photos of all the herd animals, post the breeding schedule for 2012/13 and make sure all my management info is up to date.

The poultry section will still be a bit of a work in progress since I haven't taken the plunge into breeding my birds yet but hope to by the end of this year.

I will be launching a pair of new sites hopefully by mid-year. The first site is in association with my kennel partner for our miniature/mid-size goldendoodle puppies and a separate site for my pit bulls/amercian bullies and my miniature poodles. The dog sites will be puppy/future litter related but will also cover alot of the dog activities my pups participate in and so forth.

Lots of web editing to do, lots of photos to take but hopefully the finished projects will be informative, functional and eye catching!

Busy Times as Always

All is well on the farm, its been such a nice winter that colder days like today catch me by surprise.

The two photos above show the begining of the land clearing project on the farm that is currently underway. About a 1/2 acre in the front yard of the farm is being cleared specifically for a garden plot. These two photos show the begining of that project.

Additional land totaling about 4 acres is being cleared for pasture space opposite the garden area. The majority of the 20 acre property will still be wooded and natural space for my livestock, dogs, and the wildlife who make their home on my land but the added pasture and garden space is eagerly anticipated.

In animal news things are in a holding pattern as the cold weather finishes up for the season. I rebred my Creme D'Argent pair today since their last litter missed and will be rebreeding some Rhinelanders including a blue litter within the next week mostly for meat and fur use on the farm, although any showable marked will be moved into show homes. As far as the goats, only one doe is bred at the moment my Myotonic Dandy, the rest of the goats will be bred for early fall kids, last summer was so hot I'd much prefer the kids be born in the cooler part of September versus steaming hot July/August.

The goats are tolerating winter well so far. The buck paddock will be moved once the land clearing project is complete so that they no longer share a fence line at all with the does which will make life much easier during rut and when does come into heat.

Here's wether Patches being a goof.. he and his brother Oreo will be butchered for meat soon and I hope to tan their hides so as to utilize as much of them as possible.

This is Dudette, she is maturing into such a nice doeling.

Here's Oreo the other wether going for meat soon, he is such a piggie pig, always nomming away.

The goats sure love their hay!

In chicken/poultry news, I will be ordering a few sets of baby chicks this year to replenish my small flock. There is nothing cuter/more fun than peeping baby chicks, I cannot wait to get my first order. This years breeds will be Golden Campines, possibly the silver variety too. Delawares, Jersey Giants in black and either Dominiques or New Hampshires.

These are 2 New Hampshire hens in the woods, such pretty ladies!

This is one of my Dominique hens

This is my Golden Campine hen next to a New Hampshire.

I just love chickens, they are such funny birds. I hope to add some turkeys to the farm again this year and possibly some Guineas if I can raise a set of babies with my baby chicks to hopefully condition them to the farm.

Here's a view inside my bunny barn, I love my bunny barn and love to show it off!

This is Quizno my Creme buck!

And this is the antisocial Creme doe of mine, Fig

And for a little nostalgia.. Next month my very first litter ever, my litter of Belgian Hares will be celebrating their 4th birthdays. Unfortanetly many of the rabbits from my first litter are deceased, that litter taught me so much about breeding, genetic influence on health and the importance of breeding rabbits for good health.. I still have Bandito on the farm, he lived with Keep's Rabbitry for a long while and then returned home for his retirement. He is still handsome, still sweet, and I can still remember him as a little baby when he fit inside the palm of my hand. I hope he gets to live many more years on the farm, just being a spoiled pet.

So much for my New Years Resolution?

I've really wanted to blog more lately and post pictures of the farm critters but life is so incredibly busy right now I haven't had much of a chance.

On the plus side starting in February I will only be working 1 night at the ER clinic a week which will open up just about every other weekend for me so long as I'm not working the Saturday at the day practice. These open weekends will be dedicated to the farm and the dogs respectively.

In farm news my Creme D'Argent rabbit litter missed so no cute orange babies on the farm.. I will rebreed the doe if we have a warm day this week and I'm going to be culling out the rest of my Rhinelanders over the next month or two so all of my cages will be open by spring for my commercial rabbit project. If the Cremes don't end up producing like clockwork like my Rhinelanders and Belgian Hares have in the past then I most certainly will bring in another rare/heritage commercial breed that is dual purpose meat/fur.. I'm experimenting with tanning rabbit hides at the moment, the goal being to use as much of the animal as possible and I hope to have a whole blog post soon all about the processes I'm trying.

