Goat Herding

Some days it is a real chore to get the goats to follow to an exterior browsing area. Any factor can be a distraction. Rain is the worst. A cat - second! At least within the high tensile area they can't get outside the alley.

When we just go out the barn door, they are totally free and can go wherever they want. If they see a rather succulent blueberry bush or weed, off they go. And usually, someone follows.

This morning I got lucky. It just shows you how good these animals are. It also shows you that they know there is a good chance of good browse where I am fencing them.

They are well fed goats!

If you remember the last time they were here, this faucet was pretty invisible. We can see the ground again, and I can finish mowing safely now. Thanks Goats!

April (Snow) Showers Kill May Flowers

 Schools were cancelled far and wide in Southwestern PA yesterday.

The heavy, wet snow continued for about 12 hours, leaving broken limbs and downed trees, as well as power outages.

 Britches was not in the mood to come out into the snow at all. My high school pal Terry helped me get him out.

About 25% of one electronet fence was down, while about 75% of the other net fence was flattened by the snow.

 I forgot my gloves in the barn, so the rough hands I now posses are the result of getting cold and wet straightening them out.

Things looked like winter again. After the winter we've had, it probably looks worse than January.

Kids and Kids (Again)

Julia with one of the new does

 Twins Adam and Grant with Angus and Anakin.

 As the fence training continues, high tensile fence was added to their education. 

At the end of the day, everyone was inside the fence and not too many squawks.

It was a fantastic day, hitting 60 F in the afternoon.With the wind, that turned to more of a breeze, it will go a long way to drying some of the mud we've been sliding in.

The little ones are enjoying the outdoors, but soon will join their older playmates in the electric fences.

 For now Squeak and pals can relax with a snooze in the sun.

Livestock Camp Part 1 - Marketing and Fences and More

Here come the kids again.

I was a bit worried that I wouldn't have 1 1/2 hours of something to share with the camp kids. Then when I got on the bus to greet our visitors(Jock too!), I saw Floyd Snyder, who had given me advice about goats before I even had them. His son loaned us our first breeding buck too. Also here was Dawn Dancey, a 4-H leader who was an original "goat person" I was told to talk to. I felt like the novice teaching in front of the Harvard professors! Pressure! My "lesson plan" was to share how I use the blog, and the Internet sites available, to market the goats and the farm. I was to explain how we use pastured grazing as our method of keeping our goats healthy. Here I planned to demonstrate the use of electric netting as I had learned about it on my first PASA Field Day. About half the kids seemed to be from farms, so they probably had as much experience as I did, but I was to try and share from a fairly new herd owners perspective. I think the phrase "learn from my mistake" came up a few(many) times. We brought the goats out of the barn, and since they wanted to check out the visitors rather than go directly to their field, the kids helped bring the goats up to the hill. Good start! Everyone came up in a line (goats, kids and "big" kids), and we all talked about who had goats, our Boer goats, and a bit about pastured grazing. I told them how we try to get on fresh field every two weeks to keep the parasite load down, and only medicate when we have to. As we talked, the goats just hung around and listened too. All were SO well behaved! Then it was time to try out the newest Kencove fence. Since all four of my electric net fences were in use because of weaning and regular grazing, Kencove in Blairsville gave me a 40 foot section to use for demonstration. That worked out well to show how we go from a rolled up bundle, to stretching it out, and stepping it in. It was also really nice to have a person per post. It would be really handy if I could borrow these kids every week or so! I think everyone got the idea of how flexible this fence was to move just about anywhere, but a couple of the girls commented on how short the fence was. I have never had a goat go over any fence, but sometimes under or through. With all fences and other parts of animal care, training is key. My little ones are trained to these fences first under my watch so that I know they don't get stuck, and that they all learn to respect it. I do understand dairy goats can also be better jumpers than my meat goats, but having good browse on the inside of the fence is also key to keeping them in. One thing I did not make clear to the visitors is that this fence needs to either be attached to another live fence, as we do it, or needs its own power.Just as it started to rain a bit, we moved into the barn to talk about different ways to tell people about your farm or product. This blog shares a lot about all aspects of the farm, but it does give a prospective market goat or meat goat customer a peek about where these animals live. We also have a lot of people just visit and tell their friends about the goats, and the blog becomes a transition point for people who think goats are dirty and eat tin cans. One of the first things people comment on is how white the goats are, or how clean. I made a business card for the kids with our Onthepond email, AgMap site and this blog address. These are all currently free ways to share information. Then I showed a little slide show that I had prepared on my lap top for a chef who was interested in cooking goat. I explained what some of the pictures were and why I chose them and the fact that I photograph most everything. I told them to document everything so that they too will have the information when they need it.I am happy to say that my adult visitors knew I would appreciate many photos, and I thank Dawn for her camera and Andrea for taking these pictures.

