Read through this post. Welcome Didaho!.
Another consideration, given no one has mentioned it yet - is food stuffs. We feed a combo of pellet and natural feed (grasses, dandilions, see the sticky on feeding naturally. We also hay out our own (to the degree that we can given we live in a rainforest). This is, I'm sure, partly why we have to wait much longer to butcher - 5 months I think until we reach the optimum weight. For just the two of us, time is not a concern. You can adopt a different feeding regime and improve growth rate I'm told. We tried it once, but reverted to our old program. Takes more human time to collect a salad every day, learn the native plants, and harvest and prepare our own hay for winter.
Overwhelmed yet? Dont' be. We're newbies too, but so glad we made the leap. We have only a single NZ pair off Craig's list, but were very lucky to get a good mum and good size dad. One of the best $12 investments we've ever made!
Another consideration, given no one has mentioned it yet - is food stuffs. We feed a combo of pellet and natural feed (grasses, dandilions, see the sticky on feeding naturally. We also hay out our own (to the degree that we can given we live in a rainforest). This is, I'm sure, partly why we have to wait much longer to butcher - 5 months I think until we reach the optimum weight. For just the two of us, time is not a concern. You can adopt a different feeding regime and improve growth rate I'm told. We tried it once, but reverted to our old program. Takes more human time to collect a salad every day, learn the native plants, and harvest and prepare our own hay for winter.
Overwhelmed yet? Dont' be. We're newbies too, but so glad we made the leap. We have only a single NZ pair off Craig's list, but were very lucky to get a good mum and good size dad. One of the best $12 investments we've ever made!
