28 Jun 2006
Some New Critters (Some Just Visiting)

Things have been moving fast around here, and I've not had the time to blog too much about them. I had mentioned a while back that we'd sold most of the Highland cattle herd: we'll let them breed back up to full strength over time. But we really needed a calf for our petting zoo, so we purchased a Simmental bottle baby from a local farm:

Annie
Annie

We named her Annie due to her slightly curly red hair - she's not a purebred, but she sure is sweet. She took her first trip with the zoo last Friday to Holliday Park in Indy, and she had a great time! In fact, we all did!

We have also found a market for lamb, and have been selling more fleeces of late, so we thought we'd use a little of the money we made from the cattle to build up a small flock of sheep - now that they're weaned and out in the pasture all the time, Link and Cory were getting lonely! So we bought a small flock (two ewes with their three wethered ram lambs) of Horned Dorsets from Connor Prairie, and a couple of bottle ewe lambs (a white Texile and a black Suffolk cross) from Kevyn.

Dorset Flock
The Dorset Flock

Dorset Ram
One of the Dorset Ram Lambs

Dorset Ram
Another Dorset Ram Lamb

Texile and SuffolkX
Texile and SuffolkX Ewe Lambs (Piglet and Roo)

Texile Ewe
Texile Ewe (Piglet)

So our sheep count is back up to nine: we're going to get a Blackie ram and stand him to the ewes for next springs lamb crop, but that's the only addition we're planning right now.

As if all this wasn't enough to keep us hopping, we've also had a couple of visitors. These two birds of a feather wandered down from Kevyn's parents house into our neck of the woods a couple of weeks ago. The found our place last Friday, and they must like the chickens or something, 'cause they've stuck around.

Peacock and Peahen
Peacock and Peahen

Peacock Showing Off
What a Showoff!

Nobody's come to claim them yet, even though we've let the owners know they're here and hanging around. And I guess they can stay for a while - they are awful cool to watch, even if their call sounds like a mourning dove being strangled in a cement mixer!

And I think I'm all caught up ...

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