Suggestions, please

crashy · #21 02/02/05, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy in KY

As far as ducks & geese in the pasture with the goats, the birds will swim in the drinking water, and your goats will never have clean water, and thus, won't drink. Goats hate dirty water. No matter how hard I tried to train them, the ducks & geese here always found a tub of water they were not suppposed to be swimming in! My ducks used to roam the pasture, but now they are penned up again, and it's their own fault. Ducks & geese are messy to keep, messy poop, icky muddy water. Make sure where you put them drains down away from anything else.

We had some free potbellied pigs, not tame, and they were scary. They rooted out under the pig panels all the time if the ground got muddy. And they can run very fast! They will make a real big mess of your ground if you don't have good rings in their noses, even the little babies. You have to cut their teeth too. We could not do it, they were too big allready, and too wild. We gave them all away. For raising pigs, a good way to do it is wait till your garden is just starting to produce (plant allot of squash, extra stuff) and then get some baby feeder pigs, raise them on grass clippings, garden stuff, and then sell all but the ones you put in your freezer. No pigs over the winter mud. Just an idea. Either way, be sure to get tame pigs, not wild ones.

I let my chickens range around the farm, and they always come into my yard and scratch up all of my flower beds. They have 12 acres, several barns, but they want on my porch and my yard. They drive me insane. As soon as I feed the barn cats, here come 4 or 5 chickens around the corner to eat all the cat food, and the cats let them! All day, every day, I am chasing chickens & 1 turkey hen out of my yard & hay barn. I know they know, because as soon as they see me, they run like the wind, back thru the fences screaming. I like them to be able to scratch the pastures and keep the poop/flies cleaned up with the horse pastures & goat barn. The chickens running loose will make for allot less flies in the summer for sure, but I am at a loss at how to keep them in the pastures! I have 2 Border Collies I've trained to chase the chickens out of the yard, but they still come back every time we go into the house, or the dogs go to sleep. I have about 12 big rabbits that free roam, so I can't put chicken wire around my yard, or the rabbits couldn't get back in. The rabbits are no trouble at all, and come when I call them for carrots & stuff. The dogs know to leave the rabbits alone.

Cindy,
I have the same problem with my birds poopin EVERYWHERE Esp. around the house. My hubby and I fenced off a poop free zone AKA the humans pen. It is great to be able to have nice grass a garden area not be afraid to go barefooted. But we can still watch the animals walk around the place. Every week or so I let a few hens in and they tend to the garden. I only have 2 hens left so this year I will have the babies to roam in there they will make less of a mess I hope. The Dogs of course want to be in with us but I put my foot down NO!!!! This is my only place I can have that an animal wont destroy...the dogs have decortated the carpet with muddy footprints and such but the pen is mine!!! I am hoping to get rid of that darned carpet this year it so gross EEEWWWW!!!! I have cleaned and cleaned I even bought a carpet cleaner but the stains wont go away I am sick of it LOL
But you know I wouldnt trade any of it!!! I love my lifestyle

fordy · #22 02/02/05, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DayBird

What are your suggestions? The extension guy at first said to start with 10 goats. To do rotational grazing. I told him I didn't want to start with that many. With what he was suggesting, we could keep just the one buck and since he'd be in with the boer does, noone would be lonely. The two nubian girls would be kept seperate from the boers and they would keep each other company. One of the reasons I was considering pot bellies was because they're smaller. There's a really nice thread on the pig forum, with GeorgeK responding alot. There's a link there to his website and it's very intriguing.

...............First off , the Extension guy isn't concerned with the Cost of Building all the various sets of fencing , panels , houses , etc. to Properly House , control and maintain the animals that you decide to raise . You've GOT to have the Proper Confinement area's ....IN Place , Before you acquire the animals in my opinion . To Do otherwise is going at it Bassackwards as my Grandmother use to saw . Chickens are a given . Beyond chickens , I would consider Small animals that are Known profit producers and require the LEAST amount of Initial Investment AKA , fencing\housing , etc . I wouldn't get in a Big hurry about acquiring alot of animals until I had a Comprehensive Plan on paper and the Requisite financing Before I committed myself . fordy...

DayBird · #23 02/02/05, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fordy

...............First off , the Extension guy isn't concerned with the Cost of Building all the various sets of fencing , panels , houses , etc. to Properly House , control and maintain the animals that you decide to raise . You've GOT to have the Proper Confinement area's ....IN Place , Before you acquire the animals in my opinion . To Do otherwise is going at it Bassackwards as my Grandmother use to saw . Chickens are a given . Beyond chickens , I would consider Small animals that are Known profit producers and require the LEAST amount of Initial Investment AKA , fencing\housing , etc . I wouldn't get in a Big hurry about acquiring alot of animals until I had a Comprehensive Plan on paper and the Requisite financing Before I committed myself . fordy...

I understand all of this, really, I do. Asking questions here is part of my research. We have some hens already and will add to them later in the spring. We have rabbits already, with no plans to expand that just yet. When we order more chickens, turkeys and either ducks or geese will be ordered along with the chicks. Other than that, goats are the only thing that I'd be in any hurry to aquire. I can't afford to keep buying goat's milk. Pigs would be the only other consideration and that may be years in the future.

suzyhomemaker09 · #24 02/03/05, 11:55 AM

In my opinion all of it sounds good up to a point (save the potbellied pig part) but start slow...make sure you have containment and housing set up before purchasing animals.
The whole idea of rotational grazing on 5 acres that has no pasture is a no-go, you have to have a pasture to be able to rotate, more than one really, hence the term rotate. It could be done on a small area but you could not have very many animals on it. Polywire and a good solar charger are a wonderful thing in this, most of the outlay is on the charger with the cost of posts and wire are much less. Easy to put up, and just as easy to move.
We keep our birds in their own area so they don't become a nuisance to our neighbours..we do have some across the street, I'd never want to find my chickens pooping on my neighbours porch

. We have the Swede ducks someone mentioned in the post..they are a nice breed for our purposes...good egg laying and nice size for meat.