Homesteaders

[CLSranch]

I hate goats/I love goats. With hot wire I've had them jump on my truck and play running back and forth from my hood to cab to the trailer I had hooked up and back and forth. Sleeping and pooping on the porch, every day even after being beat off with a broom many times. Running out of the yard as soon as I step outside when I am home and still relentlessly going through hot wire. With 2 sides open to hundreds of acres they were always in the wrong spot. Moved and put more hot wire 3 strands in front of a 5 strand barbed wire and lowered the barbed wire for closer spacing. Had a hot inches off the ground a barbed above it and so on. Still the best I had was my heeler that would run all the way around the yard to the other side and re pen them. They would just back up and take a run through it. I finally gave them to a neighbor and said I want that many kids later that have never seen a hot wire.

 

[CLSranch]

I love goats/I hate goats. I originally got mine for my horse pasture as well. Kinda like running 2 crops. They don't eat what the horses eat and what the horses don't eat (which is a lot) will get trimmed down enough that they will. So no lose of acreage with additional animals that pd for pd make a lot more $ than cattle. More kids per birth, more births per year, less grain, And can still be eaten and make a nice whole goat cookout once or twice a year. They can clean up anything and eat poison Ivy, which I'm allergic to.

I also have heard a saying that if a fence won't hold water it won't hold a goat. Though cattle panels work nice if you can keep their heads out of it. Or if you have enough acreage to put 6x6 panels (6 panels each way) near where you want them to stay and always leave some of the goats in there with a small shelter.

 

[Bantambird]

I hate goats/I love goats. With hot wire I've had them jump on my truck and play running back and forth from my hood to cab to the trailer I had hooked up and back and forth. Sleeping and pooping on the porch, every day even after being beat off with a broom many times. Running out of the yard as soon as I step outside when I am home and still relentlessly going through hot wire. With 2 sides open to hundreds of acres they were always in the wrong spot. Moved and put more hot wire 3 strands in front of a 5 strand barbed wire and lowered the barbed wire for closer spacing. Had a hot inches off the ground a barbed above it and so on. Still the best I had was my heeler that would run all the way around the yard to the other side and re pen them. They would just back up and take a run through it. I finally gave them to a neighbor and said I want that many kids later that have never seen a hot wire.

And this is why I like sheep better than goats. Still delicious, still can give milk, easier to keep in a pen. And hair sheep don't require shearing.

 

[moomoodiddy]

I love goats/I hate goats. I originally got mine for my horse pasture as well. Kinda like running 2 crops. They don't eat what the horses eat and what the horses don't eat (which is a lot) will get trimmed down enough that they will. So no lose of acreage with additional animals that pd for pd make a lot more $ than cattle. More kids per birth, more births per year, less grain, And can still be eaten and make a nice whole goat cookout once or twice a year. They can clean up anything and eat poison Ivy, which I'm allergic to.

I also have heard a saying that if a fence won't hold water it won't hold a goat. Though cattle panels work nice if you can keep their heads out of it. Or if you have enough acreage to put 6x6 panels (6 panels each way) near where you want them to stay and always leave some of the goats in there with a small shelter.

I keep mine either in chain link or cattle panels

 

[Moorwitch]

New to homesteading, but loving it. We have an acre, but we are putting it to good use.
We have chickens, goats, ducks, rabbits, and a pig. Come spring, we will start working on the garden. We have not even been here a year, and I am planning on planting some fruit trees.
I can what I can. Freeze what I can. Make homemade bread, butter, apple butter, try and be as waste free as we can. I am trying to find as many things I can make to use the goats milk with. Hubby does a lot of the building and repairing as he can (or me if it come to plumbing). I just wish that we had done this years ago!

 

[rancher hicks]

Well now I'm of the mind that somethings you can get for free. Fruit that grows wild. Apples from friends. You can only eat so much in a year. Don't put up to much cuz it won't last forever. Check for wild grapes, apples etc. etc. Unless you intend to sell your overage. Check old abandoned houses for some things. Got grapes from a friend who was selling her mothers house. Might buy cheaper that way to. Seller might be willing to sell you plants, berries etc. etc. cheap OR just let you have some for free. That's how I got my raspberries.

 

[Bantambird]

We have lots of wild fruits around our house too. Chokecherries, wild plums, golden currants, crabapples, an abandoned pear tree and the quince right next to it along the hayfield, wild roses, wild sumac(not the poison kind, the skunkweed kind, the berries have an extract similar to lemon juice) .
Learn about native plants you can use!

 

[1cock2hens]

I got lucky with my property, my property has over half an acre of wild raspberries, dozens of serviceberry trees, muscadines, dewberries, and blueberry plants. I have some plants to plant this year that I have been growing in pots, I have 5 cherry bushes, 4 cherry trees, 4 peach trees and 3 wild lemon tress

we have a lot of sumac, my ex was lebanese and she would use it in her cooking. it makes a really nice drink too, like a lemonade

 

[itsasmallfarm]

all your fruit trees are making me jealous lol.

where i live (zone 3) we don't get many fruit trees. we have apples, crab apples, Saskatoon berries, blueberries (again more up north) raspberries, choke cherry's and some cold hardy cherry trees. also hazelnuts love me some wild hazelnuts.

 

[1cock2hens]

lol, I'm just lucky. I have a book with thousands of different varieties of different fruit trees for all the different zones and i have been researching for years,(there are like 9k apple trees in this book) I hope to ad paw paws, apples, and plums in the next couple years, I just have to find the right varieties. I'm going to ad a bunch of different kinds of cherries.

forgot in my list above that i did plant 2 highbush blueberry plants last year that are doing great along with some white strawberries and some wild strawberries.

my property is almost solid hardwoods, I have had to cut down a lot of trees to make room for my new trees. mostly old dead oak trees and the overcrowded spindly trees that grow around them when they die.