Life on a hobby farm, it's not as overwhelming as you would think

OK first and foremost let me start out by saying we never really started out saying "Hey we should have a ton of animals", it’s just been something that happened over time.

This first post I’m just gonna give you an overview of the animals that we have and the routine on how we keep them, fed, clean and safe without it taking much time or being an overwhelming process. Now we live only a few miles from the beach in Southern California. We aren't located in a place that it is normal to keep all these animals. I totally understand if you are located in an area where farmland is abundant, this is not going to sound like a lot. We are not in that kind of area. We are in an upscale area that people have very expensive homes that they keep pristine with the help off full time staff. We also are not those people. We live on a great multigenerational property that has been laid out with the use of space in mind. We have a place for everything and everything in its place type of property. Lots going on, lots of people, lots of pets, and it has created lots of love. Ok back to what we have here:

CHICKENS:

Let’s start off with the chickens, as I think it’s become quite a thing to keep backyard chickens. We’ve been keeping chickens for years, and I really do love having them. They’re pretty much the only animals that actually give us something back. Now we are on our Coop 2.0 as when we expanded the home, we had to tear down the original chicken coop. I’ll do a follow up story on that and another post. Basically here is the old coop:

and the new coop:

It is located on a totally different end of the property as the original coop. It didn’t take much space, and the layout worked really well for having a laying box area as well as enough space for the girls to run around.

I have two airtight bins that I keep inside the coop for their food and it’s so easy to go down in the morning and give them their scoops of food, make sure they have water and give them any scraps I have left over from the night before. Super simple, super easy. At that time they give me the gift of those beautiful fresh eggs.

Now in the chicken coop we also keep our bunny Phoebe. We’ve had a hutch that was a pain to clean as bunnies are cute, but very messy. About five or six years ago I decided that was something that was giving us too much of a workload as well as I felt bad for the rabbit being in a confined space.

RABBIT + CHICKENS

Did you know that chickens and bunnies live great together. They eat similar things and I really do think they like each other’s company. We keep Phoebe's hutch always open in the coop so she’s got her little space if she wants it, but most of the time I find her hopping around with the chickens. Again, we have a bunny, but to keep it I'm all about thinking smarter and not harder. Combine living quarters for those animals.

PIG

Next door to the chicken coop is our pig-pen where we keep Georgia Mae our full-size potbelly pig. This was a complete impulse buy on my husband’s part as baby little piglets are so cute. He walked into the feed store and couldn’t leave without one. He just came home with a box and told me it’s alive and it’s not a puppy! Thing my husband does in a nutshell. And so we need a place for this little piggy to live. I purchased a kennel from craigslist and the pig-pen was born. My husband built a structure around it so she does have a full roof.

PARROT + PARRAKEET

We also have a green-winged Macaw Parrot. Again, this was an impulse buy. My dogs had gotten to our parakeets that we had and we were left with a cage that was actually built as a furniture piece and we had no birds for it. The type that was a plexiglass case with lighting and manzanita to showcase a pet. I took off to get a lovebird, and my husband at the last minute jumped in the car . We had no kids at the time as I was pregnant with our first child. In the car ride, my husband decided after seeing an advertisement in the paper for a Green-winged Macaw Parrot, he decided that we were going to purchase the biggest bird you can buy. The bird really is more like living art. Now, of course, he didn’t even fit in the cage that we already had. At our last home we had a large aviary structure that we had built to showcase Zeus that was muralized and lights would turn on from our dining room, so he really looked like a living art through a large window where we could view him. At the home we live in now he also has a large aviary so that he is not without space if he wants to spread his wings. He also has a small parakeet in there to keep him company. For food and water, I feed them every other day. Giving them freshwater as well as dry food and peanuts. Zeus has a special diet of dry food that I buy online that I also keep in an airtight container in there and I just give them their food in their bowls. Super easy just takes two minutes.

