Adventures on the farm!

One Crazy Year

Posted on by hoddinottacres

This past year has been a whirlwind one. We’ve made it through our first lambing season, expanded the farm, sold a ton of wool, and had a wedding!

We had a successful lambing last year with 52 lambs born and 12 goat kids born. We kept all of our ewe lambs this year to expand our flock and have sold all but 4 of our Suffolk terminal sire rams. We also had great luck finding most of our Lincoln ram lambs great new homes. We did decide to keep one of our Lincoln ram lambs to use next year, he has incredible wool and wonderful personality, he has been nicknamed “Woolbur”.

With keeping our ewe lambs and our female goat kids we have been quickly expanding the farm. We now have 56 ewes bred to lamb this year and 10 goats set to kid this year. We also added an unconventional friend to our sheep farm as well, a big Palomino quarter horse named Quick. I love to ride and am loving our new addition.

This year I have also discovered the magic of online wool sales. In previous years we relied on word of mouth and a few wool sales a year to sell our fleeces. This year I started posting our fleeces for sale on several Facebook sites and have been selling it like crazy. This has allowed me to add more Lincolns, and keep my house a little cleaner 😉

Our last exciting event for the year was the Matt and I (finally) got married! On August 19th we tied the knot at a ceremony in the Michigan State University Gardens. It was a beautiful day and we are beyond happy!

Fast forward to today and we are weathering the cold Michigan winter and looking forward to babies soon. Our goats are due to kid any day now and many are walking around with full udders, our sheep will begin lambing on January 27th so be sure to check back often for lots of baby updates!

-Kalli Hensley

Meet the farmers!

Posted on by hoddinottacres

So I thought for our first blog post I would introduce the farmers of Hoddinott Acres.

Kalli Mier: Kalli is 23 and was born and raised in a small town just south of Mackinaw City. She met her fiance Matt while attending Michigan State University. At MSU she received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She is now a third grade teacher and of course a farmer. Kalli is the reason Hoddinott Acres also has boer goats as she is a self professed “crazy goat lady.”

Matt Hensley: Matt is 27 and born and raised in Lenawee county. He attended Michigan State University and received his bachelor’s degree in agribusiness management. At MSU he also met his fiance Kalli. Matt is now the teachers assistant, and FFA advisor for the agri-tech class in Lenawee County. Matt has raised sheep most of his life and is now the sheep leader for the Rome Blue Ribbons 4H club.

Harvey Warrick: Harvey is originally from Ohio and was a professor at Ohio State University. He and his wife Rose started their own farm in Lenawee county raising Lincoln and Suffolk sheep. He and Rose were leaders in the Rome Blue Ribbons 4H club for many years where they met Matt. When Matt and Kalli moved back to Lenawee county Harvey helped them get the start they needed by proposing that they all start the farm up together again. This proposal turned into Hoddinott Acres.