Funny Farm Friends

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

We have been busy this year building new pens and filling our petting zoo with all kinds of new animals. This year we got a new miniature donkey, Burrito. Burrito has really shaggy fur and is quite small compared to a regular donkey. He is really dwarfed by our horse Mulligan, but he is the perfect size for the petting zoo. Burrito is a chilled out guy who likes his head rubed.

In the pen with Burrito we have Pipe-cleaner the llama, we got him several years ago as a baby. He has grown up to be a very friendly and curious llama. He doesn’t like to be touched, he prefers to touch you!  Pipe also loves to give kisses to people he knows. But he will usually come to the fence and check you out, even if he doesn’t know you. Together with Pipe-cleaner and Burrito we also have 4 dairy goats and 2 sheep. By nature goats are very curious creature and always come to check out what is going on and who has come to see them. They love attention and bleat at people to come over to visit them. The sheep on the other hand are very timid and prefer to keep their distance, but they are cute to look at. We have one white sheep and one black sheep.

Last Saturday Rod picked up 8 Lion Rabbits, who are getting used to there new home at Willowtree. The rabbits are really cute and have long fluffy manes, hence the name Lion Rabbits. There are several different coloured rabbits, white, black, tan and one in particular is really neat looking. He looks like a tiger with multi color stripes of black, orange and gray, at the same time his is the fluffiest one out there.

Between the other animals we have 2 pigs. The pigs have brown on there heads and tails with pink sandwiched between, like an Oreo cookie. The pigs have a lot of character, they get super excited when I do chores and bring them food and water. First they check out what they got today in there food dish. They love the scarps we bring home from markets, particularly the juicy strawberries and tomatoes. Water also really excites them, first they stick there head in the bucket and blow bubble. Later after they are done drinking, they flip the bowl over and flop and roll in the mud they just created in sheer delight. They make me laugh when I do the chores in there pen.

Another new addition to the farm is a crested duck. It was brought to us only a few days old from a Mom and her son, but it was very apparent at first glance that this duck was special. Mohawk we now call him, has a tuft or pompom of feathers on the top of his head. At the moment he is in the pen in the barn with the turkey chicks, because he is lease then a few weeks old and has not developed his true feathers yet so he needs to be under the heat lamp. He is still bright yellow and fluffy, but eventually we will have him outside to swim in our pond. Until then he has become good friends with the turkeys and I think he thinks he is more of a turkey than a duck.

We also have 10 new kittens in the barn. We got them because we need cats to keep the mice population at bay in the hay mow. They are all so cute and run to the door when they hear you coming down the stairs to do chores. A couple of them even have six toes. It looks like they have mittens on.

As you can see we have collected quite the array of new animals on the farm this year. Most of them are outside the market for everyone to enjoy. So come on over and see Willowtree’s new friends. They love the attention!