TORTOISES

We have two African Sulcata tortoises that live in our garden. These guys are probably the easiest pet there is. They eat weeds, lettuce, tomatoes and really anything that I have in the garden I just throw it down. They also love to eat the grass clippings, when our lawns or mowed once a week. They really are like living dinosaurs. Our garden is fenced in so I don't have to worry about them "running" away. They also have a little cave like sleeping area that they really do sleep in sunset to sunrise. Another bonus of tortoises... they hibernate! These guys tuck themselves into their cave for the winter and don't emerge until spring. Once I know they have gone to sleep for the winter (typically the end of November here in California until about the beginning of March) I use hay and pack it all around the opening of their cave to keep them warm. Being that it is hay, when they are ready to come out, they can push their way through to emerge for the warm weather.

GOATS

We also have three goats. We started out with two as we needed a way to keep our canyon maintained for fire abatement. Two of her daughters actually purchased the goats with money from lemonade stands. To our surprise, we had no idea that the female goat was pregnant. Therefore we now have a little goat family. Meet Rosa, the mom, PJ, the dad and Sparky baby goat.

Sparky was born on the property as a complete surprise and really there’s nothing cuter than baby goats.

These guys go out every day onto our hillside and bottom of our canyon, and eat their hearts out. Now if you do ever plan on getting goats, just know that they also do need to have a some Alfalfa hay in their diet. I buy two bails at a time from out local feed store and give them only about 1/2 a flake morning and night. The goats have a chain-link dog run with a roof on it that they sleep in as we do have coyotes. Each morning they go out, stay out for the day and in the evening you just called their names and they all run into their pen where they’re locked in for the night. This is a kid's chore, and all of our kids know how to do this. It really isn’t a hard chore and doesn’t take that much time. It's funny how the goats really do know their names.

DOGS

Now we do also have the traditional pets. We have three dogs meet our Labs Tankerton, his son, Paddington, and our old faithful beagle, Lily. Our dogs are definitely the ones that take the most amount of work and time. We are on a big property so I don’t have to walk them, but every morning I do. That not only gets me my exercise, but they absolutely love it. Our dogs only get fed once a day, it’s a scoop of dry dog food that I purchase at Costco. Nothing fancy, nothing hard or complicated. I know some people feed the dogs multiple times a day but we’re not those people. My dogs have been living just fine on their one scoop as well as their occasional treats. The dogs get to run around the yard during the day and they sleep in our laundry room in the evening in they’re comfy crates.

CAT

We also have one black cat named midnight. A.k.a. Mr. Meows. Now where we live we do have a lot of coyotes, so we do have to bring the cat in every evening. However, all day he is outside, hunting and doing what cats do. We simply have a bowl of food and water in the laundry room, where he can come and go and eat and then at night he’s usually ready to come in as he knows what predators are out there.

HORSE

We also were horse owners for five years, which was a ton of work. Having a horse with four kids was a lot added to our plate. I will never regret having Miles, as we spent every day at the barn. My four daughters would run around the arena with him teaching him how to go over small jumps and around the obstacles that they would set up. We have to feed him every evening and another person would feed him in the morning. Not only do you need to feed the horse twice a day, but scoop manure, bathe and brush, and in the winter put his blanket on and off. After 5 years of this, my oldest daughter turned 16 and had the other form of horsepower, so we let go of our horse Miles and sold him to our horse trainer. He is still local area, but that was a way bigger time commitment, and we just had to get rid of. It will forever be a treasured time for sure!

So there you have it just a really quick overview of the different animals we have. When you look at our home from the front, you wouldn’t think we have all these animals. When you come into our backyard, you would also not know that we have all these animals. I think the biggest tip for keeping animals is making sure you have everything organized so that keeping them isn’t a huge chore. By keeping their food where they live in an airtight container, makes it simple to feed them. People ask me how much time it takes out of my day to take care of all these animals. My honest answer is 10 minutes. Other than walking my dogs (it obviously takes a bit more time), to feed the animals in the morning. It’s a quick check to each area to see everyone and let them out and make sure they have their daily food in her bowl’s.

Life on a farm is something that I absolutely love. Having my kids be raised around animals teaches them lessons that I couldn’t teach by just telling them. Having the unconditional love of a dog is something that is priceless. The other animals may not show affection like the dogs, but having my kids understand how to do chores and take care of something beyond themselves is something that I think is priceless. A little bit of work can have a huge life lesson pay off in the end. I've been there and I do know that.

Xo,

Mama