Our Farm Life!

In the year of 1997 our family moved from the city to the country. About two years after moving to the country we started “Chicken Little Farm.” We had gone from buying all of our groceries at local stores to the raising and eating of our own chickens,eggs, geese, guinea hens beef, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, milk, homemade whole wheat bead, Honey and veggies and fruits from our garden.

We made farm brochures and mailed them out to families we knew that might want a healthier way to eating. We also started farm days in June and December to give families the chance to visit the farm, pick up their orders and enjoy our beautiful land. At night our family would sit in the den and read How to books about farming and animals!:)

Although I was only six at the time,I still had jobs to do on the farm. A normal day for me was waking up at 6:00 am and starting school. Then I would go outside and feed and give water to the rabbits and cats. Then I would hold my 4-H chickens and make sure they had water and food. Next I would check for eggs and hold the cows tail as Sarah milked the cow. Lastly, I would head home to eat breakfast. After breakfast I would finish the rest of my school. I would finish school at lunch time, so after eating lunch I would go outside until dinner. After dinner I would go back out to the barn,check for eggs again and hold the cow's tail while Sarah milked it again. We all learned how to milk the cow, but Sarah was the quickest!

*just I little note if you have read the Freddy the pig books, we named all our animals after the animals in the books. Our dairy cow was named Mrs. Wiggins!!:)*

In the summer and fall we would raised around 400 white broiler chickens. We build pens to hold them in and everyday we would move them around the field, feeding them for eight weeks until they weigh between 3.5-6 pounds. The chickens would feed of the grass, but also on the special blend feed that we had ground at a local mill. We also had around 30 Rhode Island Red chickens for eggs.

Turkeys are a pain!!! I would never ever ever get Turkeys again!! I don't even want to talk about then!

Our Beef cows were a really sad project! We had two twin Hereford steers that were only two weeks away from bring processed, when suddenly one of the cows got bloated and died! Well a few days latter his brother also died from a broken heart!:) (We don't really know why he died, so we say it was from a broken heart!) After this we never tried to raise beef cows again! We also had a brown Dariy cow.

Our ducks were a mix of Mallard and Blue and Black Swedish. Our rabbits were a mix of New Zealand and Californian mix. We never ate my rabbits, I would not let my family! I was not any older then ten and really loved my rabbits.At one time I have 26 rabbits! That's a lot of rabbits!!!

I would never recommend extracting honey and jarring it in your house!!It's a bad idea, trust me! We had two kinds of honey ; sour wood and clover, which we got from our 6 bee hives. Now whenever I eat honey I think it taste like bees, that does not mean I don't like it, I just think it tast like bees!:)

Around the year 2002 we stopped our farm. My mother became pregnant with Matthew and my brothers both started basketball. We sold or ate most of the animals left.

I loved the farm and the animals. Looking back at it now I am so happy I got to spend some of my life taking care of animals and learning about them. I also glad I learned how to work hard and get dirty!!!:)