Winter Wonderland
Winter at The Ranch
Winter brings out the serene nature of Willow-Witt Ranch. Our Farm Stays are open year-round and we have guests choosing to spend meaningful holidays with us.
The days are filled with cozy moments by the fire, birdwatching, and hiking/snowshoeing/or xc skiing depending on the conditions!
Our Farm Hands keep the roads clear and work daily to care for the land and the animals. You can visit us by booking a farm stay or coming up for the day to explore.
Winter Animal Care
Our goats stay close to the barn this time of year. In addition to certified organic grass hay and alfalfa, we bring them conifer boughs or chips! Staff members are known to find their Christmas Trees at the ranch and bring them back as a gift to the goats!
Goats are all about cellulose: they don’t discriminate among live, recently-died, or long-dead trees and shrubs, or chips…it’s all good. Of course their favorite part of sunny winter days (which is most of the time at our elevation) is going for a hike with our staff to browse ‘fresh’ off the trees. They often accompany us when we work in the forest or on the roads.
We raise chickens on pasture; rotating pastures all summer and fall is easy. But what about winter? Our ‘chicken hoop’ is a 14’x24′ hoop on skids; it houses the hanging next boxes, keeps feed dry, and has roosts for ~80 hens for the night. And light through the white covering seems to help the hens keep laying when days are short and nights are long and dark. Chickens range inside a large yard for the winter…looking for bugs, of course. We bring the hens hay/alfalfa left from the goats’ feeders a few times weekly, full of bugs and ‘waste’ from the goats…perfect for scratching and pecking to find treasures.
As our temperatures rarely rise above freezing all animals have constantly-running fresh waterers…cold but fresh.
We can’t think of a better winter morning than waking up, stoking the fire, going for a snowshoe walk in the serene forest, and cooking up some eggs from the farm. We hope to see you and your family this winter at Willow-Witt Ranch!
The Willow-Witt Ranch Team
