Our New Home

We recently moved to a new home. We have manged to buy a small farm midway between Tarlton and Magaliesberg.

The move was rather dramatic and between children, animals and stuff it took us 3 weeks to get done.

The Farmyard Friends are quiet busy and we are doing alot of parties on the weekends and a few educational talks in the week.

The Rabbits and Guinea pigs have all had young so the numbers are on the increase. We inherited a family of goats with our new farm.

Our runner ducks are flourishing and enjoying their new home.

NEW ARRIVALS.
In the last few weeks the Guinea pigs have been having their pups. We now have 6 beautiful long haired guinea pups. Will post pics soon.

Friday Fun - The afternoon edition

Our afternoon party was in Emmarentia. We were early so everything was very relaxed. The animals were relaxed and we managed to set up in record time.

There was a great mix of children ages 1/2-7. The bunnies were a real hit as usual. Jonty didn't get much attention so he just went to sleep. Llewellyn was doing his bit and eating loads of carrots. The birthday girl sat with the bunnies 90% of the time. She only left to have one ride and blow out her candles. She kept giving the bunnies kisses - too precious for words. I took 2 duckling along for the ride. They are rather wild so we kept them in the cage and handled them briefly. The runner ducks tame quiet easily so I hope we will have a few tame ducks in the near future. The duck and drake are show quality but very wild. The duck has 8 eggs so I hope we will get a third hatch of ducklings this season.

Here are some pics -

friday Fun

Friday 29 November - I had 2 parties booked.

We started our day at 10H30 at Debbies' Playschool. This is my 3rd visit to Debbies' Playschool. We did an educational talk first. Our second outing was for Ethans' 3rd birthday on Sat 15 November. This was the day when the wheels fell off.(See an earlier post). When I got a call to do another party there I was really pleased. Kayla was our birthday girl. Mom Shelley and Granny were there too.

The children were really excited which was fantastic. I was concerned that they would be a bit blase as they had all seen the animals a few times. The party was great and the children were all fantastic with the animals. We tethered the sheep and goat far away from Granny's geraniums. The last time we were there they managed to do some radical pruning. Jonty only dug up a small patch of lawn and promptly went to sleep.

Lewellyn was his usual gentlemanly self and didn't put a foot wrong. He quiet fancies this idea of parties. He wanders up and down the drive for an hour and gets to eat loads of carrots. He gets millions of kisses and pats. What more could a man want......

I only got a few pictures but here they are.

Bonny our Guinea pig doing her favourite thing - EATING!! I have never encounter an animal that eats as much, in one sitting, as this little rodent

Daniel was one of the brave youngsters who hand fed Robert. When you hand feed a chicken you get the occasional peck. Daniel was great he didn't even flinch. Good Boy!!

Rabbits - All shapes and sizes

Late yesterday afternoon I wandered over to the rabbit cage. I have seeen a few babies hopping about so when I saw some babies i was not too alarmed. I then began counting. We have in excess of 13 new additions. The power of exponential growth. I do believe we will be having to find homes for some of them rather shortly. These particular rabbits are a long haired variety. We believe that they are an Angora cross. We had a pair of Blues/blacks and one Red doe. We have not been too sucessful raising the reds. The blues have managed to successfully raise a few young. We managed to find homes for some of the bucks and we were left with 2 bucks and 7 does.We now have 4/5 young from ths red female so hold your thumbs. They have also thrown some greys and of course some more blue/blacks. They have made wonderful pets as they have tamed really easily, unlike the original few pairs of dwarf rabbits we bought.

Tame farm animals - PROOF

This is Ryan, my youngest, showing all the children at the party how to hold the duck. Although not technically the right way to hold him, Donald does not seem to mind being held this way at all. I use Indian Runner Ducks for the farm as they are my favourite type of duck. There are some advantages to being in charge. They also seem to tame really easily.

Bonny loves her food and is a very popular little rodent. Guinea pigs are much nicer pets than hamsters. They can be kept outdoors which is a major plus, they also eat just about anything and they don't make much noise. They get rabbit pellets as their staple diet with veggies and peelings as they are available.

These two young lads are helping to "tame" baby bunnies. I get the children to put the rabbits in their shirts as they are less likely to drop or squeeze the rabbits when they hold them like this.

I can't take enough rabbits or guinea pigs to a party.

Sheila(sheep) and Gertie (Goat) checking out the scenery. That is of course when they are not eating the shrubbery, no one has complained yet. By being tethered like this, it gives the party goers a real up close and personal experience. The children hand feed them and get to feel Sheilas wool, which is a real crowd pleaser.

Although most of my bookings are for toddlers parties the most fun we ever have are the parties when there are older siblings or guests. As much as the 9-11's deny it, they absolutely love the interaction with the animals.

Fun 'n Games

Wow time flies when you running in perpetual circles. I only just realised that it has been weeks since I last posted anything.

Well since the last blog we have been quite busy. Everything running pretty smoothly.

Until Saturday 15 Nov 2008.....

We were ready to leave on time and all that was left to do was catch the bigger animals - the goat, sheep and pig. Well Gertie Goat played the game and in no time at all we had her loaded in the vehicle. Next up was Sheila Sheep - She must have decided that she wanted to stay home because she just decide to run the Olympic marathon around the back garden. I am not sure what got into her. Our tame sheep was not interested in our efforts. 2 adults and 2 children spent 15 minutes running around with her. She finally decided to go along with our plans and about 30 seconds later she was safely loaded with her goat friend. The pig not wanting to be without a medal gave us the run around as well. He however only managed bronze. We were 20 min late for the party, luckily our hosts were understanding. The rest of the afternoon went off really smoothly with the bigger children enjoying the animals more than the babies did. I do enjoy the larger children(9-11 year old) as they truly appreciated the animals. Before long it was time to pack up and begin our return. We generally unpack and pack up outside the homes of our hosts. This particular property was on a rather busy road. That little voice we generally tend to ignore was howling. I decide to bring the vehicle inside the property. A rather tight squeeze. That was when the real sports began. As there were alot of bigger children at the party they asked to help pack the animals. I have no problem with that, so we began. The goat and sheep were dutifully lined up, very sweetly and ready to be loaded. We loaded the goat no problem. The sheep happily marched up the steps behind her. As I turned around the goat manged to jump off the back of the vehicle. No sooner had the goat escaped and the sheep followed suit. At the very moment of the great escape, William my helper decided to bring Jonty the pig. As he started leading him to the vehicle he managed to wriggle out of his harness. Now we had all the big animals running laps around a rather small back garden, closely pursued by 5 or 6 children and 2 rather flustered adults. With much laughter and a few rugby tackles we managed to get all the animals loaded in the vehicle. Great fun all round. Well I don't have much money but I do see life....