Animals Raised Here

Where
Eden
Nurtures
Old
Souls

Animal Refinery is a pretty special place, most people that visit this place are thrilled with the way my animals behave.

Here at the farm I have high hopes of acquiring the additional two floodzone acres between our property and the French Broad River which would be a really nice little playground for everyone, giving us our own access to the river. What a blessing this will be when/if it happens.

Animals holding space are
the dogs- English springer spaniel, Standard poodle, and two mutts. Dogs think they run the show and they are always in your face.
cats- I paid a fortune for a Siberian cat, imported from Russia, named Malin. She's turned into a lovely girl running over to you when called, but only loyal to her owners. They are an ancient breed dating back as far as 2000 years in the taiga, so she's wild, athletic and highly intelligent. Right now we have a problem- she kills toilet rolls, and always manages to get them and shred them. I have not outsmarted her yet on that one! Good thing is when she's playing outside she does not attack the hens or garden birds, waiting to see if she becomes a good mouser. Our other cat is a flame point Ragdoll named, Mereille. She is less athletic and more timid but a real sweetheart with me - loves to sleep by my feet, or cuddle when no one else is around- grooming my hand the entire time.
These guys live in the house with the humans, sharing beds and couches......

In the barn we have lots and lots of hens- I can't count, but I'll tell you the breeds

*yokohama
*hamburg
*wyandotte
*leghorn
*barnevelder
*campine
*fayoumi
*minorca
*spanish whiteface
*paduan
*brabanter
*spitzhauben
*russian orloff
*ameraucana
*d'uccle bantam
*sebright bantam
*wyandotte bantam
*french guinea

by may we'll be joined by penedesenca and d'anver bantams
along with waterfowl- to join our two snowy mallards
more snowy mallards, east indies black ducks, magpie ducks, muscovy ducks and chinese geese.

In the lower barn, we have miniature dual purpose fiber and milk goats. Cute and friendly as they come, you will fall in love with these guys. This is a new breeding program and I hope to soon link with other people wishing to attain the same goals as me- a mini dual purpose breed ideal for the urban conversion of land to farm going on right now.
No need to change a good thing with sheep- Icelandic Sheep. A robust breed, thrifty and intelligent, behaving more like goats, these sheep are boasted as triple purpose sheep for milk, fine wool and good meat. Our girls are due to drop lambs next month, so we're excited- as all first timers are. They are easy to handle, easy to round up and the best part is they fit right in, following us around the garden with the goats, chickens, dogs and horses and everyone is respectful under my watchful eye

end of this month we're expecting 4 new goat doelings and 2 dexter heifers from Pam Malcuit of Texas, she's driving them up personally with her daughter. They'll spend a night in Asheville to enjoy the town and head back the next day, leaving us with our first cows. Now the dogs won't know which poop to eat- chicken, goat, sheep, horse, cow or cat? Poop buffet, if you hear me screaming, its to stop a dog from eating too much poo....... notice I say, from eating too much..... you can't honestly stop them from eating it, but you can atleast try. Atleast now while I'm the only one running the farm here- often times even if I know they are up to no good, if they can't hear me call them and come, its too tiring walking all over looking for a dog dining on poop buffet, because the buffet hall is HUGE.


There are two horses here too. They fill the niches of guard donkey or dog or llama. The two heavenly beauties, Paikea and Flossy are forever patrolling the property. Thus far, all predators have stayed out, even when the barn was not completely enclosed- see we moved into this place with lots of animals from california so they had to make do with the place while it was being done up for them- they all did very well and best of all was we lost none to predators, not even at night- nothing came to break into the coop- they would have come and found several entry ways- thank goodness, luck was on our side and our livestock now have safe accommodation for us to sleep assured they are safe! It does worry me.

So there you have it. The animals of Wenos Animal Refinery.

We've been here three months and while adjusting the property and animals and us to each other, we've connected and are selling our eggs to 6 families in the area, including a bed and breakfast that takes 3doz or so a week! The hens are laying about 20 eggs a day. In California we were lucky if we got 5 eggs a day- we supported ourselves and one other family and that was it! So the egg layers are doing well and foraging using the entire 5 acres now- today they just dared to enter and forage the creek pasture following the sheep for protection. The bantams are very smart and always run with bigger hens as we do have lots of hawks in the area. Thankfully none have been taken by the hawks around here. Crows are also plenty and help shoo the birds of prey away from my farm. My bluebird totem which started as blue mutation gouldians in LA, to blue jays and a rare pair of western bluebirds in Topanga - here in Arden, a great blue heron is my resident bluebird totem along with eastern blue jays. I also have a lot of American Robins and red cardinals on the property, they are really fun to have.