Moose Knoll Farm

[monty]

Well, friends, it has been a long time coming and eagerly anticipated. I would like to introduce to you Moe, son of Ruby and G-Man. He is the first lamb born on our farm. He arrived Sunday 02-07-10.

Yesterday, Valentine's Day, we greeted twin lambs from Abby and G-Man. The ram and ewe lambs are named Curly and Valentina. Pix will follow.






Cheers!

 

[mballi3011]

Now thats a cutie there now. Congrats the the farmer and the dell too. I'm really glad everything worked out well.

 

[rbranstner]

MMMMMM looks tasty. I mean looks cute.

Congrats

 

[travcoman45]

Moe is a fine lookin feller there Monty! Should be fun watchin em grow up.

 

[monty]

We're looking forward to increasing our flock at this time. Ewes will go to work and rams will either be traded or sold for breeding with any not sold or traded going to freezer camp. (Do I smell smoke?)

The Tunis sheep has a great value for both fleece and meat. This is sort of our retirement gig. We really enjoy working with these gentle critters and look forward to a peaceful and fulfilling effort with them.

We also have a flock of Light Brahma chickens and plan on starting a self sustaining flock of Narragansett Turkeys in the spring. (Man! The smoke is getting thickerer!)

Gotta have fun at what you're doing or it just ain't worth it!

Cheers, all!

 

[bmudd14474]

Congrats on the new addition.

 

[pineywoods]

Sounds like your having fun congrats on the first of what I hope are many

 

[monty]

Hey, friends!

Here are Curley in the foreground and Valentina looking for a sip. They were born on Valentine's day and are doing well. The little ones are about a day old in this pic.



We are expecting several more soon!
Cheers, All!

 

[travcoman45]

Monty, yer gonna have yer hands full fer sure! Lots a cute little ones!

 

[csmith2884]

Awesome, you have a great circle of life thing going on there. Would love to know what has been done to all the meat we eat here. Raising it yourself is a great way to do that. Post again about the turkeys and how hard they are to deal with, please.

 

[monty]

Raising Narragansett turkeys will be a first for us. I have raised many "feeder flocks" of domestic white turkeys. Get the chicks in the spring and have'em ready for Thanksgiving.

The Narragansett will reproduce naturally and as such we are hoping to raise a large flock.

Our farm is established in the spirit of a conservancy farm. Any critters we raise or will raise in the future will be on the American Livestock Breed Conservancy endangered list

Now, if you are in the woods of upstate New York you are not all that far from here. We am in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont about twenty miles south of the Canadian border.

Thank you for your interest in our operation. There will be many updates in this thread.

Cheers!

 

[pineywoods]

Looks and sounds like ya'll are having lots of fun Monty I look forward to the updates

 

[csmith2884]

Well my upstate woods is a bit further west I'm in the void between Rochester and Buffalo. Still in the woods, just not those woods.

When I post New York on other forums everyone assumes it's new york city and that's 6-7 hours from me.

I will look for updates about your farm, it's a cool way to live.

 

[triplebq]

It's great to be a farmer / rancher today . A true dieing breed . Hat's off to ya !

Buddy

 

[q dawg]

Got to love those "Baby" pics....keep em comin !!!

Q Dawg

 

[monty]

Thanks for all the great comments, my friends!

We're still on new arrival watch.

We started this project as a sort of retirement thingy. The idea has grown from there. When I do finally retire (again!) it will be to do as I really want and that is to work our farm.

Cheers!

 

[monty]

Hey, Folks!

Just thought you might like to get a look at our first line of defense against coyotes, bears and two legged critters that should know better!

These dogs are Maremmas. The Maremma was develped long ago in Italy for sheep duty in the Italian Alps. They are not a pet dog and are truly an instinctive guardian. They need no training, not that they would listen anyway, and learn from each other. They even have us trained!

The dogs have a number of specialized barks; one for danger about, one to send the sheep into the barn and one to let us know we should respond armed.


We have three maremmas; Timida (shygirl) 7 years old, Finn 11 months old (already 115 lbs!), and Luna, 4 months old.









They keep us busy to say the least but we trust them and their instincts to protect our stock!

Cheers!

 

[werdwolf]

Great look'in dogs.

 

[monty]

Just in case anyone is wondering where I am going with this thread I am taking this farming thingy full circle.

We will produce our own food; meat, veggies etc and produce enough to sell to make our own pockets breath easier.

Right now our chickens are supporting themselves. Our Light Brahma chickens have been exemplary in laying though the winter and I sell the eggs through a local market for a neat enough profit to pay their grain and upkeep. In March I will suspend sales for a bit to incubate eggs for hatching our second generation. Since this is a pure breed strain of bird I also have customers for chicks. Those that I keep will have a purpose; girls will go to work and boys will go to freezer camp.

Then there is the smoker. We also plan on a few feeder pigs as well as providing our own lamb. This is the most fun thing we have ever done and we want to share the whole experience here. So, hang in there! And many pics will follow!

Cheers!

 

[cowgirl]

Monty thanks for sharing this! I'm so glad everything is coming together as planned for you two. You deserve the best!
Your critters are beautiful.