Answers for Your Questions

Thank you for sending me questions!

I really like it when you ask questions because that helps me know what kinds of things to write about.

We get this question a lot!
No, we do not have pigs.
Pigs are not allowed in Highland.
Some people think they are too smelly, and too noisy.

Sometimes we find garden snakes!
When I was cleaning out the chicken pen I found this little
snake under the nesting box where the chickens lay their eggs.

We get this question a lot, too!
We don't have horses.
Our neighbor has horses.

This is Carson.
He says hi to us every morning.
He likes the cow and the goats, too.
He likes to race our dogs up and down the fence row.
He is a very fast horse!

Thank you!
We think our chickens are cool, too.
I think they are funny to watch in the barn yard.

Yes, I can show you a video of the chickens.

This is what happens every morning when I open up the chicken pen.

How many chickens did you see?

How many gallons of milk do you see in the fridge?

Echo gives between 3 1/2 and 4 gallons of milk every morning. That is a lot of milk!

We milk Echo and the goats every day. It doesn't matter if it's cold or hot or raining or sunny. It doesn't matter if it's Christmas Day or New Years Day. It doesn't matter if we are tired because we stayed up late. We milk every day!

Thank you again for asking good questions! I hope you ask me more good questions. I would like to answer a question every week for you.

Here are some things to remember about asking questions:

• I will only answer a question once. If someone asks the same question, I won't answer it.
• Write clearly because if I can't read the question, I won't be able to answer it.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Break.

Remember to 

Do something kind 

for someone else

every day!

Animal Feeders

Do you remember the types of dishes and bowls and cups you used during Thanksgiving dinner? Some dishes were probably flat, some were more like bowls. Each bowl or dish is used on purpose to hold each type of food.

The animals on the farm have certain types of feeders, too. We use the word "feeder" for something that holds animal food.

This is the feeder on the milk stand.
It's called a 'hang over bucket' because it hangs on a bar or a piece of wood.

This is what it looks like with feed in it.

We don't wash the feeders very often. People need clean dishes, bowls, and cups to eat out of. Animals don't need to have their feeders cleaned that often.

This is Echo's 'hang over bucket'.
It's much bigger than the goats' bucket because Echo's head is much bigger!
This is the same size bucket that horses eat out of, too.

The chickens eat from a hanging feeder.
I pour the feed into the top and it fills a dish at the bottom.
The chickens are so messy that I put a rubber feeder underneath to catch all the food that falls out.
The chickens can still eat the food in the rubber feeder and it doesn't get wasted by falling all over the ground.

This is how we feed hay inside the stall.
The fence holds the hay and the goats can pull out what they want to eat.
We take the hay that's on the floor and bring it out to the chicken pen.
We put it inside their nesting boxes, and sometimes spread it on the ground.
The chickens love to eat the leftover hay.

This is the feeder we use for Echo and the little goats.
It's really a horse feeder, but Echo doesn't mind it.
We like to feed her outside because she always poops while she's eating!
We don't have to clean the stall as often if she poops outside.
The feeders are all under some sort of roof in the winter so the food doesn't
get spoiled by snow and rain.

What about water?

You drink from a cup or a bottle, but that doesn't work well for most animals.

The white part of the container is filled with water.
There is a float at the bottom so all the water doesn't spill out on the ground.
Look closely and you will see a black cord coming out of the top of the waterer.
That cord is attached to a heater that sits at the bottom of the bucket.

I'm sure you've noticed that there is a lot of ice on the playground, and maybe around your house. The animals can eat snow, but they like liquid water better. If they have enough water and food, and if they have a place to get out of the rain and snow, they stay warm without a furnace like we have in our homes.

The blue barrel, and the green barrel, both have electric heaters at the bottom.
You can see the chords plugged into the grey box on the post.
Echo, River, and Serenity use the green water barrel.
Misty, Clover, and Annie use the blue water barrel.

The hose also plugs in! It's hard to get water into the barrels if the hose is frozen. Someone was really smart and figured out a way to put a heating wire inside a hose so that farmers can use a hose in the winter instead of having to fill buckets of water, then dumping them into the barrel where the animals drink.

*     *     *     *     *     *

Every morning Scout, JJ, and Midnight like to have a treat in the barn.

JJ gets her sip of milk from an old plastic feeder on the floor.

Scout gets his sip of milk in an old metal pan near the milk stand.

Midnight gets her sip of milk in an old metal lid.


Bubbers used to love drinking out of a running faucet. 

Map of the Farm

Did you get to travel to someone's house for Thanksgiving? Are you going to someone's house during Christmas vacation?

When we drive somewhere the driver often has a GPS or phone that has a map to show them where to go so they don't get lost.

We use maps on the farm, too. When we have people do our chores they need to know where everything is, where each of the animals live, where to find the food, and where the gates are.

If you looked at our farm from an airplane, this is what you would see.

This is what a map of our farm would look like.
This is a map that we've used for people who come help on the farm.

There are a few differences from the airplane view and the map I drew because the photo is older. We've moved a few fences, added a fence, and added a hay barn. Can you see any other changes?

This is what it looks like when I walk out to the barn in the morning.
Right now the ground is covered with snow, not with grass.

The big white door is usually closed.
It's open so you can see inside the barn.
If I leave the door open all the time then Echo, River, and Serenity would make a mess inside.

There are two milk stands.
Do you recognize the blue hang over bucket?
Do you see the blue hose on the left?
It's a special hose that has a heater in it.
We plug it in in the winter so the water in the hose doesn't freeze.
We can use the hose to fill the water buckets around the farm even when there is ice on the ground.

This is what the right side of the barn looks like.
This is the south side of the barn.
You can see 3 stall doors.
The door closest in the picture is the stall where Echo, River, and Serenity sleep at night.
The middle and far doors are where Annie, Misty, and Clover sleep at night.
Stalls are like bedrooms for animals. They come inside when the weather is bad, and they come inside to sleep.

This is the back of the barn.
If I open the big door on the back, the bucks will come running inside.
Two big bales of hay weigh about the same as a small car! That's heavy!
It takes about 2 weeks for the animals to eat a whole bale of hay.

On the other side of the barn we keep grain in big, blue barrels.
We buy grain in bags. Do you see the two stacks of bags to the right of the blue barrels?
We store food for the animals just like you store food at home.Do you see the white door? That's how we get into the chicken pen.

The chicken pen is under the roof.
The chickens need shelter from the weather just like the other animals.
And you can see our red tractor!The little dog house is for the ducks.
They need shelter when it gets cold, too.
Sometimes they go into the chicken pen,
sometimes they like to get into the dog house.

Here is a map I drew of the inside of our barn.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of our farm!

Maps are very useful! The people who come take care of our animals while we are gone like having a map to see where all the animals are supposed to be. They like knowing where the food is, and where to find everything they need.