[LuckyGRanch]

Hi Everyone...

Since we're probably coming here from different parts of the forum, would it be a good idea to introduce ourselves? I recognize lots of the folks from the goat forum and feel like I know them but, there's lots of new names too and I'd love to hear about everyone who feels comfortable sharing!

Me first...

I've been over on the goat forum for quite some time but, for those who don't know me, my name is Beth - 33yo. I'm married to a wonderful "City Boy" who's learning to love farm life and we have 2 young children. We live in Wisconsin approx 80 miles NE from Mpls/St Paul.

We have about 75-100 goats and sheep at any given time. Of those, there are about 25 Boers, 10 Sheep (don't know what breed ~ just big), and the rest are dairy goats that are usually bred to my Fullblood Boers. Our numbers will be increasing dramatically starting in just a couple weeks as 15-20 of the Boer does start to kid!

We also have lots of chickens, ducks, rabbits, turkeys, a couple beef steers, etc. Of course we have a couple Great Pyreenes to protect our stock, a token Border Collie (who doesn't have a clue) and a Basset Hound to look lazy on the porch!

Our business is primarily catering to the large Ethnic population in and around Mpls/St Paul. We love our clients and many of them have become very good friends.

 

[Hank - Narita]

We are in the southeast area of AZ and don't have sheep yet. We have been on our homestead for over a year and have dairy goats. We want to purchase some Suffolk sheep in the future as soon as our pasture builds up.

 

[Manchamom]

I am, right now, a wannabe homesteader on a very small peice of coastal scrub land. I own 20 acres on the dessert side of the mountains though and hope to 'retire' there in a few years. In the mean time I work outside the home to support a small herd of goats and sheep. We have four dairy does, two meat does, and their offspring including two wethers we are seriously training for packing. We also have four sheep. The old ewe and her ramlamb are Cheviots and the ewelambs are auction bummers, one with black spots and one with red spots.
My children, 17,16, 14, and 13, benefit greatly from being raised with critters making the expenses very much worthwhile. I also love my animals and discovered that they are a great focus point to keep me going.
I have learned a tremendous amount from these forums and hope to continue doing so. Thank you, Jill

 

[bergere]

Good idea Beth,,

I come from Generations of shepherds & Spinners and weavers.
Raised sheep up until last year, due to my health and my DH's family ( His father died of cancer last year), had to sell my flock.
Am now down to one Sennybridge Welsh Ewe, a wether and two Soay wethers. Just could not give up sheep altogether.
Luckly I do not have to shear the wee Soays.

I have a small Farm,, hopeful next year will move to a bigger Farm.
We raise Rare Dutch Hook Bill Ducks. They are the best ducks we have ever raised. If anyone ever decides to raise them also,, they are in for a treat.

We also have Dominque, Salmon Faverolle, and Silver Grey Dorking chickens. We sell eggs from them.
Two nice Pygmy wethers.
Have three miniature horses, and raise a foal every other year. Have a very hard time parting with the any of the foals.
I train them for cart and to do real draft work on a smaller scale.

Have an small Orchard, only 18 trees, but have room for 5 more. An Herb and Kitchen Garden. My Flower garden is not fairing well because of the drought we are having. Hard to keep up with the watering. Sigh ~ ~
Along with all the Farm chores,, I train my miniature horses
( also used to train big horses on a small scale but can't do that any more), paint, and spin wool.

Have been around the forum,, well, lets just say, a very, very long time. And it is a great Forum to be sure.

 

[MTDeb]

Hi,
I came to HT looking for help and inspiration with learning to spin and found the fiber arts chat on crafting and cooking forum, so I mostly hang out there.

Me and my DH (no kids besides the critters) have four acres just outside of the city limits and would like to get further out away from the city with more land someday but I don't know if we'll ever find anything afforadable.

Right now we have 2 targhee wethers (well actually one wether and a 1/2 wether but that's another story) and a columbia X ? ewe, a bred milk cow, 2 calves, a donkey, chickens for eggs, 3 ducks, 2 rabbits, and 2 cashmere goats. (The sheep are my favorite though) We had 4 suffolk ewes that had 7 lambs this spring and we sold all of those a couple of months ago. I got a lot of help from some of the people on HT when we were lambing as this was our first time and really appreciated them being there.

I'd like to get a couple more good fiber sheep and have been looking at some rambouillet (sp?) and border leicester.

Sure glad to see this sheep forum and I really look forward to learning and sharing with all of you. Thanks!

Deb

 

[MoBarger]

Hi -- I'm in upstate NY with DH and several critters. We have goats and intend to start breeding this year (see my Breeding post in this forum). We have a nubian, a saanan, 7 pygmies and as of Monday, 4 boers, including a buck.
http://mo.cit.cornell.edu/mo/goats/boers/


I also raise all sorts of chickens and started with some ducks, geese and turkeys this year.
OH and one lonely finn/dorset cross and a couple dogs. And a tiel for inside.

