Hello from frozen Wisc,

Carla D

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Hi my name is Carla. My husband and I have a few animals that we raise on his sisters very little farm in west central Wisconsin. We started out with pigs. No particular breed. Basically to sell as feeders or to eat. We have about 30 of them ranging from 2 weeks old to 2 years old with many ages in between.

We relocated a bothersome cat that wandered our neighborhood out to the farm. She is one of the critters we have out there. She’s so content out there. She is a serial killer of rodents, rabbits, and other small animals. I’ve never seen a more efficient means to controlling the rat population either. We have two of her kittens from her first litter as well. They are also efficient rodent controllers as well. And big for their age and occupation. They are 9 months old, big, super friendly, and like to help us on the farm.

Last summer we bought two rabbits which we thought were does. I learned this last week that both are little bucks. I guess I’m not very good at sexing baby bunnies. Just after the new year we adopted my nieces two rabbits. Ones a female mini or holland lop, we think. She a full grown lop that only weighs 5-6 pounds. We just bred her last weekend to one of my bucks. The other rabbit is believed to be a neutered NewZealand male.

Last September I found an amazing deal on newborn goats. $5/head. I got 9. They are now strapping busy 50+ pound wethers. I’m so in love with them.

This spring we are planning on starting chickens. For meat, eggs, and brooding. We also plan on raising rabbits as well. They are so versatile. We are thinking for meat, pelts, babies to sell, and compost. Possibly even start some worms for sale as well. We love to fish but no longer have the time to do that now that we have so many farm animals and a fixer upper property/cabin as well. I have not selected breeds of rabbits or chickens yet. But, I’m narrowing the list down. I also plan on raising a few goats. Likely Nubian, for their milk, meat. May try making some products with their milk as well.

My personal goal is to change up our frozen pizza diet to more meat, milk, eggs, cheese that we raise on our own.

I am married to the man of my dreams, Jim. We’ve been married for 7.5 years. We also have a little girl together, Abigail. She’s 4 years old. Jim has two full grown adult children from his first marriage. They are 21 and 25 years old. His 25 year old son has blessed us with three beautiful grandchildren.

I am currently a disabled nurse. I’ve been disabled for 9 years now. I’m currently 46 years old. I’m a bit of a late starter of sorts. Married for the first time at the age of 39 and my first child born when I was 42 years old. I have had health issues since I was in middle school. That is when my depression started to become a challenge for me to control. I’m still struggling with it. I also began having severe headaches when I was in junior high. That has grown into chronic migraines, and fibromyalgia. I have one more health concern that I’ve been struggling with for the past 15 years. My teeth used to be perfect, straight, no cavities, no extra dental work needed. They have pretty much disintegrated to nothing and my bones have also become very brittle. I am possibly dealing with a sprain or a stress fracture in my wrist/hand. It’s too soon to tell which it could be. If it’s a stress fracture, I’ve likely broken it in the last 2-3 days even though I’m in a long wrist brace. My husband is @ 21 year retired veteran of the army national guards who returned from Iraq only two months before he and I started dating. We went to school together there was only three lockers between his and mine. My daughter was born three weeks early at a very light weight of 4 pounds 6 ounces. She and I stayed three weeks in the hospital after she was born. She had a few complications and we nearly lost her minutes after birth. She’s still a peanut. At 4 years of age she only weighs 28-29 pounds. But is super smart, healthy, and growing-at her own pace.

This is a picture of my family including my grown stepchildren and my STepsons new bride. This is just about 1.5 years old.
 

thistlebloom

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Hi Carla! Welcome to the forum! :frow
Your "little" farm sounds like it's buzzing with a lot of animals and chores!
I'm also a goat fan, and I have a fondness for Nubians.

Do you have a garden growing out there also?
You appear to have plenty to keep you busy as it is.
 

ducks4you

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:welcome from Central IL!! I am a chicken and horse owner And we currently have 7 cats on our 5 acre property. You are well set up for livestock and there are several livestock owners on this forum, so you should feel at home. Thanks a LOT for the really cold weather!!! :p I had to add the "c" in the last sentence which tells you how old this winter has become for me. Brace for impact next week. Glad my 3 horses have stalls and that I bought 50 bales of straw last year. Join Backyardchickens.com (linked to this forum) and you will get terrific advice regarding chickens.
 

flowerbug

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welcome to TEG! it sounds like all those animals are keeping you grounded and the family. sorry to hear about the troubles. all i can say is that time in the gardens helps me forget about them for a while too. :)
 

baymule

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Hey Carla! The ol' Baymule here, saying WELCOME to TEG! if you want to garden, you came to the right place. We love to garden, talk garden, eat from the garden, put up the garden bounty by freezing, dehydrating and canning. Glad you decided to join over here too!
 

Carla D

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Ellsworth, Wi
Hi Carla! Welcome to the forum! :frow
Your "little" farm sounds like it's buzzing with a lot of animals and chores!
I'm also a goat fan, and I have a fondness for Nubians.

Do you have a garden growing out there also?
You appear to have plenty to keep you busy as it is.
I don’t have a garden at the farm. It’s a bit of a challenge or inconvenience right now as we don’t live on the same piece of land that our animals are on. We are hoping to change that, but it might be a while before we can buy our own little setup. But, we do have a couple of acres up north where the people before us had used nearly every inch of the property as a landfill. It had been abandoned for 9+ years when we bought it. That is our garden of sorts. Then we have the old neglected/abused trailer house that on the property. We are working on remodeling that and turning it into our retirement palace. I have done some gardening/transplanting there. It’s a bit of a challenge right now. While we have a working well, we don’t have a working pressure tank or means to water our gardens with a hose. We are also finding it a bit difficult to spend time up there because our farm needs so much time. I think we are going to need to find someone who is willing to care for our animals this summer for 2 weeks around July 4th and a couple of other weeks as well. Just so we can break away from the farm and work on our property up north.

Here’s some pictures of our slice of heaven when we bought it. It was really nasty.
A5AFDAD0-DD17-4B61-A9F0-2BE13F48DFA3.jpeg
E7C2F762-73CB-4697-B21F-B46898868DDA.jpeg 0195C2AF-B88E-4BE4-B456-1680E87E43A3.jpeg 822475F9-75C0-4320-B7D5-ECB15A858241.jpeg 0DC4CDFD-82A3-4E1C-A740-C41979EE114B.jpeg

We have mad some progress. There a long ways to go though. Here are some of the prettiest things we’ve found on the property. There is also a massive amount of wild strawberries and ostrich ferns.

D5AC810A-FB3A-458F-A2C6-26826E655A77.jpeg A42B9865-D299-4136-88A9-4F5FFD098B7B.jpeg 6EE32833-9132-4FDA-A450-56E6B1CEDEE5.jpeg

These last two show some of the progress we’ve made outside. There is supposed to be a bunch of lupine, delphinium, peonies, morning glories, and ostrich fern in this area of trees along the road. It was my attempt to make our lawn a bit easier to care for. It’s pretty tight down in that area to mow. Most of the stuff came up last year. But never got much taller than a couple of inches. I’m hoping they may do a bit better this year. I think I’m going to add a light layer of soil, manure, compost mixture on the ground as soon as the snow melts. That may or may not help. We’ll see.
83AECA9F-262E-4E1D-A0B6-11877D8FCFAE.jpeg 61EFD07D-F436-4D01-970F-3EB70E8C15DB.jpeg
 

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