In goat news I've been lax with getting on the boat with breeding... I only think my fainter Dandy is bred at this point and I'm not 100% sure.. I'm going to be staggering the Nigerian does for breeding this year, the plan being to have a kidding every few months so I'm not overwhelmed with kidding responsibilities all at one time and to hopefully have milk available year round.

In chicken news, not much to report.. the first baby chicks will arrive in a month or so which is always fun. My current hens are not too amused with the cold weather and it certainly has effected their laying as egg production is down quite a bit.

Alot of changes will be coming to the farm this year, the big project around the corner is a major clearing and landscaping project. Just about 3 acres are being completely cleared for pasture space, the goal being to use it for hay production down the line. Other areas are being thinned and clear cut respectively, a half acre plot for a garden space, a separate space for a new goat buck area that will completely separate the boys from the girls. (no more shared fenceline, yay!) And of course the dogs are benefiting greatly from all this as they will be getting a much larger play yard, an agility field and an expanded kennel.

I'll try and get some photos up soon, I'm also planning on doing a major overhaul on the farm website... stay tuned!

First post of the New Year

My resolution was to be better blogger and so here it goes!

As January rolls into the farm it has brought with it very frigid weather. The rabbits water bowls freeze each night and have to be thawed/the ice banged out and refilled each morning and evening. Thanks to heated water buckets and bowls/heat in the kennel I don't have that problem with the goats, pigs, chickens and dogs.

Construction on the farm will be resuming soon, the first project of the new year is a small addition on the house deemed "the pet play room." This space is specifically designed for my evergrowing/expanding dog pack, it will function as an indoor training space and room just for the dogs in the house, the goal is to keep the dogs primarily in there so the rest of my house stays a bit cleaner.

The next big project will start after the pet play room is built later this winter/early spring which will be the much anticipated land clearing project. More will be added about this exciting project when we get closer to its start, I cannot wait to have more pasture space and garden space!

In animal news all is well and stable on the farm. I've decided to do something new with the goats this year and I will be staggering my breedings. The goal for this is to have milk available throughout the year so by breeding the does on spaced intervals I will have a doe in milk year round. In the rabbit barn my current litter of Rhinelanders are growing like weeds, the marked looks better and better every day. I have 2 does due in a little over a week, a Rhinelander litter and my first ever Creme litter.. my fingers are crossed for a whole bunch of cute little orange cremes.

I'll be ordering baby chicks soon to replenish my flock, the hens haven't been laying much due to the extreme cold and several are just finished with their molts. This year I'm going to order more Jersey Giants, Delawares, Campines and New Hampshires. I may also order some turkeys too and give the turkey raising a shot again..

That about sums up whats going on around the farm at the moment. Since my resolution is to post on the blog more often I will be checking in on here whenever I can even if its just to post 1 photo or to report one tidbit of farm news.

Current Farm Photos:

It sure looks bleak in the paddocks right now with all the leaves fallen from the trees and the sky gray with cold. The goat does don't mind and are hard at work eating their hay out of their hayrack.

From left to right in this photo: Wind Chime, Dixie, Spice, Latte, Athena, Dudette, Macara and Caddy. The fainters Ribbon and Dandy, and the nigerian dwarf Almond Joy are on the other side of the hay rack and not seen in this photo.

Here are 2 of my Domonique hens, they're still looking a bit off from their winter feather molts but they are looking so much better then they did a few weeks ago. This breed of chicken is very docile and they are excellent layers.

Here are the boys nomming away at their hay.

That's a New Hampshire hen up front, they're a big docile breed and I really love them, I'm looking forward to having more baby chicks of this breed in the next few months. In this photo Gigantor is the goat on top of the hay rack, Tambourine is the big white goat up front and Midnight and Herhsey are to the right.

Every morning my "farm hands," try to help me get chores completed. Reuben and Ritz wait at the gate to help.. Ghost the cat gets a better view from above.

Here's an upclose of hay chow time.

And another upclose view of the gals nomming away.

Pepper hates, HATES HATES the cold but she will wait patiently at the gate for me to return from feeding and watering the goats each morning.

Ritz and Reuben are much more enthusiastic about my return to the dog yard..

And here's the cute little marked baby with its sport sibling snuggling in their nestbox.

The baby just loves the water dish.

Seriously it spends alot of time just licking the outside and dipping its head in the water.. what a little goofball.

Here's protective momma Confetti with her cute little marked baby!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

My resolution is to be a better farm blogger in 2012!

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful new year.