Raising animals

Summer Rain Farm is looking forward to having plenty of honey available this year. As a beekeeper, we know everything depends on Mother Nature. The bees handle every thing from weather, flower availability, wind, pest pressure and of course help from the beekeeper with space. The brood boxes are on the bottom and are where the queen bee lays her eggs to build up the hive. Each year the hive goes from the over wintered bees of a few thousand to up to 60 thousand during peak p

The farm stand has been up and running since Mother's Day weekend! We started with just Friday afternoons and Saturday morning. We are now open most days of the week for flowers! Farm stand Wrapped Bouquets Our bouquets are a mixture of focal, spike, airy and foliage florals. We have dahlias, zinnias, sunflowers, gladiolus, sweet peas, cosmos, celosia and mints this summer season. The colours are amazing and the fragrance is delightful! Wrapped bouquets Honey, beeswax and li

Coming this year we will have a lovely farm stand at the roadside to sell our farm fresh eggs, local honey and new for us beautiful home grown flowers for market bouquets! Follow us on Instagram for times and dates! @summerrainfarmstand

Ordering We fill our freezer every year with 25 roaster chickens. We order rustic rangers in early January from a hatchery for a pickup in mid-May. By then the worst of the cold weather is gone and I can be sure the brooder in the barn will be able to keep the baby chicks warm enough. The brooder setup We set up the brooder in one of our empty stalls but a garage or shed with electricity will work. We use 12-inch corrugated paper to make a circle of about 3 feet diameter to s

First coop Soon after we had our country property we decided to get a few laying hens to have fresh eggs. We ordered 6 layer chickens and built a small raised coop, 4' x 8' and only 4 ft tall. we put in a roosting bar and feed and water buckets. This worked well for us for a few years but when we wanted a few more chickens we had to build bigger. First small coop 2nd coop This time we wanted a walk-in coop which is easier to clean and has lots of windows to let in the sunshin

When we decided to move to the country, a large reason for this move was to bring our 2 boarded horses home. We had boarded our horses where we took riding lessons and it was expensive. After 4 years of learning all we could about horsemanship and taking care of the animals, we took the first step by finding a country property. Why we call it a hobby farm We consider our little place a hobby farm because having horses for us is a hobby! We compare our hobby to other hobbies l

Our most recent acquisition of farm animals has been a gaggle of geese. We wanted something that would graze the grass and weeds around our small pond. We had previously raised muscovy ducks but they are not grazers and the area became a small jungle. Buy from a reputable breeder We got five goslings that were 1 day old from a breeder that was close to us. We ordered them in early winter and we had a choice of four breeds, Brown Chinese, Embden, Saddleback Pomeranian and Toul

My daughter and I had boarded our two horses where we took lessons for 4 years. We learned so much about taking care of them we found we were prepared to design our barn for what our family wanted. Barn in the distance Planning After going to our municipality and asking what we were allowed to build we had plans drawn up. This depended on our property size as well as where we could put it on our property. We had to have set backs and distance from our property line and neighb

So you've found your little(or big) slice of heaven. Congratulations! You've moved in and looked at all that space. What can you do with it now? I'm going to list some ideas for you to pick and choose what interests you most. A few things should be first if your looking down the road. These are just general suggestions. I will go more in depth for each suggestion in later posts. Check in the categories for updates. List of ideas Orchards should be planted first as they take a