We have a bigger garden every year. This year has been strange though. And it has been the year of the critter since their maintenance has taken front and center over everything else this year.

 

[Sunrise]

Hello

My name is Joe I am living in Arkansas and at the moment We have Dairy Goats,Meat Goats, Rabbits, Chickens,Turkeys,Ducks dogs and cats and Racing homers. Haven't got any more sheep yet (except a crossbred weather soon to go tho the freezer) will decide soon as I am leaning towards Fiber/hair sheep and will be getting another hog for the freezer. OH yea and a horse when we get the time to go pick her up
I have been involved with Sheep and Goats for alittle over 30 years have also been 4h leader for 15 or more years. My Partner Dennis (westwood) builds portable Milkers which can be set up for Goats, Mini Goats, Sheep, Or Cows. So as you can see besides both of us working outside of the home and working with livestock, and the milker buisness we have a pretty busy day.

Joe and Dennis

 

[mawalla]

Mari, here. I live in Northwest Arkansas. I raise market lambs. Have a small flock of crossbred ewes and am using a dorset ram to breed to again this year. I am considering going to registered only stock since they do cost the same to raise but will sell higher but it will be one sheep at a time as my girls are my buddies. I've hand raised too many of them and will keep most until the day they die. I get sentimental about my critters!

 

[Sue]

We are in south central Missouri and have been raising Dorper and Katahdin hair sheep. Our flock generally runs 100+ ewes. We started with Katahdins and then switched to Dorpers due to the faster weight gains on lambs. We prefer the taste of the hair sheep over wool sheep and I also use my sheep to train my Border Collies!

 

[southardfarm]

We too are in Missouri. Have a small homestead which is home to Suffolk and Polypay sheep, meat and dairy goats, a donkey, ducks, quail, chickens, rabbits, a couple of feeder pigs and a pair of pot belly pigs. Have 3 working dogs (border collies & a blue tick healer), 2 small house dogs and a couple of barn cats.
J & J

 

[quiet mountain farmer]

My husband and I have a farm on 20 acres in the mountains of northern Idaho. We have four Barbados Blackbelly sheep - 3 ewes and a ram; two 6 month old steers, chickens, geese, ducks, cats, a dog, and four peacocks.

I absolutely love our sheep!

 

[Calvin]

My wife and I and 4 kids, 14, 3, 2, and 10 months keep 140 East Friesian dairy ewes. We plan to milk them commercially next spring. We live in Central Wisconsin. We also have 3 Tatra X Maremma livestock gaurd dogs to protect the flock. Other livestock include 2 Saanen does, White Homeing pigeons, Flemish Giant rabbits, the most colorful flock of laying hens, a donkey named Mae, a Border Collie that almost knows what to do, 3 house guard dogs and 2 cats.
Kind regards,
Calvin

 

[Mouse]

Hi All,

I'm so happy to find a sheep forum on here. I've been so deep in pigs lately that I hadn't noticed it yet. Yippee, I'd found a few forums elsewhere, but didn't like them much. So here I am ready to learn.

My DH and I live on almost 6 acres in central Arkansas. No kids yet, but that's ok. Our little farm include our 8 house dogs (3 of which help me with the livestock and poultry), about 200 chickens, 25 turkeys, 10 ducks, 75 guineas, 3 goats (1 boer% buck, 1 Saanen X doe, and 1 LaMancha wether), 5 sheep (1 Shropshire ewe and her 2 lambs, ewe and ram, and a pair of blackbelly Barbados), and hogs (we're down to a single breeding pair of black and whites and are raising 6 piglets for the freezer, 5 are sold). The buck and the doe are going to a private auction middle of October because we prefer sheep. We're going to be buying some more Barbados sheep in the next few weeks from a guy in Oklahoma, he's got a black ram I really want. I'd love to find some more fleece sheep as they are pretty too. Oh and DH has informed me he's getting me a horse for my birthday and our 10th anniversary. Woohoo, I've always wanted a horse. Now I have to learn all I can about them in the next few weeks. We want to get a milk cow and some beef steers next year, so things are always changing. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Glad to find everyone here,
Mouse

 

[carly]

I am on the eastern panhandle of West Virginia and do not have enough land for sheep-----yet. DH and I are looking in the Romney, Paw Paw,Keyser West Va and Cumberland, Md area for 10 acres or so with a good small house and fencing, with outbuildings in good shape. Just want a couple Jacobs or Finns and some chickens, maybe a alpaca or llama for good luck.

