I have my learning cap on.

Ayla_noemi

Lovin' The Homestead
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
38
Reaction score
94
Points
60
Location
Union County Florida, US
Hello,

I moved from Tacoma, Washington state to Union County Florida in early winter 2016. I grew up in the mountains of Puerto Rico so I have some idea of what making the most out of everything was like back there. I spent 12 years in the Army as a nurse where I obtained some useful skills. I am married my husband was an Army medic for about 8 years. We have two kids a 7 years old boy and 3 year old girl. We have 5 acres of sandy flat land with minimal shade. We have a barn that we remodeled when we moved in. We have a small workshop and storage shed. We are currently working on building more coops in order to separate our poultry by breed. We recently redid our pasture fence and installed an automated sprinkler system in our yard area. We also planted fruit trees and bushes around our yard perimeter. We hope to add a pond or two in the near future but not sure how best to go about it. We intend to use it for the animals. As far as animals we have a pair of Cand Corso dogs. For farm animals we have a pair of donkeys who have recently given us our first baby, a mini herd of Kathadin sheep, a mini herd of Nigerian dwarf goats, a couple of pot belly pigs which we were gifted and three Kune Kune sows which we purchased and three male rabbits of different breeds which we were gifted. As far as poultry we have a mini flock of Bourbon red turkeys, a small flock of Toulouse geese, a small flock of mix breed ducks and of course chickens. There is also a leopard tortoise somewhere in our property who is currently enjoying the great outdoors. Hope I see her again soon. We currently have two tumblers for compost and we want to add a green house for eddibles soon. Oh and I definitely need a bigger pantry! So much to do come August both my kids will be in school so I’ll have nothing but time. I think that about sums us up. Look forward to browsing through your posts and picking your brains.
 

Ayla_noemi

Lovin' The Homestead
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
38
Reaction score
94
Points
60
Location
Union County Florida, US
9A0B01CF-A5DF-4417-88D3-321CEA57C6EE.jpeg
Hi there and welcome from Texas! Ya'll jumped into homesteading with both feet, lol. Great to have you here. Look forward to hearing more from you. Thank you both for your service!

We love pics around here so feel free to start showing off your critters!

This is my pride and joy I know she’s not the highest quality mini donkey but she sure is sweet! Her name is Sugar.
 

Ayla_noemi

Lovin' The Homestead
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
38
Reaction score
94
Points
60
Location
Union County Florida, US
74991BB9-DDFF-4C0E-9EC9-0B78A1947BD2.jpeg
Welcome from NH! Thank you both for your service. I also have goats, heritage turkeys (chocolates) and chickens. Cane Corso dogs? Wow, that's an intense breed!!
Looking forward to chatting with you! Sounds like you'll fit right in here!


Yeah my male is almost two 120 lbs and he swears he’s a lap dog sometimes. Also you can’t dance around him without him jumping on you and joining in. He’s very vocal with strangers but totally sweet. Whenever I have a family or friends over he picks out a new friend and is very protective of their children. Visitors can not upset children around him. He does not approve. But whenever a stranger comes over ie. not family or friend we put him away and pretend he is some kind of ferocious beast. It’s our anti theft plan. Lol. If anyone does ever come in he’ll probably just drool on them but they don’t need to know that. Our girl is only 4 months old and she is a beauty and supper spoiled I have allowed her to become a brat basically but she is supper friendly to everyone family, friend, stranger or animal especially babies (she’s a kisser).
 

Ayla_noemi

Lovin' The Homestead
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
38
Reaction score
94
Points
60
Location
Union County Florida, US
:welcome I love the Katahdin sheep...used to have some. I've heard great things about the Cane Corso breed of dogs too. Can't wait to hear how you go along on your little homestead and with all your animals. :thumbsup

Yeah we’ve had two sets of twins so far and a singleton they are supper sweet. We found a forever home for our first twins which were orphaned (we lost mom at delivery). They are therapy animals at a school for special needs children. I couldn’t be happier with their new home and the family that runs the center have practically become friends they live almost an hour away and they come by about twice a month. They even gifted us a purchase of turkeys from a hatchery. Farming has led us to meet some great people! Brown ewe is only 75% Kathadin but she is such a great momma and her boy is absolutely beautiful and a Valentine’s baby too we named him Cupid. Lol. The orphaned twins we named Ying and Yang.
62DCD5F6-C71B-4329-B3BB-3ECCA1B6BBBC.jpeg
E564C036-2835-49CB-A0DF-1CB66A08A49A.jpeg
C10D9B7B-57C4-435E-A69F-C46DE3C163E8.jpeg
 

Ayla_noemi

Lovin' The Homestead
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
38
Reaction score
94
Points
60
Location
Union County Florida, US
wow awesome thread. More pics!!


