You may have heard about Virulent Newcastle disease hitting Southern California like a sumo wrestler slamming into a scrawny high school freshman. So far 1.2 million birds in California have been euthanized and it has seriously impacted businesses and backyard chicken owners alike.
If you live in an area with HOA noise rules or grumpy neighbors, you’re going to need quiet chickens, or at least as quiet as you can get. These breeds are known to not only be quiet, but also super friendly.
There is nothing as self sufficient, and therefore satisfying, as being able to take a seed, plant it and provide your own food.
Think homesteading is an easier, simpler life? Think again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful life, but in some ways it’s downright nightmarish.
Sometimes us farmers get sick. Here’s some things you can do if you have your own farm or homestead to make getting sick easier on the farm.
Did you know there are all sorts other vegetables that you can be planting right now? While most people are putting away their gardening tools, there really is no end to the gardening season especially in Southern California.
We opened up the beehive today to see how the ladies were doing. They seem to be doing really good but were in a terrible mood lol. Bees in a bad mood are no fun so we just let them be after that. No pun intended. Interestingly, hives produce two types of bees depending on […]
Our new Meet and Milk the Goats tour! We’re excited to be offering goat milking tours at the ranch now! During a goat milking tour, you come to the ranch and meet all the animals, particularly our goat herd. You get to give everybody lots of scratches and spoil them with treats. After getting to […]
Don’t trash the pumpkin seeds from your pumpkin! Roast them for a delicious healthy Halloween snack EASY!
We have four acres of wine grapes growing at our ranch. Wine grapes are common in Southern California, but pretty rare in our area where there is a lot of homesteading, but few commercial level farms. I don’t know if we exactly qualify as a commercial farm, but we sure are trying hard to support […]
Today was a special day. We have a small fold (the proper scottish term for a herd) of Highland Cattle here on the main part of the ranch. They have been stuck in corrals for a bit while we got, what we optimistically call, the ‘pasture’ prepared for them. (In the meantime, they have […]
Written by Gail Damerow of Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens Chicken Talk Researchers have shown that there are at least 24 different sounds chickens make and maybe as many as 30. While chickens don’t have nearly the vocabulary that us humans have, and their chicken brains don’t allow for abstract and deep conversations, they are […]