The campers are from all over this corner of the state, and were the most polite kids you would ever want to have visit.

Good Luck to All of You this Fair Season!

Livestock Camp Part 2 - At Hoffers

Why so serious? These young people are part of the Penn State Extension's 2011 Livestock Camp this weekend at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds, and they are in the butcher shop, learning about an important part of the food production chain. We are at Hoffer's, touring this local meat packing facility. Without the butcher, we would all have to process, harvest - yes -butcher our own meats if we wanted it. Some of the kids are raising a market animal that will go to auction on the last day of whatever fair they are participating in. Today's visit presented a reality that is hard for some on that last fair day. Where would some of you be without hamburgers and hot dogs, steaks and drumsticks? At Hoffers, Mark, the butcher, reminded us that it is all part of the food chain, and there are a lot of people to feed, and we ALL want to eat. Food production is a very large industry to which we all are responsible. A lot of times people joke that their meat comes from the grocery cooler, but we know that the process is not as simple as that.I joined these 4-H and FFA kids on the tour after they were at our farm earlier this morning. Since I was the host/teacher, I couldn't take the photos, so I will present Part 1 when the photos come from one of the visiting adults. All I can say is that it was a real pleasure to have these kids here.
All their families have great kids!LOVED having a school bus at the farm!

Weed Wackin' Goats

This is the new Clean Team. These are the three males I have left from this spring and my two year old wether, Pants, who is keeping them in line while we are weaning.

Today they needed a new clean area to eat, and we decided to put them to work doing something useful. Cleaning up around the barn ramp.

I do love driving my Deere and you can see me mowing into the sunset on many an evening, but I'm not so much into weed whacking. Hard on my back, even with my nice lightweight weed whacker. We just set up the electronet fence where we needed it, and soon enough, the goats found their way to the job at hand.


With industrious workers like these young kids, its more fun, and sometimes scary, to watch them do it.
They are such a great team, we are going to let them keep going at it tomorrow!

Greener Pastures

As hoped, we moved the shed for the nanny goat herd, to a new, closer field, and brought in one of the Electronets to continue training the newest kids to all the fences. At first we just brought in Layla, with Zahra and Zuri, and Trinity, with Ziggy, to explore the shed, and see if they tested the new fences again. The kids had a fine time checking all the play options of the shed. The moms abandoned them for all the new, terrific, fresh grasses and rose bushes to munch. Today was a double whammy: high tensile fences, AND, the rest of the herd. We had a small buffet for the big reunion, which was devoured quickly. Then the families broke off to discover the fresh salad bar of offerings in the field, and were not disappointed.


The kids were kids, and found the play area, where they quickly showed off their skills.Naturally, Tisa and Ella, the now "big" twins, had to check out the play area too, but did not give the new kids any grief. They also were more interested in checking out lunch. Or is that hiding in their lunch? Even the nanny crowd couldn't stop talking with their mouths full, they were so impressed.

VIDEO OF MUNCHING GOATS.