WolfSoul said:
Hi GB: I'm new to this too. My good friends have goats and they say it IS possible, although as a newbie, I too am confused about how. I'm sure these wonderful people out here will be able to help you. Karen
Ok.. I'm going to let you in on one of my absolute pet peeves... The Possibility of Profit in Small Stock Raising.
First, let us take a moment to worship the person who has actually, OVER THE LONG HAUL pulled it off: :worship:
Now let us take a moment to consider how they did at least part of it. First of all, they worked like dogs, 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, forsaking all others and giving up a lot. Now, if you really love what you're doing, it might not seem like work. You might not mind throwing every spare dollar you have at the enterprise. "Do what you love and the money will follow," right?
But the reality is that a good deal of their profitability comes from selling stock. To you. Or someone just like you. Or as a friend of ours who got caught up in the emu craze said when my husband asked if he'd ever turned a profit on his birds "I will if I can sell them to you." Un Hun. You've just got to think this doesn't bode well for the long term...
So, the short answer is "no, you will not turn a profit in the short term" and short term is 5 years or more. Have another friend who went into sheep's milk cheese in a big way because it was (on paper) profitable. But the cheese has to age, and the distributor doesn't pay upon delivery, and the cash flow crunch put them out of business in 3 years at really catastrophic losses. He would tell you, however, that if he'd been able to hold on for 5 years, they probably would have made it.
Making him one of the people who "makes money with his sheep."
These people are like women who've had a baby... after a while they forget all the pain they endured to get where they are and they start making it sound easy.
It wasn't, it isn't, and you need to have a lot of reserves to get there.