We recently moved from inside Cincinnati to outside, though I've raised animals my whole life. Showed Italian Greyhounds, trained lot's of other breeds, and took in wondering rescues who were dumped off at the park next door to where I grew up. Have raised chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, hedgehogs, guinea pigs, various parrots and dabbled in wildlife rescue through my mom's Wetland Protection efforts for the Sierra club. Once we had to house 91 painted turtles while waiting on testing to come back for their release back into the wild.
As a "refined" adult now in this, we're raising Juliana pigs, Bourbon Red Turkeys, some rare chickens (and basic layers for food eggs). Right now we have about 36 chickens with 30 more coming in a month. Not doing show type Shepherds, utility/farm type suits our lifestyle much better. Not built like the show ring dogs, and not as highly driven as the true working lines. Couch potatoes who kiss kitties, cuddle piglets, watch chickens from afar and bark at the mailman.
Working on refurbishing our "new" 100+ year old barn that has been much neglected. Thankfully my brother is working on getting a saw mill up and going, as we need some big beams replaced. We've put stalls into the good part of the barn, and reinforced some weak points. It's a little daunting since it's 1600 square feet, and the front of it is almost 3 stories high. We started at the back side where it's only 12 feet high, the siding there is easily replaced with a ladder. We'll likely hire out for the roof. The seller patched it enough to be 98% water tight, no more waterfalls coming in.
We're in the part now of building up the infrastructure to make sure everyone is well housed. We have 3 Shepherds, 3 little pigs, just 4 Turkeys (started boy heavy, two were invited to last Thanksgiving)
We hunted for years for just the right place of operations, started out on a tight budget. Lot's of fixer uppers with some land, but doing a remodel would have taken all of our resources and would have set back developing a hobby farm. Out of frustration I posted a wanted ad, detailing what we were after. Had a guy email saying "I think I just bought what you're after" and indeed he had! 3 acres (not as much as we were after, but it's all flat and usable!), the barn, a garage, another shed, and the 4bed/1bath house with a basement and big kitchen. 3 of the bedrooms are tiny, but we don't have kids so it's an office, my craft room, and the cat's room. LOL The house was tore up, bought by flippers, so the whole thing got remodeled to our specs, having the opportunity to pick out how we wanted everything. Kitchen and bath was tore down to the studs and rebuilt. The whole process took 5 months, but it was worth it! Move in ready and no repairs needed, we could get started immediately! It was a neat way to buy our first house. My husband was in the military for 10 years, we moved a lot and had bare minimum animals, just 2 German Shepherds and whatever temporary rescue along the way. It's nice to settle in somewhere and think about the long term! After he got out we rented a house with a lady who thought the critters were neat. LOL
Sadly our old Shepherd girl didn't get to see the new place. She developed a bad case of bloat at 11 years old and we had to put her down, 2 months before we closed on it. Logan, our 9 year old male, is having the time of his life! She was a world traveler though, bouncing to every duty station with us after we came by her while living in Germany. The girls we have now were not rescues, I sought them out based on what I like within the breed.
I'm hoping to put my hatching skills to work with rare breed conservation and development, though we're at the very beginning with that.
