The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Off Topic => Topic started by: Sunshine on January 04, 2013, 02:29:01 AM
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Okay not really the FARMING life... or a really big farm... but, I just thought I'd share some pictures of my small hobby farm and all my critters who I love so much :lovey: (We call them 'lovestock', not 'livestock'.) We started the farm because we bought a house kind of out in the country on a small piece of land and realized we basically bought a chestnut farm. We have something like 28 chestnut trees on the property. We also raise chickens, turkey, geese, and 2 goats. The birds are mainly for egg production, and incubation in the spring, and the goats are just pests. Oops did I type pests... I meant pets... no, I was right, I meant pests. :silly:
So I have like a bazillion pix but here are some that I actually had a chance to upload to photobucket...
This is Jive turkey. He's our star on the farm. He's the absolute nicest, funniest turkey in the world. He's a Royal Palm - on the American Heritage Breed Conservancy list. He just follows you around all day and hangs out outside. When you laugh, he gobbles. He's quite funny. We love him.
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This little guy is named after one of the new FIM ponies - Drama Pony! He's a silkie chicken... and he's really a funny little guy. I don't know how he sees out of those feathers on his head!
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Here is a shot of part of our gaggle of geese. This is when the young ones were still small! Now they're all huge! And so noisy! We have American Buff geese, Tolouse, Chinese Crested, White Chinese Crested and some mixies. There are also 2 drakes who hang out in with the geese. They have no idea they're ducks and not geese, and the geese don't seem to notice either!
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Here's another shot of some of the ducks and geese:
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This is Qui-Lo - my male Chinese Crested purebred. He's hilarious - and acts as a sentry for the rest of the group. Sadly, he has no mate yet (though I know some of the young ones - none of which are related to him - are female, so he has a chance yet!)
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These two goofy creatures are the dogs :) Sorta farm dogs, they're inside dogs... Quorra (blue heeler mix) and Spencer (lab).
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Jive struttin' his stuff (this was before his tail feathers all grew back in, he's practically perfect now!)
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Our two goats - AnnaBelle and Felicity - known more commonly as Annie and Feli (Annie - white, Feli - brown, Feli is Annies daughter)
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Annie say WHAA??
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This was the first duckling we ever hatched here from our own flock - his name is Lucky, he's still around today, and he still eat out of my hands.
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This is Redbird - our Leghorn Rooster. The first bird we EVER got. Red is an old roo now...
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And a picture of some of the chickens:
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Okay sorry for cluttering up the wall but posting this but I just thought I'd share. I love taking pics of the animals (haven't done so in the winter, need to get out there), and I just love sharing what I've learned about them, etc, from living here so far. :) Don't know what the point of this post was really other than an excuse to share some pictures of farm animals, hehe :) But I'll share knowledge I have too if anyone wants to know, lol! (I'm no expert by any means!)
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I really love the pictures you have shared! Especially the pretty crested birdy!
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You do have yourself a small farm there :)
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Love the pics!! :D
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WOW! Everybody seems so happy :D The little ducky is cute :3
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So cute! I always wanted a farm myself! That or a zoo.... You are so lucky!
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WOW! I'd call that a farm! Jive Turkey is beautiful! I'd love to get some chickens for fresh eggs (we have one acre) but I'm not quite ready for that yet, but I know who to ask if I have questions!
Great pics.
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Jive is beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing your pictures, I really enjoyed your post. :D Having a little homestead is a dream of mine and I love seeing them.
Congrats for the lovely place and all your hard work!!
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I love your fowl! Serious chicken love here. :)
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Aww thanks everyone!
And yes... maybe it is more of a zoo than a farm, haha! We always joke that we should charge admission to see all the animals! :silly:
WOW! I'd call that a farm! Jive Turkey is beautiful! I'd love to get some chickens for fresh eggs (we have one acre) but I'm not quite ready for that yet, but I know who to ask if I have questions!
Great pics.
