Swamp Angel Farm & Exotics

03/24/2024

What a weekend!!!!!

Kinkajous: double door entry finished and they were able to move into their new palace!!! It felt so good seeing them explore their new territory! (Done!)

Goats: doe barn has been started and will be a temporary housing for the bucks (to separate them)! This will be a MASSIVE project but a beautiful one when it’s done! (goal = early April)

Emus: helped supervise the digging process, their enclosure is the next project after the barn! (goal = late April)

Rheas: still doing awesome! Will have their permanent enclosure built the same time as the emus (goal = late April)

Foxes: fortunately/unfortunately I don’t see our foxes having babies this year but they are doing great and will be the project after the emus/rheas (goal = early May)

Lemurs: doing wonderful and still sweet as can be! They will be moving into the foxes current enclosure after a quick remodel! (Goal = late may)

Peacocks: will move into the doe enclosure after their wings are clipped! (They are laying like crazy now but not broody sadly)

Turkeys: also laying and we are also looking currently for a Tom royal palm to match with some of our ladies!

Chickens: laying a lot of eggs so if ya need some, holler at Ricki!

Reptiles: getting bigger and also getting ready to go outside! (Tortoises, snakes and monitor)

Currently available: snakes (tree boas CB and incubating eggs!)

03/04/2024

New animal weekend!!!! This weekend was an insane one and also why I haven’t posted lately!!!

SO MUCH TO DO!

This weekend we got a new oven for the house, 5 of the most adorable baby goats from P&J's Looney Bin Farm, and a rescue pair of kinkajous (pregnant)! The kinkajous were “rescued” from a family who LOVED them to death but sadly at 76 years old, they had to scale down their exotics/responsibility! We will be having one more lemur this year to finish off the “2024 new animal binge” and then just enclose work after that!!!

01/16/2024

Welcome home!
We are happy to announce the arrival of our female ringtailed lemur! She’s a very sweet 2 year old girl who has adjusted beautifully to our family!

A lot going on at the farm in the next 6 months! We have kinkajous, a mini mule, baby goats, a pregnant mini donkey and at least 1 maybe 2 lemurs!!!!

Enclosures are getting closer to being finished and just in time for this (exciting) chaos to begin!

01/07/2024

Good morning!

New animal announcement!!!!

Sooner than to be expected (we are lined up with our breeder for one as well and possibly a friend for 4 more in the spring!) but we will be bringing our new girl ringtailed girl home with us this coming weekend!!!

It’s been a rough start to 2024 but hopefully this will be the start to all the good coming this year!

We also may have another surprise coming soon!!! Most likely in May, we will have some baby kinkajous come to the property as well!!

The goal is all new species in by June/July to start preparing for 2025!!!

01/06/2024

New animal coming soon!

This kinda just fell into our lap and we couldn’t say no! Sooner than we expected as we are currently lined up with our breeder for some this spring and discussing with a good friend for more but VERY EXCITED!!! The ideal group id like to have of these is 5-10 so there’s always room for more lol

We have a perfect temporary enclosure ready for her during the quarantine/observation process. During this time, the new massive fox enclosure will be finished, this will free up the space for this new animal and the rest of her friends!

Any guesses on the species?

01/01/2024

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!

It’s been officially a year since we’ve started this journey!

A year ago we had quail and THATS IT!!!!
We now keep:
Chickens
Turkeys
Emus
Rheas
Foxes
Carpet pythons
Peacocks
Australia Kookaburra
Day gecko
Parrot
Dogs
Monitor lizard
Tortoise
Amazon tree boas
And at least 2 more EXOTIC species this year!!!!

Ricki will be getting her goats in the next couple months and I have a cool surprise I’m working on as well (should find out in the next couple days!) We are building nonstop still to make this the most epic mini exotic zoo/farm we can!!!

