Happy Sheep Make for a Good Night's Sleep

With Great Guard Dogs in place,  

Everyone is sleeping better.

Grain Boxes make wonderful beds for

 little lamb heads........

Did You Know?

A healthy lamb will sleep 8-12 hours a day.

An adult sheep will sleep just under 4 hours a day.

"Chicken TV"

Chicken Tractor or a Mobile Chicken Coop

Ever heard of "Chicken TV"?  

Chickens can be mesmerizing!  

We love to sit in the evening and watch them. 

 I have no doubt my stress lessens and my blood pressure lowers, when I take a little time to look after the little family of chickens.   

   A Chicken Tractor is a portable chicken coop.  This allows chicks to free-range in a completely protected manner.  

We have some little Bantams that we want to make sure are safe. 

Our little coop makes this possible.   

Bantams are mini versions of regular breeds of chickens.  

Our Chicken Tractor is in the garden.  

We move it every few days.  This provides a great benefit for the garden as well as the chicks.  

First,  the chickens eat the grass and bugs.  This helps keep insect destruction down in the plants and allows 

for very natural food for the chicks.  

Second, the chicken poop, over time will help to fertilize the ground for the next growing season.  

Meet Minnie

Minnie - The Anatolian

Bailey (top) and Minnie

An Anatolian Dog is large, rugged and powerful.  Anatolians are a superior working dog.  They guard  livestock including, but not limited to: sheep, chickens, cattle etc.  

In the fall we began having a lot of Grandpa's sheep come in to their pen at night with severe injuries.  Many of the injuries were so grave that despite medical care they were dying 

and being eaten by coyotes.  

We were concerned and  Master Mess Maker had been keeping a close eye on her own little sheep.  Unfortunately, little Peter was carried off by a coyote and "not returned".  

Master Mess Maker was devastated!  

Grandma sent Minnie over to the 

ranch to help protect MMM's sheep.  

Minnie is only a young puppy but comes from amazing stock.  It will take work, a lot of patience (and sadly a few chickens) to get Minnie to learn her job. 

Our goal is that Minnie will be as good a guard dog as her parents.

Master Mess Maker, Bailey and Minnie

Two more little lambs

Meet Lily and Peter

Twins whose mamma could not feed them.  

Our Master Mess Maker, now has four lambs to care for.  

Chickens, Horses, Grandpa's Sheep and Dogs make for a busy day of chores....

We honestly would not have it any other way!

Lily and Peter are about 3 months old in this picture.

Baby Chicks

Food, Water, Heat and Health

The four most important things to consider when raising baby chickens.

As cute as they are, we are careful not to handle them too much.  Cross- contamination of human and aviary germs can create a problem.  As well as it is easy to over- stress little birds.  

We make sure they are taken care of and safe for the first few weeks, then we can handle them a little more.  

For more specific care instructions we love the:

Back Yard Chickens website 

Peanut says hello......