Our new farm is a little smaller than the last, however, the usable land actually makes it better. There is about 1 acre in the back that was made for goats. In fact, it even had old 4″ square fencing up. Unfortunately, it was so old, we had to remove it all to make it goat proof again. It took about a week of work, but today, I finally finished getting the entire perimeter fenced in with hard wire. We plan to subdivide a little and make some additional isolation pens, but that can wait until after everything else is moved.
The acre that is now a goat pen is completely covered in poison ivy that is about 12-18″ high at this point. Additionally, there are briars and other general brush plants growing. This makes it ideal for the goats. In fact, they probably won’t need any hay for a while. The only downside is getting more poison ivy on my arms from milking goats.
Here are some pictures of the area and the herd getting there first taste. It was getting dim, but I wanted to take some day one photos. If you have considered goats for clearing poison ivy, come see the before for yourself. Just swing by the old house and grab some boxes on the way.
It’s North Stonington Fair time! This is our first fair experience showing animals. We have been busy for the last few days making final preps. 6 rabbits are about to get delivered to their cages and will stay until Sunday night. The kids get to do unlimited rides tonight.
We will probably go tomorrow evening, but first we will be prepping horses. Saturday morning is the horse show. Vicki will be riding lead line on King since Devil is still not healed enough to show. Alex will be riding Precious, and Anna even has a student riding Precious in the lead line class. This will be Alex and Vicki’s first horse show. I may enter with King if there are other adults showing.
Then, Sunday is the goat show. We are taking 5 goats (2 for Vicki and 3 for Alex). This will be our first goat show!
Horses eat grass and leave weeds. Goats eat weeds and leave grass. A little rest from the horses is a perfect time to let the goats clean up the weeds! We recently purchased a large quantity of used Premier electronet fencing for just this purpose. At their initial browse rate, it looks like the weeds will be clear in about 24 hours. Luckily, we are putting up more electronet around an overgrown area of the property for the goats to move to next!
That’s right, we have Goat Addition Syndrome. You can read more about the affliction on Backyard Herds. In September 2011, we bought our first 2 goats. Right now we have 2 bucks, 6 does (3 in milk – 2 getting milked and 1 with babies), and 4 doelings born this year. Some people would think that 12 goats are enough, but we are only getting about 5-6 quarts of milk a day from the 2 does we are milking. Farrah is either going to kid this week (she is already overdue), or she is very fat and going on a diet. Theoretically, we will sell some goats, but we just haven’t decided which ones yet. We are somewhat attached to our Lamanchas and want to expand on that herd, so that’s why we are going to buy another goat from New Hampshire this weekend. Hopefully by Monday we will be milking 3 does for about 2 gallons of milk a day. That should support the demand for a little while. The kids are capable of eating 2 quarts of ice cream a day, so we make a batch every other day. We actually drink about 3 quarts a day, and the rest will be used for making cheese. If we still have extra, we might raise a veal calf. 13 goats should be enough for a little while. Of course if Farrah really does kid, then it’s more like 15…
Today, Alex and Vicki spent the day with Great Goats 4H Club at Cedars of Lebanon Farm. They learned about getting ready for shows and how to show a goat. They also learned about showing chickens, sheep, and dogs. It was a very educational day and we got to meet a lot of other families who are new to showing goats. While we are not joining 4H yet, we do plan to attend some fair shows.
