When we bought our farm my husband said, “this will not be a funny farm with all types of animals.” I am not sure if my husband has gotten soft in his years or if I have just become more convincing but here we are, 8 years later and adding to the “funny farm” again. We have always had dogs, a few barn cats, and horses and ponies. This spring our 3 yr old Brinley fell madly in love with the Chickens at my parent’s farm and needed some of her own. We added 6 chickens and the girls love collecting and washing the eggs each day. They are such great caretakers of all the animals. Our daughters are just turning 2 and 4 this month and each night they feed the cats and dogs as well as full water tanks and collect eggs. They are quite the helpers on the farm and love doing it. In fact, if they get left inside or I collect eggs without them it will result in an instant melt down.

Since we don’t have enough irons in the fire, I got the wild hair that we needed to add cattle to the lineup. Kevin’s family has raised beef cattle since he was a baby. He is very familiar with raising cattle and all that entails. Megan was in animal nutrition for 6 years out of college so has a good grasp on how to care for cattle. After much deliberation and bribing we landed on Scottish Highland cattle. They are a very versatile breed and do well in most environments. They are good for all aspects of why you would raise cattle. They have exceptional cuts of meat and have low back fat resulting in lean quality beef. They are great mothers and breed and calve fairly easily. They are smaller in frame and do more on less ground than a standard beef cow. The life expectedly is longer than the standard beef cow and most average 20 years of life. They are very hardy and eat a lot of brushy stocks (which is something we have a lot of) that most cattle wouldn’t touch As an added bonus they are really cute and have a calm demeanor to them. Our cattle arrived this week and they are just as cute as the pictures! We bought 4 registered Highlands from Climbing Stump Farm in Minnesota. They are 10 months old and all half-sisters. We are still working on names and trying to determine if we keep the names they came with or change them up. As of now they are Dakota, Viola, JuneBerry, and Ayla (the names they came with). We are working to gain trust with them and get to the point of getting close and being able to pet them. You will see more updates from us in the coming weeks as we get familiar with our new babies! You can read more about our heifers at http://www.wapsiridgehighlands.com