We made a trip up to visit our new friend Geoffrey Schrock and his wife yesterday to pick up “pooka” the kookaburra! it was beyond awesome spending time with them, seeing their animals and talking! Pooka has a disability which Geoffrey went over before we went up there. He generously took the time to inform us of his experience thus far on how he’s managed it and gave us advice moving forward. He was very honest and friendly to work with! We even came home with a surprise Tom turkey for Ricki! She’s been looking for months for one and they generously gifted him to us!!! He’s now living the high life with 3 ladies that are already laying. Safe to say, his bachelor days are over lol

Photos:

Enclosure building supplies
Our trip
Pooka
Iris working with her crocs in a new enclosure
Pooka hanging out
Pest control eating pest control

12/23/2023

Pooka the disabled Australian kookaburra will be nice and comfy! Only need to pad the platforms and one brace in the roof!

12/21/2023

The doe enclosure is getting closer day by day! We are getting ready to have our babies this spring and work with P&J's Looney Bin Farm!

12/20/2023

All the front emu and Rhea posts are up!

Now only 400’ of fencing left on this one 🙃

12/18/2023

The HUGE fox enclosure has broken ground!

We’re excited to work with Saveafox Corporation to hopefully have some special needs foxes that were rescued from a fur farm, this spring! 😊

12/18/2023

A quick “key west” style face lift!

12/17/2023

What have we been up too?

- Building out an aviary for the disabled kookaburra this month
- Giving an old coop a face lift
- Fencing out the doe goat to start enclosure to start getting ready for P&J's Looney Bin Farms babies this year
- We will be moving the rheas into the doe enclosure temporarily as we finish the emu and rheas pens next!
- We will also be moving the turkeys over to the rheas enclosure so they have more room!

Ideally in 3 months, the goal is:
- Foxes get massive enclosure and moved
- Lemurs are in the works to fill the foxes old enclosure
- Goat doe pen finished
- Emu pen finished (moved in)
- Rhea pen finished (moved in)
- a couple other enclosures!

Animal goals:
Kookaburra (disabled)
Goats (from breeder)
Lemurs (from breeder and hopefully some rescues!)
More Foxes (from fur farm rescue! We are requesting disabled ones!)

Have set over 25 post this week on days off and after work!

12/08/2023

So I want the farm mission to be childhood education based.

I have been thinking about why we started the farm and it reminded me that it’s for the kids. To allow them special experiences that most would dream of. Then I thought about all the other children and how we could reach them. So we started to apply for permits to be open to the public by private tours. While I don’t anticipate on being ready until fall 2024, this is all based off my horrible business plan! We’d like to make this available for people who don’t have anything but love for their children. We want parents present in their children’s lives so to start, my goal will be a soft private opening where we can network with home school groups, special needs groups, abused woman and children shelters, etc.! Then open to days of private tours for parents that are essentially tapped financially and want to give their kids a special experience without breaking the bank.

The business plan is set up for failure I know but respectfully, there’s more to life than money and I have faith it will all work out. A huge leap of faith but all things in life that are worth while are!

11/27/2023

Photo dump/ update!!!! Holy crap 🤣😂

Soooooooo………..
-New coastal carpet python!
-Tons of eggs and baby chicks! (Feeders and for sale!)
-Hatched out black racers
-Tortoises made it to NY safe!
-Got another fox (sterling) she’s all white with blue eyes (leucitic!) basically Ricki’s baby
- visited P&J's Looney Bin Farm (baby goats come this spring!)
-visited Moore Exotic Animal Ranch (baby lemurs coming this spring!)
-Iris is keeping the animals in line!
-Hoping to work with some other friends in NY for some other cool animals so fingers crossed it all plays out!
-usda license process has been started!
-Half of the kennels are here for the new huge
fox exclosure (currently on hold)
-Emu/Rhea enclosure is starting to come together! Most post installed just fence and some concrete!
-doe goat pen just needs some more post placed and then a barn built! we may move the rheas over there until there pen is finished.
-once rheas are moved the turkeys get their own enclosure
-which allows ricki to isolate chickens for more pure genetic lines while hatching chicks
-boas have all found new home and have discontinued breeding them. The mangrove monitor has taken over that enclosure for the winter
-baby tortoises have all been moved in for the winter

Gift cards for Rural King Supply would make an amazing christmas gift 🤣

09/24/2023

Haven’t posted in a LONG time! Been busy busy and making some serious progress!

