Introductions

I would love to introduce the animals of the Tanner Ranch -

We have two wonderful dogs, two elderly cats, one brown cow, 3 full grown chickens, 6 young chickens, and 2 roosters (one who is a year old and the other hatched here at the ranch).

Our two dogs are Sucia and Abby.

Abby is our adopted 6 year old chocolate lab. She is our protector. We adopted her from a family in Mill Creek. She was just a little too much for the family and needed more space. When we met her, my soon to be, husband looked at me and said "what do you think?" I said "lets do it." And we never looked back. She came to us when she was 1 and half years and had very little training... Sitting was not a mastered skill for her, so Justas got to work and trained her to be one very good dog. Abby loves to eat! She eats so fast - I am pretty sure she doesn't even chew her food. She is a tad bit overweight and is on a diet to lose some good ol' pounds.

Sucia is our sweet little golden retriever. We got her when she was 6 weeks old and have watched her grow to be a fabulous dog. When she was about 6 months old we found out that she had hip dysplasia. We made the tough decision to have her go in to surgery. At 9 months she had her surgery. Her recovery was long and it took a lot of work for her. Now 2 years later we can't even tell she had the surgery! She loves to roll in icky stuff - the stinker the better!!!

Our two cats are about 11 years old. We have Sabrina and Mickey. Sabrina is a beautiful calico and Mickey is grey and white. Both are from the same litter and they each have their own personality. Mickey is very shy and is a mama's boy. Sabrina is very independent and intuitive. I am positive she new I was pregnant before we even knew...

We have a few new additions to the Ranch - Miss Lady our brown cow, 6 new chicks (now adolescents...) and one crazy looking rooster. Miss Lady is the sweetest cow I think we have ever raised. She goes for walks with us and I am pretty sure she thinks she is a dog... Maybe sometime I will try to figure out how to upload a video of her playing with Abby and Sucia - we will see ;0).

My chickens are my little project I started last year. I started out with 2 rhode island reds, 2 buffed orpingtons, and 2 barred rocks. They started laying eggs in Sept of 2009 and very soon I was getting about 6 eggs a day - OH MY!! My chickens have a huge coop (use to be an old dairy cow barn). My husband built the coop for me (and the chickens...) - he is the best husband in the world!!! They have about 1 acre that they can explore, eat yummy bugs and dig around in the compost. By the end of summer of 2009 we adopted a rhode island red rooster who got beat up by my chickens for a few months until he figured out he was a rooster and not a chicken.

Unfortunately I lost a few of my chickens this last winter and spring, first rhode island red to something we still can't figure out, the second rhode island red was lost to a bird of prey, the last one my barred rock was taken by our mother coyote in the back (who has thank goodness moved on!). So we made some changes to make it so they were not able to get out of their area and now they are doing so much better and happier now they are finally out of their coop.

After loosing my chickens I decided to get some more chicks - 6 was the end count... Had some trouble with the chicks this year, but now they are happy as ever in their own coop - yep my fabulous husband made a second area for my ladies to spread their wings while they wait to be introduced to my current flock. The big introduction for the 3 larger birds will be on July 19th.

In the end, I ended up with 2 Black Jersey Giants, 2 Golden Wyandottes and 2 Rhode Island Red (one of those Rhode Island Reds is Cook - my nephew's chicken). And a rooster, who was hatched here at the Ranch. He is very interesting and has a few problems, but he is kicking it with the chickens and happy as ever.

Introductions complete (more photos to come)... All the animals on the ranch are so much fun! They are a lot of work, but worth every minute!