Sheep Mom's AdventuresRaising Shetland Sheep off the grid

My daughter has an unusual house pet. His name is Buckeye. She takes him everywhere with us in the car, to horse riding lessons, to the relatives, and even into Big R (the feed store). They love him in Big R. They get excited to see him. One of the clerks says, when he sees Buckeye, “Here comes the……Midget Chicken!!”. Because that is what he is. Buckeye is a chicken. A very small chicken. He is a Serama, which is the smallest chicken breed in the world. Ondra raises them….. in the house!!!, temporarily, for the last year. They are in cages of course, except for Buckeye. He rules the roost so to speak and has the privilege of running around the house….wearing a chicken diaper (you can find them on the internet). He was the first Serama chick hatched and Ondra oogles over him all day long. Every 2 minutes thoughout the day I hear, “He’s so cute!!!! Isn’t he the cutest thing in the world?!!!! Mom! look at Buckeye, you have to see this!!!! Isn’t he cute!!!!!!” He sits on her lap when she is doing school, and loves his wattles rubbed, and his breastbone messaged. He is quite the character and full of personality. Did I mention he purrs? Yes purrs, like a cat. When he was a chick, he would sit on Ondra’s shoulder and purr, and sometimes even break into a song. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday, was a stressful day for “the girls”. That is what I call my 2 adult ewes. This was the beginning of their big adventure. The day they met this year’s “Mr. Right”, who happens to be “Bluster” at Thistledown shetlands near Spokane. I don’t keep a ram, and don’t know if I ever want to keep a ram.

Madison looking for "Mr. Right"

So I arrange a match for the girls every year. Last year I only had 1 ewe to breed and she was blessed to be bred to Donna’s ram Lewis. I bought my other ewe already bred.
The kids (Eric and Ondra) and I got up and left the house by 8:30 am. They were excited because they were getting out of school (we homeschool). Little did they know I was going to double up on it the next day HaHa. I didn’t though. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a busy animal week for the Craws. Eric, Ondra and I (Jackie) left for “the other side” early Fri. am. There is a definate division between Western Washington and Eastern Washington.

shetland sheep breeders

Over here, Western Washington is called “the coast”. It doesn’t matter if it is on the coast or not, if it is over Snoqualmie Pass going west, it’s “the coast”. Other nicknames are “206ers”, the “dark side”, and my personal favorite is “the other side”, short for the other side of the mountains. Anyway, we left for the other side and visited my mom in the nursing home, drove down to Bonney Lake to drop off Ondra at a friend’s and back to North Bend to stay with my Sister in Law. Saturday I went to the NW Shetland Sheep Group’s meeting at the Front Street Cafe in Read the rest of this entry »

Early this morning, I woke up to 6 surprise Serama chickens in the living room. My husband and daughter were at the post office at 5:45 am to pick them up. Tuesday we had found out that a couple of chickens were already in the mail to us from a friend, as a gift to my daughter. Well, when they got to the Post Office, there weren’t a couple, but 6!!!! And the poor things were a day late. So they are now “in quarantine” in the living room.

new Seramas

We already have a house full of my daughter’s chickens, in containers or cages of course. A special insulated coup is being built (slowly!) outside but isn’t ready yet. So if you ever call us, you will hear various roosters crowing in the background. And then there is the house rooster that runs free, with a diaper on (yes, a diaper!). It is a special chicken diaper found on the internet. It works great. Besides these “house” chickens, did I mention we have 70 plus outside chickens? Did I also mention that out of these 70 plus chickens we only get about 1 or 2 eggs a day right now? It is very embarrassing, with our chicken population, to get caught BUYING eggs at the grocery store! In a small town, word might get around. That would be like an apple grower buying store bought apples. I usually wait till no one is in the aisle and then “sneak” them into the cart. It is a sore spot with my husband to be buying and going through 2 40# bags of chicken feed/week and not get any eggs. Eating the chickens is out of the question. My kids have named them all and know them individually. They KNOW if any go missing. I know a light bulb in the chicken palace would get us some more eggs, and we have done that in the past, BUT we do live off the power grid and that would mean more gas money to run the generator.

The shetland sheep are doing well. We have 2 adult wethers, 2 adult ewes, 2 ewe lambs and 1 lamb wether. The ladies are going to be going to this year’s boyfriend next week for a “visit”. They will be gone about a month I think. Right now they are being treated like royalty and getting a little grain. Since they are in an inner pen separated from the others, it is a challenge getting the grain to them. I don’t want to run the gauntlet of the other ruminants (other sheep, 3 llamas and 2 goats) jumping on me and trying to get to the grain (and leaving bruises on my body), so I have devised an elaborate ritual. I wait till my son feeds the millions of chickens (because they also swarm me and attack the grain), and my daughter tosses hay to the ruminants. The grain is stored in a cargo trailer that squeaks when I open it. They KNOW when I’m going for the grain. I fight off the chickens and fill a plastic cup with the carefully measured grain and HIDE it in my pants! Then I non-chalantly stroll around outside the fence for a few minutes till they all lower their heads and get back to eating. When I enter the pasture, the goats run up to me and I show them I don’t have anything in my hands and they walk away. I can then enter the inner pen where the girls are and give them their grain. Unfortunately, there are 4 chickens that have gotten wise and wait in hiding. As soon as I pour the grain into the bowls they come rushing from their hiding spots and fight the girls for the grain. I have to fight them off (like in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”) so the girls can get the required amount of grain. But it is worth it. I can’t wait for next year’s lambs.

Here are the kids with their animals before we went to the fair in September. The total count was 4 sheep, 1 goat and 21 chickens (including guineas).

Eddie the goat

Shaunessy the Shetland

And as aways, ask the question around fair time and get the reaction …

Did you do your homework?

Welcome, stop by once and a while for a visit. See how we manage to raise our Shetland sheep in a remote Off-Grid fashion, where winter is cold snowy, and summer is hot and dry!

Thanks,

SheepMom