It’s been a wonderful, fruitful year at Iron Oak Farm. The garden is coming along nicely, I’m picking ripening cucumbers every day and adding them to our refrigerator pickle jar. We also just finished kidding season, one of the most joyous times of the year. Our last pregnant doe gave birth to triplets last night. […]

Jennifer Sartell Story and Photos Zach and I have wanted to raise guineas for quite a few years now. They’re excellent foragers, they help reduce the tick population and they’re just really cool looking birds! Every spring we talk it over and try to decide if we want to place an order with a hatchery, […]

“They” say variety is the spice of life. Well then, when it comes to poultry, our farm is very spicy. I must say that I am thoroughly enjoying myself this spring! We have a beautiful assortment of teenage chicks, new chicks, ducks and Narragansett and Bourbon Red turkeys to come. I also have plans for […]

I had 3 guineas: Penny, Marcia, and Kelly. Being game birds, they tend to be very high-strung, even as chicks. Their basic reaction when anyone got within a couple of feet was to run away and if I needed to corral them for any reason, they behaved like I was going to rend them limb from limb. […]

by Nancy Smith – Photograph by Martina Berg Guineas are indigenous to grasslands and woodlands of southern Africa, and large, wild flocks continue to roam with semi-domesticated birds kept by farmers. Guineas are hunted in the wild along with ducks and geese as game birds; a commercial safari-type shoot can set a hunting enthusiast back […]

by Nancy Farrell Here at Sasimeadows Farm in northern New York everyone has a job to do to keep things running smoothly, so when I wanted to buy more chickens and some guinea fowl my husband, Jim, wanted to know what were they going to do for us. The hens, of course, had a job […]

Guest post by Sandi Hopper We only have one turkey on the farm. She’s the last bronze beauty we have left of the original dozen we bought. We raised them for meat, or at least that was the intent. We raised the tiny ET’s in the barn, then graduated them to a chicken wire pen […]

Guest post by Sandi Hopper  I live out in the country. I’m talking “country” here as in the closest traffic light is 20 miles away and the electricity is almost as reliable as Christmas mail service. I can see the next door neighbor’s house only through binoculars and animal control has been defined to me […]