Oh man, it's so wonderful to have your own chickens for eggs - you'll never go back to store eggs. I consider myself an "egg snob" (jokingly) now - because I never realized that 1) eggs have a shelf life of over 100 days (yep! from chicken butt to fridge, they can last 100 days), and because of that, 2) most store eggs are a few weeks old at least. This is why they're Grade A eggs, and if you raise your own birds, you'll be getting Grade AA eggs (if they're fresh, they then go down to Grade A, Grade B etc..) and the yolks are SO YELLOW. It's amazing! We made some homemade vanilla pudding the other day using our duck eggs, and I was like "Wow it's so yellow!" because of the yolks from the duck eggs. So I would certainly look into getting birds... if you had a half dozen birds you'd probably get 2-4 eggs a day, and you don't need a rooster for it, so if you want to cut down on noise you can get by with just hens. :)
I love your fowl! Serious chicken love here. :)
I hope soon we will have a few more varieties of chickens - our flock is now between 1-2 yrs old, so some of the hens are probably going to lack on egg production soon, and that leaves an opening for new hens to come into the flock and lay for us. I'm hoping we can get some Jersey Giants, as well as some additions to our Araucana (the green egg laying chickens). Right now I just have 2 hens (and no pictures of them apparently) that lay green eggs, so I want more of those! :) I also love some of the crazier looking birds - I'd like to get a mate for D-e-r p (his name is /not/ Drama Pony, lol) so a female silkie, and maybe some Polish Crested or something of the sort. We had 2 guineas (1 just got eaten by a fox a few weeks ago, so we're down to 1) - and I think this spring we will get more of those. They eat ticks, so it's AMAZING to have them around the farm because we have lots of ticks in this part of the state.
Oh yeah, and I love chickens too! I used to think birds (esp. chickens) were all just stupid, drone-like creatures... you know, never had much exposure to them. Once I got the chickens, I spent so much time watching them, and now I realize, especially the roosters, all have individual personalities, quirks, behaviors, noises... (the hens kind of tend to all act the same, some stand out...) and the ducks, omg the ducks and geese I've learned SO much about. Ducks and geese have friends. Like for real, like you and I, friends. Friends that they would stick with through thick and thin and put themselves in danger to be with their friends... I never knew that! I had no idea! But it's VERY obvious when you get to watch them all the time. And they have cliques. So not all ducks are friends with each other... it's crazy!
I will say, it's super fun, but so much work! We also try to grow veggies in the spring/summer so that adds to the fun... but I would certainly recommend having a couple birds and growing some of your own food, even if it's a little tiny window garden, it's quite satisfying to open a pantry stocked with home canned goods or eat an omelet from home grown eggs.
Again, thanks for letting me share!
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WOOOOW!!! I absolutely LOVE your pets :):) it is so wonderful to see these animals treated the way they should be :lovey: You're basically living my dream :D
I must admit I didn't have a high opinion on birds until I rescued and nursed my pigeon, and then I realised just how intelligent and full of personality birds actually are! Now I see them in the same light I saw cats and dogs ^^
I think one day maybe I could get myself a farm here with all the birdies but I wonder how well they handle the cold :O I'd also love to have a bunch of Icelandic sheep, I love sheep and they could support themselves by producing wool :)
Anyways, lots of respect from me to you, and lots of love for your lovestock :)
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What a nice farm! I love your animals. They look so happy.
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Meep! I LOVE GOATS! Any time I find a petting zoo I head straight for the goats.
You have a beautiful critter family. I am seriously jelly!
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your animals are beautiful! they look so healthy and happy. especially your goats :) are they dwarf nigerians? oh and they dont have to pests, if you breed and kid you can milk them :)
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Dawwww! :lovey: I just love the pictures. *wants to pet/hug/pat/feed/whatever all the cute farm animals*
*and makes sure not to get goosed by the geese*
That one fellow really looks like he's struttin' his stuff.
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Jive is cute, you don't see many Turkeys on farms around here. My first pet was a Bantam, so I LOVE chickens, they are smarter than people give them credit for.. Great pics
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Adorable pictures!! I love those goats and turkeys, in particular! We have close to 100 head of cattle, 4 ducks, 20 chickens (coyotes just nabbed our rooster and lots of hens - boo), 2 pigs, and 5 sheep...I love them all so much.
