Livestock

We are slowly looking at downsizing the Florida House to prepare it for sale, which means that the number of animals we keep needs to be reduced. The number of turkeys we have is much higher than it needs to be. I remember the day we bought the first turkeys and they told us they…

We had given my daughter, Kaitlyn Soroka a baby turkey to go with her new laying hens chicks. Snowflake, their Royal Palm hen was really getting the hang of her wings. She was getting braver by the day to explore her territory, including the roof of their house. Time to do a little wing trimming…

The thing about incubators full of fuzzy chicks is they don’t stay that way long! See them hatching here. Our laying hens and turkeys are growing so fast, they left us scrambling to provide larger runs to house so many birds. The young poults outgrew the brooder quite quickly and began the transition to living…

One of the perks of living a homesteading lifestyle is that you often get calls to rehome unwanted farm animals. Roosters are probably the most frequently rehomed animal, sometimes we take them, as Philip rarely passes up a free meal. We have had a few animals that were quite a bargain. A turkey who kept…

Philip and I decided that we would get more bang for our buck to raise turkeys as a replacement for chicken, so we purchased a trio of birds to get the ball rolling. An Incubator Full of Turkeys Our birds flourished and we soon had enough eggs to fill the incubator. The incubator is such…

I was so excited that Philip decided we needed to get pigs at the Florida House. We kept pigs when I was a kid, so it was exciting to have new ones around, I love the sound of a full barnyard! These little piggies will certainly mean a big harvest on the homestead. Scratching the…