So it is now May 29th, more then a month since my last post and since we got the goat.
THE GOAT: when the breeder called on Apr 15th I was literally trying to get caught up on my posts and make sure that I had written about everything that I had done, and well, a ton more has happened.
The goats name is Tamara, she is a registered Nubian goat. She kidded twins (good for me and hopefully she continues to have twins in the future) so the breeder through in the male kid for the same price. He was a really nice guy and I hope to have him up one day to show him the homestead that he had a hand in building. Now I don't know very many goats, but Tamara is not a very smart one. She has this cry that she makes when she can find Troy (the male kid, Cheryl named him) and it is very distinct. I can see that, the whole protective mother thing, but sometimes she will start freaking out and making that cry and Troy will be to the left of her and a little back (what I mean is just out of her line of sight) and she doesn't look around to find him first. She chooses to freak out first and then look around for him. This is hard for me to explain in written word, but she is stupid. We converted an old double car garage that was on the property into the barn. I had spent a lot of time putting some scrap roofing metal around the base of the exterior walls and then piled rocks around the base of the wall to stop predators. Because it wasn't finished the first night that the goats were here I slept in the back of the van parked right outside of the barn with a loaded 22 rifle and a flashlight. Sleep was limited. A train passes by our house every half hour over night, I would say. I didn't know this sleeping inside, but now I do.
As we got the call, Cheryl said to me well why don't we pick up some laying hens while we are out and I agreed. So we found 3 Plymouth rock and 4 Black sex-link right around the corner. A young guy was selling them and he had a huge array of other foul. Now the chicken tractor wasn't done, so the first thing I had to do when we got back, after finishing the rest of the barn, was finish the chicken tractor. I kinda just through the rest of it together. Because of that it ended up weighting a ton and now I have to move it using the ATV and not by hand as I had planned. The chickens love it, but for the first few days they would lay their eggs on the ground and wouldn't go up inside at night. One of the sex-link was the first to lay her egg in the nesting boxes and then from there everyone followed and it only took them three days till they all learned that inside on the perches was where they should spend there nights. We do currently have one hen (but we can't find out who) that is laying deflated eggs. The eggs is just a shell and has nothing in it and the shell itself is softer and wrinkled. O well hopefully it stops as the nest of them are laying fine. We are getting at four eggs every day and some days they give up to six.
The Paddock: Yesterday I got the paddock to a point where the goats can go out and they are contained, for the last month and a half we have been just letting them roam free and I have spent a lot of time trying to keep them out of areas that they shouldn't be in. SO this is a relief. the door from the barn to the paddock still has no lock but that is coming. Yesterday there was no door and even though the goats had the ability to roam the grasses of the paddock they choose to stay inside the barn, like I said they are not very bright. To add to that when there was no fence they would wonder around and eat the grasses and everything else that was growing all around the paddock, but now that they are fenced in (80'x 60', it's huge for one goat and a kid) they stay near the doors or inside the barn. I still need to put t-bar between each set of posts, but Troy is too young to challenge the fence right now and he will be dinner if we don't get another doe soon, so I am in no rush to get that done. I did build them this great feeder for in the barn but now that the grasses are in it will stay empty all summer.
Now well we where at the goat breeders we noticed that he had two jersey bull calfs. so we asked and he told us that he picked them up at a livestock auction for $20/head. I almost passed out. To go over the numbers for those that don't know.
SO Jersey is a dairy breed, so the bull (male) calfs are useless, they take milk supply and feed to raise plus handling and so dairy operation want to get rid of them as soon as possible. A spring calf will weight about 500 lbs or more by the end of summer and still be or just past the veal point. thats roughly 300 lbs of vealish meat for $20 and some time and management, that's 6 Cents a lbs up front cost. If you have 2 acres of grasses that you can bale 1 acre twice for winter feed well the calf eats the other (about 2 tons) and once you are through spring grasses the next year that calf that cost $20 now could weigh up to 1200-1400 lbs, thats about 1000lbs of meat after you remove useless bone (because there are stewing bones) and innards, plus there are some innards that are useful like the intestine, heart and liver. The brain can even be used for tanning the hind and hooves are a delicacy and hard to find with our current industrial food system so you could almost eat the whole thing, and don't forget to compost the rest for your garden the following year. NOW THATS A DEAL!!!!!!
So Ryan and I went to a livestock auction. I didn't understand a thing the auctioneer said, but I did find Buff Orpington's for $2/bird (day old chicks) so we bought the last 10 he had and two turkey's for $5 a bird, Ryan bought two turkey's also and we are going to take care of them till they have space or Easter/ Christmas/ Thanksgiving, haha.
I went the next week with Cheryl and the kids hoping to get a pig and bull calf plus some more Orpington's, but the pigs were all off the block and there were no calf's that week, but there were 16 more chicks. I have had to separate the turkey's from the chicks. They killed five chicks from just being jerks and stumping on them. They would literally just walk up to a chick and just stump on their head. So we are now down to 21 chicks and four turkey's.