I'm really interested in getting goats at some point - what breed do you have? We're also planning on merging our coyote-stricken flock of chickens with a different flock and then putting turkeys in the birds' previous run. I can't get enough of that gobbling sound! ^.^
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Love them all, thanks so much for sharing. Man I miss fresh eggs.
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your animals are beautiful! they look so healthy and happy. especially your goats :) are they dwarf nigerians? oh and they dont have to pests, if you breed and kid you can milk them :)
Thank you!!
And about the goats -I know, heheh, they're just pests because they're always getting into stuff, so curious. We've learned how clever they are! :silly: But when we got Annie and Feli - she had just had Feli so we milked Annie the first year. We had a male goat, but unfortunately he was extremely aggressive and violent towards them and so he had to go, ALSO unfortunately he did not get either one pregnant before he left... so, we're hoping to drop them off at a friends farm this spring and he's got lots of male goats and said they can hang out there for a few weeks and then we can get them both milking again...
When we did milk them, we made goat cheese and mozzarella from their milk. It was awesome!! Best pizzas I've ever had, haha!
Sarafina - 100 head of cattle wow! I wish we had that kind of space! We probably could have 2-3 cows or horses, but the expenses are too much for ANY more animals. I think we have 10 geese, 25 ducks, 2 turkeys, probably 40 chickens, 1 guinea and then the goats. We have issues with losing birds too - foxes mostly. They do always seem to get so many more hens, I think because the hens get so loopy at night, at least the roosters crow when there's something amiss... I think that saves them, but then leaves us with flocks laden with roosters... we have also thought about consolidating our flocks - the Araucanas actually live separately with the turkeys, but we've been throwing around the idea of getting more female turkeys so Jive can have his choice of girlfriends (and a female Royal Palm would be FANTASTIC!)
As for the kind of goats - Annie - we have no idea, both of them were "junk goats" given to us for cheap, they were in super poor condition when we adopted them, had scars and bleeding spots all over their lips (they were only being kept in field of brambles and thorns to eat!) - and so, those people didn't know what kind of goats, but we were told that Feli is 1/2 Nubian - which is why she's HUGE compared to Annie now... so I assume the father was the Nubian, I don't know what Annie is. I always thing Saan or whatever, but I know she's not that.
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Great pictures!
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So many animals! And they all look so happy and healthy. :)
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As for the kind of goats - Annie - we have no idea, both of them were "junk goats" given to us for cheap, they were in super poor condition when we adopted them, had scars and bleeding spots all over their lips (they were only being kept in field of brambles and thorns to eat!)
So not only do you have a variety of wonderful pets, you've rescued some of them! OMG. I love you! ;) I hope to do something very similar to what you have going one day. Goat cheese on your pizza?!!? That sounds amazing!
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CHICKENS!!!! Seriously, I love all your farm animals and think they are adorable, but I am a chicken owner myself and seeing your lovely's made me go "Aww"! Leghorn roosters are the best! Ours is named Omelet. Seeing your ducks and geese makes me wish I had a little extra space to raise them as well. Cute animals!!!
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As for the kind of goats - Annie - we have no idea, both of them were "junk goats" given to us for cheap, they were in super poor condition when we adopted them, had scars and bleeding spots all over their lips (they were only being kept in field of brambles and thorns to eat!)
So not only do you have a variety of wonderful pets, you've rescued some of them! OMG. I love you! ;) I hope to do something very similar to what you have going one day. Goat cheese on your pizza?!!? That sounds amazing!
Aww :lovey: I hope you do one day because it's a lot of fun, hehe... expensive and lots of work, but fun! And yeah, I mean we did buy the goats, but they were at the animal swap we go to at the local feed store and basically the owner said he was going to sell them or eat them... and since Feli was a baby at the time (like...2-3 months old?) - I literally pulled the bf aside and told him we needed to buy them with tears in my eyes, lol. I never liked goats so much because before Annie and Feli we only had the one very unruly male (he was also a rescue kinda, he was a Kiko mix that was living in one of those 9x9-ish chain-link dog kennels, with nowhere to go) - and then once they go to our place, and started eating feed and hay, their lips healed right up and Feli is SO FAT (omg is there goat weight loss programs? Cause she needs it!).
