First off, a phonetic lesson. The word boer is pronounced: Bo sounds like BOO (with the long oo), and the r is pronounced the same as the first letter r as in red. The e is silent. The word boer is an Afrikaans word taken from the first Dutch settlers to land in the Cape. …
I often get questions about the diets of various animals, and, specifically, “Is what I am giving my animals safe or toxic?” This is a very serious concern for all homesteaders and pet owners, because nobody wants to see their beloved animals suffer and die. If your animal does ingest something poisonous, you will want …
We’ve all heard the saying that goats will eat anything. Only, it simply isn’t true. You won’t actually see a billy goat eating a tin can; it’s just a myth. Goats don’t really eat those things. In reality, goats can be surprisingly picky eaters, which generally helps protect them from eating anything poisonous or dangerous. …
If you have goats on your homestead, you’ve likely wondered about how difficult it might be to breed them and to deal with a pregnant doe. Luckily, all it takes is a little bit of extra attention and care to make sure your pregnant does are well cared for. Giving them access to plenty of …
When it comes to dairy animals, it seems that most people are either cow people or goat people. I wanted to be both. When we moved to the country in 2002, I wanted to have goats for “goat cheese,” which is more correctly called chévre, and I wanted cows for milk and butter. We started …
That is the question! When you have a goat herd for the purpose of milking, you will need kids. Without kids, your does will not produce milk. Simple as that. In order to get kids, you’ll need to breed your does. A decision will need to be made of whether or not to keep your …
Goats can fall into two categories: those that are polled and those that are not. A polled goat is naturally born without horns, a recessive trait. These babies have a soft spot on their heads where the horns would otherwise be. When your kids are born with horns you need to consider dis-budding. Usually, it’s best to dis-bud …
We jumped in without even looking, really. We spent nearly 20 minutes on research, and asked just a few questions and felt we were ready. We just knew we wanted goats. I mean, we became parents without any prior knowledge or experience, and our kids turned out okay, right? Well, turns out that goats just …
Urban homesteading is very popular right now. It is best defined as “living off the land you have”. There are a lot of people turning to the self-sufficient lifestyle. They are taking a small space of property and turning it into something special. If you look in some backyards, you will see gardens, fruit trees, …
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We had a make shift milking stand for our goat until my hubby decided that was enough. It took 3 of us to milk her, one to hold her head, one to hold her grain, and one to actually do the milking. And for a little Nigerian Dwarf goat, that’s a lot of manpower. Our …
