Hello all, I am so happy I found this forum and website! I live, with my family of five, in Palmer Alaska, on a small, peaceful homestead up Lazy Mountain. We are new to living on a homestead, but not entirely new to living the lifestyle. My partner and his family raised chickens and other small livestock when he was younger. However, I am very green to poultry raising and wanted to start small this year until I had a better idea of what I was doing. We have both been raised and have lived as foragers of the abundant wild edibles in Alaska! There is always so much to explore and we are constantly finding new plants, fruits and berries to add to our list. Our children, two boys 12 and 5 and daughter 7, have all flourished since moving to our homestead, always up to the challenge for work around the homestead.
Currently we are raising ten turkeys, nine chickens and ten rabbits. Of our turkeys we are evenly split between Toms and Hens. Five of them are a wild/royal palm cross and the others are domestic whites. I love my turkeys, George, one of our domestic hens being my favorite. She was named George after Curious George, she is always the first to greet you in the driveway when you come home and the first to visit you while your working outside! Our chickens are beautiful creatures and seem to know it. We have an Araucana rooster and a Bantam Buff Laced Wyandotte rooster. The hens are Golden Laced Wyandottes and Bantam Buff Laced Wyandottes. The little Bantam Roosters call in the morning is fantastic, it makes all our neighbors laugh. He sounds like a young boy trying to grow into his voice. Our number of Rabbits recently jumped from four to ten! We started with a Flemish Giant/Satin doe, Rainbow, who was given to me at the end of a swap meet. The young girl's mother told her she couldn't bring the rabbit home and the girl couldn't stand giving her to the people who wanted to put her in the pot. Then we bought a young satin buck, Tundra, to one day (I was thinking a far off day) be Rainbow's friend. Shortly after, a friend of ours called to say his landlord had two Bucks she was going to take to the city pound and if we had the space she would give them to us for free. My partner couldn't stand the thought of them going to the city animal shelter and picked them up. We had the three bucks housed together until one week ago when the two "bucks" we recently acquired gave birth within twelve hours of each other! It was quite a shock, however Mama's and babies are doing well, although we did loose one from the first litter, probably due to all the confusion.
I think this sums it up. I wish everyone well and look forward to participating and learning on the boards.
Dorene Asay
Currently we are raising ten turkeys, nine chickens and ten rabbits. Of our turkeys we are evenly split between Toms and Hens. Five of them are a wild/royal palm cross and the others are domestic whites. I love my turkeys, George, one of our domestic hens being my favorite. She was named George after Curious George, she is always the first to greet you in the driveway when you come home and the first to visit you while your working outside! Our chickens are beautiful creatures and seem to know it. We have an Araucana rooster and a Bantam Buff Laced Wyandotte rooster. The hens are Golden Laced Wyandottes and Bantam Buff Laced Wyandottes. The little Bantam Roosters call in the morning is fantastic, it makes all our neighbors laugh. He sounds like a young boy trying to grow into his voice. Our number of Rabbits recently jumped from four to ten! We started with a Flemish Giant/Satin doe, Rainbow, who was given to me at the end of a swap meet. The young girl's mother told her she couldn't bring the rabbit home and the girl couldn't stand giving her to the people who wanted to put her in the pot. Then we bought a young satin buck, Tundra, to one day (I was thinking a far off day) be Rainbow's friend. Shortly after, a friend of ours called to say his landlord had two Bucks she was going to take to the city pound and if we had the space she would give them to us for free. My partner couldn't stand the thought of them going to the city animal shelter and picked them up. We had the three bucks housed together until one week ago when the two "bucks" we recently acquired gave birth within twelve hours of each other! It was quite a shock, however Mama's and babies are doing well, although we did loose one from the first litter, probably due to all the confusion.
I think this sums it up. I wish everyone well and look forward to participating and learning on the boards.
Dorene Asay