Babies are hatching! From snakes to chickens were being overrun with babies lately lol fortunately many will find homes which will help fund some of the other big projects we have going on!

The photo is of a Amazon tree boa seconds of being brought into the world. It’s yoke sack is still being absorbed (yellow ball with veins) and they are ready to go within minutes!

Got all the post for the giant birds (emus/rheas) so fencing will be the next big purchase along with the concrete to make sure they are secure! This enclosure will be 8’ tall to be sure that they won’t jump it.

Baby tortoises added to the farm! We already have Tina our redfoot tortoise but why not add 5 more? 🤣 meet: ziggy, bok choy, juice box, artichoke and tbh im blanking on the one Iris named (it’s a sound like “udh” our carpet pythons name. Ironically udh is the sound a wet carpet would make so she maybe onto something lol)

Got a free load of compost mulch! This will allow me to start to lay out all the front yard ponds!!! It’s been about a year or two that I’ve been trying to make this happen and we have been growing out/breeding fish to put in the whole time! The ponds will all be raised about 2’ from ground level to avoid flooding and the fish getting into our natural ecosystem!

Invasive animals/plants. It’s becoming more apparent that with the animals/food comes bugs and with bugs comes bug eaters! We have been blown away with how many invasives we’ve seen lately and sadly rarely see any native species anymore! The emus and rheas have been loving the invasive plants though!

Foxes. The foxes are currently going though the “October crazies” this is a time when young males are pushed out to find mates and territories of their own. The females start preparing a den for the breeding season. We currently have two females and one male at the same ages and unrelated so we shouldn’t have to much fighting to deal with but rather the opposite lol to help with their crazies they have been getting extra enrichment!

Dragon fruit, lemons and our strawberry tree are all producing fruit currently 😊

The fishing has been on point for the boys lately!

Now the fun part! So we are working on designing the farm to be fairly sustainable. With this if you haven’t noticed is built a good chain.

Fish eat fish food and breed
The fish p**p grows water lettuce

The foxes, fish, the axolotls, the turtles eat fish
The tortoises, the turtles, chickens, quail, peacocks, rheas, emus all eat water lettuce

The foxes eat chicken, quail, eggs, etc

And so on!

07/18/2023

So back to the grind now that the new foxes are established!

Next on the plan:
-Emu enclosure fenced in
-Emu shelter made
-Rhea enclosure fenced in
-Rhea shelter made
-Doe goat enclosure fenced in
-Doe goat barn made

These projects have to be done by spring so roughly 6 months left to finish it all!!

After that’s completed, we can start to focus on Rickis BIG project!

07/16/2023

Surprise surprise!

We’d like to welcome these two babies tonight! Thank you to our good friends Amanda and Ashley for providing transportation and bringing them back to Naples!

These two females are related but not related to our male red fox, Steele 😊

Introducing:
Copper Penny
Iron Maiden

Ricki said she likes listening to metal so when I’m yelling their names I’m sure she’ll appreciate it 🤣😂

07/15/2023

Oh man have we been busy!!!

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile but here’s the last 6 months since we started our dream of a farm!

Shout out to our friends that have made this possible:
Warbirds Farm- uncle Chris, emus!
Moore Exotic Animal Ranch awesome exotics and they do tours!
SWFL Farm Life-best farm sitter!
Double Barrel Photography - transport and photos and best friends!
P&J's Looney Bin Farm-the goat guru!
Sutherland General Store- local feed
Golden Gate Nursery-local feed
and many others!

06/11/2023

You guys remember the peahens we rehomed?

