Still Heron Farm

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Canada
Onoway, AB
Still Heron Farm

We are a small farm located near Rich Valley AB, raising registered Painted Desert sheep, and Nubian milking goats.

06/22/2025

We have always rotational grazed to a degree, in the sense of pulling sheep off of pastures before they get too stressed, and not letting the girls run it right down.
This year we are breaking pastures into smaller sections, both having the girls be less selective, and moving them on to a fresh section of grass before the ‘sweet’ regrowth really starts and before worm larvae hatch, ideally helping in breaking the parasite lifecycle.
We have been fortunate in that parasites have never been a big struggle, but management can help play a large role.
We have a pile to learn, but we are hoping to see organic matter increase, and pasture improvements over the coming years as we rotate more intentionally. It has been a learning curve! But are we ever thankful for all the feed our land is providing with the rain this year.

05/29/2025

Last night Penny gave us our wish!
She gave us not two does, but three!
This will be her second freshening. Penny is unregistered but has some very nice udder structure. She has a larger teat size, and good sized orfices which makes milking a breeze. She was a gem to train to milk on the stand last year, with barely a kick. Very curious to see how her capacity changes coming into her second freshening.

These three girls will all be retained and freshened here before we make full decisions on who may stay here long term.

A pretty exciting finish to the 2025 lambing and Kidding season!

Now comes the two year wait before we get to see what Ranger brings into the mix as this trio starts milking!

05/23/2025

Lambing is officially over! I will have to get to work and update our website. Now, over on the goat side of the farm, we are expecting Penny to kid in less than a week! She is looking rather circular. 😅

We are really excited to be moving ahead with our Nubian breeding program, and really looking forward to seeing what our new buck, Sully, will bring into the mix.

Our main buck, Ranger, is the sire for Penny's imminent kids. Fingers crossed for a couple of doelings, as we would like to try our hand at raising a first freshener to sell in a couple years, but also want to hold on to a Penny daughter ourselves!

05/19/2025

The old Ford 5000 had been down and out for a little while. With the help of family he's feeling good again, and we are loaded up and headed back to the farm!

05/03/2025

Two weeks into lambing and we are halfway through!
The girls had a slow start with most carrying 3-4 days past their mark date. Which resulted in 21 lambs in 48 hours early this week 😅
Everyone is hitting the ground happy and healthy and ready to go!

04/19/2025

Welcome to the farm, Spyder!

Today we brought home our next up and coming livestock guardian from Shars and Sheep. We are very pleased with the thought and intention Jacquie has put into breeding these guardians. Koda now has a partner who, in time, will play a key role in helping protect the farm from predators. Our goal for Spyder is to bond him with our milking does, expanding on Koda's radius. We are very much looking forward to seeing how Spyder matures in the coming years!

04/12/2025

Countdown is on, we are a week out from lambing.
Girls are starting to look ready!

03/30/2025

A few weeks ago we brought home a very important addition! Introducing Strawberry Fringe Sullivan.

We have to give a massive shout out to Christine as she is a huge help setting us up for success as we learn our way through dairy goats.

Sully should offer some great udder genetics, especially teat placent and size to our girls. As well as he will be a bit of a larger structured Nubian, lending some more size to future kids.

We are very excited to see this guy grow up over the summer and we should see his first kids on the ground in 2026!

02/18/2025

Well, 30 below and this pair is sure unphased. They have a straw filled shelter inside our makeshift barn, yet here they are out suntanning in the sheep shelter 😆 ❄️
These kunes sure do well in the cold.

Address

Onoway, AB

Website

http://www.stillheronfarm.com/

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