I will tell more later, bye for now.
THE GOAT: when the breeder called on Apr 15th I was literally trying to get caught up on my posts and make sure that I had written about everything that I had done, and well, a ton more has happened.
The goats name is Tamara, she is a registered Nubian goat. She kidded twins (good for me and hopefully she continues to have twins in the future) so the breeder through in the male kid for the same price. He was a really nice guy and I hope to have him up one day to show him the homestead that he had a hand in building. Now I don't know very many goats, but Tamara is not a very smart one. She has this cry that she makes when she can find Troy (the male kid, Cheryl named him) and it is very distinct. I can see that, the whole protective mother thing, but sometimes she will start freaking out and making that cry and Troy will be to the left of her and a little back (what I mean is just out of her line of sight) and she doesn't look around to find him first. She chooses to freak out first and then look around for him. This is hard for me to explain in written word, but she is stupid. We converted an old double car garage that was on the property into the barn. I had spent a lot of time putting some scrap roofing metal around the base of the exterior walls and then piled rocks around the base of the wall to stop predators. Because it wasn't finished the first night that the goats were here I slept in the back of the van parked right outside of the barn with a loaded 22 rifle and a flashlight. Sleep was limited. A train passes by our house every half hour over night, I would say. I didn't know this sleeping inside, but now I do.
As we got the call, Cheryl said to me well why don't we pick up some laying hens while we are out and I agreed. So we found 3 Plymouth rock and 4 Black sex-link right around the corner. A young guy was selling them and he had a huge array of other foul. Now the chicken tractor wasn't done, so the first thing I had to do when we got back, after finishing the rest of the barn, was finish the chicken tractor. I kinda just through the rest of it together. Because of that it ended up weighting a ton and now I have to move it using the ATV and not by hand as I had planned. The chickens love it, but for the first few days they would lay their eggs on the ground and wouldn't go up inside at night. One of the sex-link was the first to lay her egg in the nesting boxes and then from there everyone followed and it only took them three days till they all learned that inside on the perches was where they should spend there nights. We do currently have one hen (but we can't find out who) that is laying deflated eggs. The eggs is just a shell and has nothing in it and the shell itself is softer and wrinkled. O well hopefully it stops as the nest of them are laying fine. We are getting at four eggs every day and some days they give up to six.
The Paddock: Yesterday I got the paddock to a point where the goats can go out and they are contained, for the last month and a half we have been just letting them roam free and I have spent a lot of time trying to keep them out of areas that they shouldn't be in. SO this is a relief. the door from the barn to the paddock still has no lock but that is coming. Yesterday there was no door and even though the goats had the ability to roam the grasses of the paddock they choose to stay inside the barn, like I said they are not very bright. To add to that when there was no fence they would wonder around and eat the grasses and everything else that was growing all around the paddock, but now that they are fenced in (80'x 60', it's huge for one goat and a kid) they stay near the doors or inside the barn. I still need to put t-bar between each set of posts, but Troy is too young to challenge the fence right now and he will be dinner if we don't get another doe soon, so I am in no rush to get that done. I did build them this great feeder for in the barn but now that the grasses are in it will stay empty all summer.Now well we where at the goat breeders we noticed that he had two jersey bull calfs. so we asked and he told us that he picked them up at a livestock auction for $20/head. I almost passed out. To go over the numbers for those that don't know.
SO Jersey is a dairy breed, so the bull (male) calfs are useless, they take milk supply and feed to raise plus handling and so dairy operation want to get rid of them as soon as possible. A spring calf will weight about 500 lbs or more by the end of summer and still be or just past the veal point. thats roughly 300 lbs of vealish meat for $20 and some time and management, that's 6 Cents a lbs up front cost. If you have 2 acres of grasses that you can bale 1 acre twice for winter feed well the calf eats the other (about 2 tons) and once you are through spring grasses the next year that calf that cost $20 now could weigh up to 1200-1400 lbs, thats about 1000lbs of meat after you remove useless bone (because there are stewing bones) and innards, plus there are some innards that are useful like the intestine, heart and liver. The brain can even be used for tanning the hind and hooves are a delicacy and hard to find with our current industrial food system so you could almost eat the whole thing, and don't forget to compost the rest for your garden the following year. NOW THATS A DEAL!!!!!!
I went the next week with Cheryl and the kids hoping to get a pig and bull calf plus some more Orpington's, but the pigs were all off the block and there were no calf's that week, but there were 16 more chicks. I have had to separate the turkey's from the chicks. They killed five chicks from just being jerks and stumping on them. They would literally just walk up to a chick and just stump on their head. So we are now down to 21 chicks and four turkey's.
I will tell more later, bye for now.
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