Maple Lane Farm - Photo Gallery

Photo Gallery - Large Creatures
		Maple Lane Farm is a working, small diversified farm. We share the farm with two draft horses, two or three cows and four adult sheep. We have a Percheron stallion named Midnight and a Belgian mare named Arwen. Our beef cows are Belted Galloways originally from Scotland. They are woolly and have their characteristic wide, white belts across their midsection. We have one milking Jersey cow named Natalyia. We have Romney cross sheep that are raised for wool and we also sell lambs each spring. Our ewes often have twin and triplet lambs and normally birth in January and February. We harvest about a third of the hay that we need each year from our own hay fields. We manage about 15 acres in rotating paddocks and hay fields such that we can graze the livestock on pastures between May and November. We do not shoe our horses but rather have their hoofs trimmed about twice a year. The natural hoof seems to wear well during the year on natural ground and the "bite" of the hoof provides good traction and gripping during icy winter weather conditions.
	Arwen This is a photo of our Belgian mare when she was just a wee filly. Here, she is about six months old and starting halter training.
	Arwen This is Arwen at two years old and about 1,600 pounds. She is still considered a baby and is no longer a filly but really not quite a mare. She will mature at well over 2,000 pounds when fully grown. As big as they become, they are still a "prey" animal and can spook at the darnedest things like blowing paper and hidden pussycats.
	Belted Galloway Bull Calf This is a six month old Belted Galloway bull calf. We don't keep mature bulls generally, as they will mature to over 1,200 pounds and can be very noisy and raucous when around cows ( females). Once bulls learn something stupid or dangerous, it is impossible for them to unlearn it. You pretty much have to get cows to want to do something, because it is near impossible to get a grown cow to do something that they don't want to. There are exceptions to this rule.
	Natalyia Natalyia is an exception to the above rule. Natalyia was bottle fed as a youngster. Natalyia is a Jersey cow and has difficulty figuring out if she should lick you to death or climb inside your pocket. Natalyia actually frolics when she gets excited and you have to make sure she doesn't accidentally step on your feet (as she is 900 pounds). Natalyia is a pet cow and hasn't been milked in quite a few years.
	The Sheep We maintain a small flock of white and colored, Romney cross sheep. They are all very friendly and we shear their wool every spring. We also sell lambs every spring as well. Lambs are wonderful to have and to watch except that they eventually grow up to be full fledged sheep.
	Strawberry Strawberry is a very good mother to her lambs each and every year. There are some sheep who are clever, but Strawberry is not one of these sheep. Strawberry is always the last ewe to make her way to a new paddock. Strawberry is always losing track of her lambs and bleating. Strawberry always bleats for grain even after being put out on spring pastures. Although we love Strawberry, she is one reason why we don't really miss the lambs, because some of them might grow up to be like her !!
	Midnight Midnight is our Percheron stallion and is green broke to do all kinds of work around the farm (although we don't get nearly enough time to work with him). He has an extremely gentle personality but you still have to keep one eye on him as he is a stallion. Midnight knows everything that goes on at the farm and is very clever (unlike Strawberry). Anyone who says horses are not clever, has never had a horse like Midnight.