New Additions

New Additions


2019-04-13

I’m blaming these five new additions to the farm and house for my slacking here on the blog.

After a proper mourning period after the untimely death (ok not really, he was old) of Naomi’s last gerbil, there was heated debate as to what kind of pet would fill the void. Tarantula was kicked around briefly as were parakeets. Neil and I might have encouraged the guinea pig idea when it came up as the least offensive option. Layna also decided that she wanted one (after we refused to let her get a bearded dragon for her first pet). Tatanka’s dog trainer knew a guy and last week, Flynn and Anakin joined the family.

Flynn

Layna would have gone with “Tangled” if it was a female guinea pig…”Rapunzel” just won’t stick. Flynn was her second choice.

Anakin

Naomi opted to stick with her Star Wars naming convention with “Anakin.” She’s been through: a fish named Jabba, a mouse named Darth Vader who killed his companion Luke, and two gerbils named Han Solo and Chewbaca.

Pig Compound

Under Layna’s loft bed ended up being the ideal location for the pig compound. It’s actually been really fun. Well minus the night Layna decided that Flynn was lonely so she went down and brought her pillow and blanket to sleep on the ledge snuggling him. Yeah. We had a nice chat.

friends

Tatanka doesn’t quite know what to think. She mostly just really, really wants to play with them.

Tatanka

As you can see in the cover picture, we broke our vow to never transport livestock in the passenger section of our van. It was really just a matter of time until we got goaties again. These are a breed of meat goat developed in New Zealand called kikos. With our increased meat consumption we thought it would be fun to look into raising more variety. Especially as Beef is such a long term, and somewhat complicated proposition. These ladies and gentleman will have 4-5 kids a year who will grow out to about 70-100 lbs. We can easily process them ourselves which will be about 40-50 lbs of meat each. Next week we are going to go look at another doeling. So if things go according to plan, we will have three does and a buck to run through our acre of completely neglected and unkempt woods. We can’t wait.

Koati

This is Koati. Her name means “goat” in Maori. We thought it fitting given her heritage.

Kiwi

Kiwi is a little skittish and younger than Koati, but she is settling in nicely.

Athos

This little guy will be our herd sire, and will eventually be quite a big boy. His name is Athos and he will be succeeded or joined by Porthos and Aramis someday.