The buyer sent me an update that they had babies!!!!! So exciting and congratulations! 😊

06/10/2023

06/10/2023

Ok, so I’ve been kind of slacking with my posts but with that said I’ve made up for it in progress here at the farm! (It really is a tricky balance and will become easier once all the building slows down)

Updates:

-Ricki got more beautiful chicks from Nickie! We now have more bramhas

-We now have royal palm turkeys! (New species at the farm)

-Rheas we’re picked up in north florida and all made it safely home (ride was smelly)

-The goat Buck pen is about 2 hours of labor from being completed with 10’ exterior walls and 5’ interior (may have to increase that but we’ll see). Their barn is also done with a front door!

-We should be moving the emus to the larger pen tonight if all goes to plan, laying fresh substrate in the brooding barn so it’s clean and finally moving the rheas to the brooding barn to grow out before they get their own big pen!

-Fox enclosure should start making progress again soon if all goes to plan as our skunk puppy well, smells like a fox and we live in this house! Lol

-Simultaneously, my goal is to start putting up fence post and panels for the doe goat enclosure to get ready for Ricki to get her P&J's Looney Bin Farm goats this spring!

-New sunshade is on the chicken coop! This should keep them cooler!

-Black shoulder India Blue has finally started to brood her own eggs! (Fingers crossed!)

-Quail are still laying fertile eggs but tbh I haven’t had time to keep up with removing them while viable soon (eventually these guys will get a huge enclosure!

Here are some recent pics of all the animals we love and call family!

06/10/2023

Some pictures from our fun family rhea pick up trip!

06/03/2023

Oh man! What has been going on at the farm?

Building, building, building!- we are getting ready for the rhea chicks coming this week so an enclosure is in the process of being built currently for the emus to move over! The structure is built and just a couple gates need to be made and mounted and metal fence panels, extra secured! This will eventually be Ricki’s goat buck enclosure!!!

Baby Steele (the fox)- getting bigger and more playful but as an exotic, a total handful! His colors are changing to his adult colors from his “kit clothes”! He gets fed best out of all the animals 🤣

The chickens are getting bigger! All are still doing amazing and getting closer to breeding/egg laying! So many cool species, ayan’s, polish, silkies, and so much more! Ricki is doing amazing with them!

Quail are still producing fertile eggs and lots of them! (Quail eggs availability is good right now!)

Reptiles are all still doing great! (Some reptiles still available, feel free to PM us!)

Some nature walks and a graduation accomplished, I think that’s all we got! So many projects and we’re starting to make progress again!!

05/27/2023

Is this a toy?!?!

05/20/2023

Rheas have a date!

June 7th we pick up THREE WHITE RHEAS CHICKS!

Rheas are natives of the grasslands and brushy regions of South America. They are found in eastern and central Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Central Argentina.

Rheas are members of the zoological superorder that also includes the ostrich, emu, cassowary, and kiwi, which are collectively known as ratites. All of these birds share in common small or rudimentary wings and a breastbone with no keel. The adult birds stand about 5 feet tall and weigh between 60 and 70 pounds. The male is the larger of the two sexes.

Rheas are polygamous-polyandrous, which means that the roles of the males and females are reversed in regards to incubation of eggs and rearing of young. Rheas are mainly grazers and consume large quantities of grass, clover, dandelions, and other broad-leaf weeds. They will also eat small eggs, insects, earthworms, and small snakes.

05/20/2023

🦊🦊🦊

We would like to introduce you to our newest family member, Baby “Steele”!

(Ricki came up with his name!)

He is a male fox kit that we are permitted by the state of florida to keep! He was captive bred and born in early April. His mother is a marble and his dad is a beautifully colored male! He will look totally different when he’s full grown!

We are excited to start this journey and we will soon be working on becoming a USDA licensed facility!

Also, Ricki maybe soon working on her own HUGE project here! Discussions in the works 😊

05/14/2023

Happy Mothers Day from our farm!

We appreciate all you moms do for your babies and the farm wouldn’t work without you!