Oh and nice to meet u. Lol

Hello,

This was our first litter of pot bellies. Only 3 boys. We lost the runt wich was a boy before 48hrs and we lost another boy when we removed the remaining twos testicles because we failed to notice he had a hernia and could not keep the intestines in. Had to put him down poor baby.
9A395A32-1170-46B6-9B1B-070304930C9C.jpeg


This was our second litter from a different sow same daddy though. All boys except one and no loses.

6B7FDCD5-289D-4D0A-8AF4-CF5488ED99AE.jpeg


This was our third and last pot belly litter by the same parents that gave us the first litter all girls. We lost the runt here too wich was a girl but she was almost 2 weeks when we lost her due to injury.

87F361E4-87B4-44D9-BA78-3AA6F84C84AB.jpeg


This is what happened to the second runt. It looked to me like momma stepped on her.

6D5BC4AA-DFCE-479B-BE6B-C7BFFD0D7C40.jpeg


This was her after we fixed her.

2DDFDF0B-9DDB-4FA5-BDE6-C7D85A0098C6.jpeg



2618B83E-77B0-4F01-9C90-4368E75FD3AF.jpeg


This was one who was rejected by momma but after a few days inside we were able to reintroduce her to momma with no issues.

0BF8C656-DFDF-400D-8E42-AE37D33EAD26.jpeg


And this well this was an slip up on our part. One of the females in the original litter burrowed under a fence wich divides the pastures and ended up pregnant. We found out she was pregnant when we butchered her and found this disturbing surprise. Sorry if it’s too strong of an image I thought it was interesting though.

2D8EF57B-6BF9-4469-9F37-53ABBB51510F.jpeg


Well that about sums up our pot belly experience. We have a few left to rehome or butcher though.
 

Ayla_noemi

Lovin' The Homestead
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
38
Reaction score
94
Points
60
Location
Union County Florida, US
wow awesome thread. More pics!!


Oh and nice to meet u. Lol

Oh and originally we had bought a mini angus cow and female calf pair but they were such boneheads we decided to butcher and not work with cows again. There’s also a bishon frise male hiding behind my Cane Corso I rehomed him with my aunt last month because he always got hurt when he played rough with my Corso. Nothing major but I didn’t want to wait till he was seriously hurt. He’s happy and spoiled now.

7E8BCF21-8D37-4865-B225-DFFCCF785C7D.jpeg
 

baymule

Sustainability Master
Joined
Nov 13, 2010
Messages
10,728
Reaction score
18,699
Points
413
Location
East Texas
Welcome to the forum! Is one of your pot belly pigs a boar by any chance? You could breed to your Kune Kune sows and get to raising your own pork! Those are just the right size for home slaughter. Your baby donkey is cute, who cares if it is show quality or not. It sounds like you and family are very happy with your homestead. Waiting to hear more!
 

Ayla_noemi

Lovin' The Homestead
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
38
Reaction score
94
Points
60
Location
Union County Florida, US
Welcome to the forum! Is one of your pot belly pigs a boar by any chance? You could breed to your Kune Kune sows and get to raising your own pork! Those are just the right size for home slaughter. Your baby donkey is cute, who cares if it is show quality or not. It sounds like you and family are very happy with your homestead. Waiting to hear more!

We did have an intact boat but we traded him and our momma with babies to a young man who fixed our pasture fence. Our boar was supper sweet too he thought he was a dog, loved belly rubs and came when called by name. We did not keep him because although he was a lean hog his babies were mostly fat. We will be getting a male Kune Kune in the future though at least that’s the plan. I’m happy with his new home though. Nothing like helping an expectant father build a future for his budding family. Farming really does bring great people into your life.
 

baymule

Sustainability Master
Joined
Nov 13, 2010
Messages
10,728
Reaction score
18,699
Points
413
Location
East Texas
For the most part, cows need their own pasture. I had a Longhorn bull that was a PITA. He ran at me, I carried a pipe and took a batter-up stance. When he got to me, I swung-HARD and whalloped him on the nose. That stopped his a$$! LOL Then I charged him, beating him with the pipe. He ran. We were at war all the time. He also jumped the fence and ran up and down the road. I was afraid of him causing a wreck and somebody getting hurt, so I sold him. I still like cows, but our 8 acres just isn't big enough.
 
Top