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  #41  
Old 03/04/11, 07:49 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: NC
Posts: 829
You might find some videos from this gal helpful (she has LOTS available)
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  #42  
Old 03/04/11, 08:12 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Central WI
Posts: 5,399
one or two goats and hope you will be able to borrow or be able to bring the ladies to a billy when needed. I know most folks around here disagree, but we had very good luck tethering them out as long as someone was around to keep an eye on them. And yes you'll have to buy hay but look at it as buying in organic matter and fertilizer to keep your garden humming along.

3 does rabbits and a buck. Put em in good hutches so they can't dig out. Raise up the young in tractors (with fence on the bottom) out on the yard so you wont have to mow. We used our chicken tractors with fence added on the bottom...1x2 mesh works well http://script-host.com/self/tractor.html
You could even keep the buck in a small portable hutch to help with the feed bill. We tried keeping does in these http://script-host.com/self/hutch.html but had better luck with the breeding if we kept them in solid cages.

A small coop and yard will handle 50 meat birds for the eight weeks or so needed and 20 or so layers year round. You could even tractor the layers to help in the feed bill.

Personally I wouldn't mess with pigs I don't think you will have enough room to pasture or garden to feed them.

Garden your butt off. I wouldn't count on the garden and yard producing enough to support any of the animals over the winter but you might be able to reduce your feed bill here and there as the seasons go.

We had 2 acres. Kept 2 beefers on one acre and had our house, garage, chicken coop and a bit of unusable shady yard and all of the above on the other acre. We did buy a lot of hay though.....
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Last edited by sammyd; 03/04/11 at 08:27 AM.
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  #43  
Old 03/04/11, 08:46 AM
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: western New York State
Posts: 2,863
Re fire blight, you need to trim the diseased parts away agressively in mid-summer, when the tree is not so likely to put out new, highly-susceptible growth. There really isn't anything a home gardener can treat with against blight. So if those trees have/had a lot of it, may be best to take them down. Burn all the leaves & wood. Don't save any nor try to chip or compost it. Even if you're not doing more fruit trees, there may be others w/in a distance for bees, bugs or flies to carry contagion. Sue
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  #44  
Old 03/05/11, 08:11 AM
Jay Jay is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Midwest
Posts: 240
I live on one acre and ditched the goats for a cow. I get more milk, and less fencing is needed and she is much quieter. (Have to keep the neighbors in mind!)
I 'drylot' her with hay--meaning she has her shed and a smaller pasture area, her hay and water. I rotational graze her on the rest of the pasture in the summer. A solar electric fence is what helps me make it work well.

In the winter, I open up the garden and let her have at it. I do fence her away from the fruit trees, most of the time she leaves them alone, but still will snack on them. (The goats were much harder on them than the cow is!)

I've learned to plant many things out front, where she isn't anywhere near them--like my comfrey patch [she loves comfrey] and rhubarb. (It also keeps the chickens out of them as well!)

So it can be done with proper planning and implimentation.
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