And goat cheese on a pizza is so MMMM omgosh, lol you make me want to get my goats milking NOW so I can make some, but if you continue with the goat cheese making process and then let it go a bit longer than the goat cheese says, you basically end up with mozzarella (goat mozz, obviously), and the combo of the two of them was awesome! I wish I could handle enough goats to really MAKE cheese but, no way, not until I get a fence to keep my animals away from my crazy neighbors lol! Oh yah and maybe win the lottery! LOL
CHICKENS!!!! Seriously, I love all your farm animals and think they are adorable, but I am a chicken owner myself and seeing your lovely's made me go "Aww"! Leghorn roosters are the best! Ours is named Omelet. Seeing your ducks and geese makes me wish I had a little extra space to raise them as well. Cute animals!!!
Thanks! Yay for chickens! They're so much more fun than I'd ever expect! Leghorns are the best! MAN they have the BEST crows! I was so super excited when we got Redbird, my bf and I had just uncovered an old cement pad in the backyard with some fencing around it (later discovered it was for dogs? but we thought it had been for chickens), so we went out on craigslist, found a lady selling roosters (YES, that's right, I went and SOUGHT out a rooster, and paid good money for him! hahah seems silly now because I have so many roos, but none like Redbird), bought the rooster first, and then realized he kinda needed some hens... lol oops - so had to go buy 2 hens so he wouldn't be lonely. Those two hens died like 2 months into having the birds - a raccoon got into their hutch, killed one hen in the hutch, took the other, and Red was in there, beaten up, but alive. Basically I think he fended off the raccoon for his own life. So Red's been through tough times, and even though he's not the top roo of the flock anymore, he still has the most lovely voice. I do love Redbird, will be sad when something happens to that guy!
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I <3 goats! They are my favorite "farm animal"! Yours are so adorable! I also LOVE chestnuts! So I'm incredibly jealous :P It looks like a little slice of paradise there! great pics.
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Love the pics, you must share more. Oh and your turkey is so handsome!!!
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ha ha ha ! fluffy chicken !! xaflame
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I love your chickens, ducks, and geese. I as well have chickens and 3 ducks. I had goose many years ago but don't now. I wish mine could run loose like that but were I live if I was to let them run free range like that a fox, bob cat, wild dog, coyote, hawk or something else would get them. So sadly mine have to stay pinned up.
Post Merge: January 07, 2013, 09:42:33 AM
CHICKENS!!!! Seriously, I love all your farm animals and think they are adorable, but I am a chicken owner myself and seeing your lovely's made me go "Aww"! Leghorn roosters are the best! Ours is named Omelet. Seeing your ducks and geese makes me wish I had a little extra space to raise them as well. Cute animals!!!
I had a white sliky rooster once that I named Deep Fried
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I love your chickens, ducks, and geese. I as well have chickens and 3 ducks. I had goose many years ago but don't now. I wish mine could run loose like that but were I live if I was to let them run free range like that a fox, bob cat, wild dog, coyote, hawk or something else would get them. So sadly mine have to stay pinned up.
Post Merge: January 07, 2013, 09:42:33 AM
CHICKENS!!!! Seriously, I love all your farm animals and think they are adorable, but I am a chicken owner myself and seeing your lovely's made me go "Aww"! Leghorn roosters are the best! Ours is named Omelet. Seeing your ducks and geese makes me wish I had a little extra space to raise them as well. Cute animals!!!
I had a white sliky rooster once that I named Deep Fried
Yes we have issues with fox, mink(?), owls, sometimes opossum and raccoons - we've had bobcat sightings in the area (not by us), and the coyotes around here seem a little too skittish to want to come near our yard (we have like motion sensor lights by the barn and coop and pen area) - but like, our goats and chickens do live in a pen. The goats have a run with electrified fence but even with that they tend to want to spend most of their time in the actual pen area (near their 'goat house'). The chickens have free range, but they don't really know it, lol, they have easy access in and out but most don't ever come out unless the door is left WIDE open (which we don't do because of the goats... they'll come and bang on the back door with their horns if they get out, lol!)... we have two other groups of chickens who are also free-range-pen - as in, they can come and go, but most choose to stay inside the fence... some are totally free range (like the turkey, ducks and geese and a few chickens). But everyone except the goats and their associated flock get LOCKED up at night... to protect them from animals. So every night we have to go lock the doors and put them away. It's relativly easy now that they're all trained, but when we first started this and had them going into different 'houses' at night to be put away, we had to pick up and carry like 30 ducks and 10 geese by hand and lock them away, lol!
