Of Goats and chickens

Yes, you read that right, goats.  Last week while observing that our 3 fields are getting more than a bit overgrown, we had the idea to see if our neighbors would like to graze their goats on it.  We figured this is a win-win for everybody – they get free food for their animals, we don’t have to mow/brush hog the fields.  Unfortunately there isn’t a fence which means that the goats would happily eat the little baby trees we’ve been nurturing along for the last several weeks.  Bummer.  In conversation though, we discovered that our neighbors have 2 goats for sale – one buck and one wether (castrated male).  They are a Nigerian dwarf/ La Mancha cross which means they are about knee high and very personable.  Does of this mix tend to produce a lot of milk for their size and be very healthy.  The gents clearly won’t be producing milk, but they’re hardy and friendly.  Someday, we can get does so that we can have milk (and baby goats!). 

After some discussion and negotiation, we agreed to trade them our chicken tractor with 2 chickens for their 2 goats and a little cash.  On the days when we aren’t able to go to the farm to take care of the goats, they’ll go over and make sure everything is OK.  We’ll be using the cattle panels from our fence here and our former tomato tunnels to make a few 16’x16’ pens for the goats that we can move around the property.  Hopefully that will contain them and direct their chomping efforts to the parts of the farm that need knocked down the most. 

Unlike cows or sheep, goats prefer to eat brushy stuff.  They are browsers rather than grazers, although they will eat grass if they have to.  Since our fields are currently more weed than grass, this works out perfectly.  We’re hoping that after the goats spend a while eating down the pasture, it will convert back to mostly grass (grass is one of the very few plants that is made to be eaten off and regrow).  Over time, these little guys will help us improve the quality of our pasture as well as keep it cut down.

The great swap is to take place this morning so hopefully I’ll have pictures later this week of the new additions to the farmstead and their new digs.  The kids are a little bummed to give up the last 2 chickens at our house, but I think they’ll like the goats too.  We’ll also be able to get our other chickens back when we move to the farm.

In other homestead news, we set up the beds for the established grapes and for the blackberries on Friday.  We also did some more clearing along the fence line.  We forgot the camera so we don’t have any pictures of the new spaces to post today (I know, I know - yell at me in the comments…).  We’ve started fleshing out what the rest of the garden beds in that corner will look like so they will start going in over the next few weeks.  We may even get to have a small late summer/fall garden yet this year.

We’re getting geared up for the first greenhouse now.  There should be some significant developments on that front in the very near future, so stay tuned!