Anyway, I spin and hand dye my yarn, and sell handknits at shows in this tri state area. If anyone knows of my "dream home" pleeeaase tell me!!

Nice to have a sheep forum. I am sure I will learn a lot!

Carly, in the beautiful Appalacian mountains......

 

[ovsfarm]

Hi,

We are rehabilitating a small Ohio Appalachian farm. We have Soay sheep and a couple of llamas to guard them from the coyotes and stray dogs. We also have dogs, cats, and chickens, and we lease some of our land to a guy who runs cows on it, so they're around also. We homeschool and all play a little old time/bluegrass music every now and then.

Our biggest current project is to upgrade the house to keep it from falling down! The next project will be to do some signigicant fencing work. But that is hard when you have to hang off the side of the hill by your fingernails and then try to put in a post or string some fence.

I am trying to increase my flock of Soay-5 ewes, 2 rams and hope to find markets selling the lambs for breeding stock and also to market the wool. I really like this breed of sheep. They are very hardy, do well with minimal human intervention, and have bonded with their pastures so do not challenge the fences. I am trying to do some paddock divisions so we can do more rotational grazing. I also use non-chemical methods for parasite control. So far I have had very good results with herbal wormer and hedgerow grazing of herbs-the count is 0.

 

[grinlow]

Hi
I am SF and live on 155a. a few miles from Charleston Wv. I have 2 karakuls, 8 border liesters and 1 corridale. I spin, weave and spend most of my time feeding and grooming angora rabbits(80). I work only to support my farm habit. I also have 2 cashmere goats and would like to have a few angora goats. In addition to all the other critters we have 20 dairy goat s,2 cows, 2 horses ,3 pigs, and a few chicks.
Nancy

 

[Shahbazin]

Hi!
My DH & I live on an 81 acre ranch in southern CA, not too far from the Tecate border crossing. It's mountainous, but seldom snows (although the climate agrees with my apple trees). It's a family ranch, & my parents live here too; my mom has a horse boarding business. I garden, have about 2 doz. fruit & nut trees, raise blue laced red Wyandottes, Barnevelders, splash Polish, California Daisies, large Modern & Asil chickens. I also spin & crochet, & have a small flock of Shetland sheep - right now, 2 moorit rams, 2 wethers - a grey & a muskit, & in ewes, 2 whites, a moorit, a black, & 3 greys. My DH has a little terrier dog for our housedog. I also raise Anatolian Shepherd dogs to look after my other critters , so have a pair of flock guards, my old stud dog & retired brood ***** live down by the main ranch house, & my young ***** lives in a side yard by my house. If her health certification checks out next spring, I hope to get a litter from her the following year. I teach at a parochial school, & my husband works in the biotech industry. Both of us have long commutes, but it's worth it!

 

[MaKettle]

Hello. DH and I live on a very small acreage in NW Illinois near the Mississippi. We have enjoyed goats, an old horse (now off to the great pasture), and old pony, and various dogs, with the present being a very old springer. There is the Barn Cat, the Kitty Kat, and now the little Other Cat found along the road. There have been runner ducks, chickens, geese, and turkeys. We have a very definite problem of finding it difficult to send our babies to the freezer, and are thinking of naming this place Geriatric Acres. We have no sheep, but are hoping to get some.

 

[Theresa Lipe]

Hi, my name is Terry and my husban,Ed. We live on approx. 200 acres in central Missouri. We have aprox. 150 head of sheep- Icelandics,Shetlands, finns,Scottish Blackface,merino crosses and others. We also raise white and colored angora goats and angora rabbits. I am presently getting a store together to centralize my activities here on the farm. I have yarns spun and blankets made. I am a handspinner but just do not have the time to spin all the time.We are planning to produce wool and mohair rugs after May of next year when my husband retires. I have a Weaver's delight loom which after warping simplifies the process .I wear wool also everyday if just socks and always extol its virtues.We also raise dogs and donkeys.We literally live with our animals and it is not unusual at lambing/kidding time to find a few in my living room.

 

[H A F]

Hi all,

My name is Heather. My husband, Rob, and I have a 10 1/2 acre hobby farm in Minnesota. We started raising sheep in Jan. of 2002. I know have a small flock consisting of nine Jacob sheep, and three Soay sheep. I have learned how to process my fiber and spin it. I also knit, crochet and embroider, and have done some quilting.

We moved out here to enjoy the freedom, and privacy, of living in the country. Also, so our kids can have room to grow, and an education you can't get in the city. As such, we also raise alot of our own food...chicken for meat and eggs, pigs, and a garden. Plus, we have planted a small orchard consisting of apples, cherries, apricots, peaches (hopefully) and raspberries.

Feel free to check out our websight, or to drop me a line.