Animal Systems – Page 5 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

livestock shows

2013/07/22 Danielle 0

I haven’t been to many rural shows. My first, really, was the Perth Royal Show last year – although I’ve been to the Royal Show before, it’s been for the carnival and the rides rather than the animals. Last year I figured, we’re starting a farm, I’ll look at the livestock. Actually, I only intended to look at the chickens and pigeons, and the cats. I ended up also checking out the alpacas, goats, and cattle. I went to my second show on Saturday, and my third on Sunday. Saturday was the 2013 Colourbration alpaca show, which I wanted to […]

flopsy, mopsy & cottontail

2013/04/29 Danielle 0

I’ve spent the last few weeks researching rabbits. I have my reasons. First reason is that K indicated an interest in spinning, and I thought I’d look into how viable it would be to have a little cottage industry setup selling yarn, and possibly raw fleece. (Answer: limited to zero for making any actual money/profit) Your basic wool animal is a sheep, but I dislike sheep. I’ve never met a bright one, or one that didn’t stink, although I’ve been assured by people who like sheep that they don’t inherently stink. After sheep, there are goats (cashmere goats, which produce […]

probiotics

2012/12/19 Danielle 3

Just over a week ago, I went to a workshop on fermented foods at Perth City Farm, run by the awesome Bonnie Wykman (of PeaceTree Permaculture). The workshop was a great overview of fermented and cultured foods, from yoghurt and kefir through to sourdough, ginger beer, and mead, as well as the history and some of the health benefits of eating active (probiotic, i.e. containing live microorganisms) cultured foods. Bonnie also gave us all samples of her sourdough starter, kefir culture, and water kefir culture. And then a friend of mine gave me some of her kefir grains as well, […]

bee update

2012/11/28 Danielle 0

Sadly, one of our two bee hives didn’t survive. In our wisdom as new bee parents, anxious to make sure our hives were safe and comfortable, we decided that we shouldn’t open up the flower-pot hive and cut the comb out to transfer the bees to their proper home until the weather was a bit better. We got them to the property late at night, and the next day was unseasonably chilly, grey and rainy. So we left them in their flower pot, inside the plastic crate we used to transport them. The lid was open enough to allow for […]

basically, all the animals

2012/10/17 Danielle 0

I’ve been looking at different breeds and varieties of livestock, planning which ones we’ll get eventually. It started small, looking at cat breeds (I know, not really livestock, but I’ve wanted a kitten since I was six years old, and it’s pretty exciting that I can finally get one when we move into the new house. Once it’s built). Then, after a lengthy sidetrack into cat genetics, which is absolutely fascinating, I started looking at chickens. And ducks. And geese. Perhaps an alpaca, or even a llama. And fish, of course, in an aquaponics system. And goats. And turkeys. And […]