The only time we lost birds during the day was to a fox, we lost about 6 ducks and 10 chickens over a period of a few weeks, then we finally caught the fox, and saw why it was eating our birds - it was in terrible shape, wounded already (old wounds), sprayed by a skunk (so it couldn't very well hunt much) and just gross and skinny. Had to put it out of it's misery, or it would've kept eating the birds...
That's one part of the "farm life" I haven't yet become totally used to... cute, lovely foxes that I would never want to harm are suddenly a problem when they start killing the other animals I love. Luckily, that is the only fox we've had issues with... there was one other fox who killed one of my favorite hens (Harriet), but that fox hasn't come back, so we're not trying to catch him or anything...
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Heheh got bored... posting some more farm animal pics... I really need to go out and take more but omgosh with all the snow melt now it's sooooo muddy outside! The ducks are loving it... the goats, not so much.
Here's another recent pic of Jive taken a few days ago, see how nice his feathers are now!
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Doomer - our Barred Rock rooster
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Our Araucana birds when they were pullets - mostly roosters, though that's what you end up with when you get "free" birds from someone, lol...
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THIS is what happens when AnnaBelle and Feli get out... they come to the door to find us!
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Qui-Lo showing off his beautiful wings
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Our first two geese when they were young... Romeo (white) and Anastacia (Buff) - we still have Anastacia... Romeo... well he just... died one day. We don't know what happened to him, no one else has ever been sick... but he's buried with a very nice grave marker under his favorite tree spot... he was really a nice goose! RIP Romeo!
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And this is just cool - it's a Cayuga duck egg - sometimes they lay black eggs... it's pretty cool!
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Hahaha, aww, such cuties :lovey:. Especially the demon goat looking at you through the door :) so adorable.
And wow, that egg is really cool! :O
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Aww, what a sweet bunch of critters you have! I love the goats looking in the door, lol. Looks like a lot of work, but sounds very rewarding! Thanks for sharing!
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I just had to post a little update - I'm so excited that this year we're adding a whole bunch of new varieties of laying hens to our flock... we'll have almost 50 new hens in total!
Some of the varieties we're getting are Easter Eggers (lay green/blue eggs), Delaware x New Hampshires, Mottled Houdans, Brown Leghorns (lay white eggs though!), Salmon Favorelles, Cinnamon Queens... and a bunch of Guinea Keets to eat all the ticks in the yard!
So exciting! The first batch of babies comes in on the 27th of this month, I can't wait! Stay tuned for photos of adorable baby chicks!
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Baby chickies?! *sets up camp in the thread* BRING IT!
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Gorgeous animals you have, Love your turkey, and those goats, and the ducks, and the geese, lol love them all!
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Heheh thanks all! I will be sure to take plenty of pictures of our new babies... I can't remember which varieties come in first, I think Brown Leghorns, Cinnamon Queen and Mottled Houdans.
I had to steal this picture from the Google image search of the Mottled Houdans. We only got 5, and they were sold as "straight run" (meaning they're not sexed prior to selling, so we could get girls or boys), but I'm hoping we get at least ONE hen... but here's a photo of the rooster and hen...
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A pair would be great. 4 hens and a rooster would be better, haha :)
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Aww, I always wished I lived on a farm x) Mostly so I could have ducks and silkie chickens. ;U; SO FLUFFY!
Also that picture of your goat peering through your window, with the flash in his eyes, LOL!
Thank you for sharing!
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You have a wonderful little farm going there. I really love your chinese goose. He's just so lovely to look at. All of your creatures are wonderful. They look to be really loved and cherished.