Just curious who else is living super frugal

[ScottnLydia]

yea, were in the same boat. we want to get a jersey cow or two but first we want to build a barn and get set up. we realize it's a commitment that will change a few habbits of ours. there is a dairy farm down the raod a bit that we plan to visit and buy a quart of raw milk so we can try it and see how it taste. my uncle had cows and the first lesson we learned is " watch your feet " so thats the lesson for the day. keep a300lb animal from standing on your foot.

Steel toed shoes, from $23.95, Walmart.

~S

 

[ScottnLydia]

300 lbs would be a little bitty cow... my wool/meat breed ram sheep weighs in at 325...

Jersey is a nice smaller cow though... but she'll still weigh in near 1000 lbs.
still, y'all might consider dairy goats if you don't need 3+gallons of milk a day. the laManchas are maybe 125 average for does, they'll produce 1/2-2 gallons a day, depending on the goat. easy to milk, don't require as much feed as a cow, easier to handle, and the milk's excellent. some breeds have stronger flavored milk, but I've found the lamancha's milk to be very very mild, not at all goaty.

You know, being a sheepman in cattle country I get picked on A LOT. With all due respect to those that really want and like cows and/or cattle, my personnal preferance is for the smaller animals. I raised a steer once and the danged thing almost killed me. Literally! He was all calm from when he was a calf, and one day I had to go in his pen, like I had done a hundred times before, and he started pushing me around, more and more aggressive. I got knocked off my feet and trampled pretty good, as I tried to get on my knees and get away he came at me, hooked me with a horn, and threw me over the fence. It took me close to an hour to get to the house (200 feet) and call for help. No more cattle for me! But that was a steer, not a cow!

I know first hand that rams can be dangerous too! It's just that I like my odds better. With a calm breed, and raising him the right way, a ram can be as sweet as a dog. I still wouldn't mess with him when he's, uh, attentive to a lady.

The other thing I like about sheep, goats and llamas over cattle is the manure. The first 3 leave little dry beans with no odor unless they pile up and are kept wet. Cows on the other hand... Just stating my personnal preferance.

zzGypsy, you mentioned the lamb races, we have the 'evening frolic' at sunset every night when the lambs go nuts! "I can jump higher than you""Watch me run up this wall!" "I can run faster!" "Let's jump over the llama!" It's more fun than T.V. was! 325 pounds, is that a Suffolk or a Hampshire?

~S

 

[zzGypsy]

You know, being a sheepman in cattle country I get picked on A LOT. With all due respect to those that really want and like cows and/or cattle, my personnal preferance is for the smaller animals. I raised a steer once and the danged thing almost killed me. Literally! He was all calm from when he was a calf, and one day I had to go in his pen, like I had done a hundred times before, and he started pushing me around, more and more aggressive. I got knocked off my feet and trampled pretty good, as I tried to get on my knees and get away he came at me, hooked me with a horn, and threw me over the fence. It took me close to an hour to get to the house (200 feet) and call for help. No more cattle for me! But that was a steer, not a cow!

I know first hand that rams can be dangerous too! It's just that I like my odds better. With a calm breed, and raising him the right way, a ram can be as sweet as a dog. I still wouldn't mess with him when he's, uh, attentive to a lady.

The other thing I like about sheep, goats and llamas over cattle is the manure. The first 3 leave little dry beans with no odor unless they pile up and are kept wet. Cows on the other hand... Just stating my personnal preferance.

zzGypsy, you mentioned the lamb races, we have the 'evening frolic' at sunset every night when the lambs go nuts! "I can jump higher than you""Watch me run up this wall!" "I can run faster!" "Let's jump over the llama!" It's more fun than T.V. was! 325 pounds, is that a Suffolk or a Hampshire?

~S

I do know what you mean on the dangerous part... we had a milk cow once... well we bought her for a milk cow. she thought she should be a fighting bull. a full on dirt-tossing, pawing, bellowing, head swinging, drool-flinging fighter. we spent 3 months trying to convince her that milking, along with a nice bucket of grain was a good idea. we'd have to snub her head and tie back a foot so she didn't kill me with that ultra-flexible back kick of hers. turns out the delta between milk cow and fighting bull is... dinner.
good thing she turned out to be tasty.

we'll try the dairy cow thing again, but probably not till spring. and with an older PROVEN hand-milker.

I do love my dairy goats.
and my dairy sheep. Best. Milk. Ever.

my big ram "Beefer" is actually a mixed breed line I've been working on developing for my own use. he's got dairy sheep lineage (east fresian and lacauna), wool sheep (moreno and romney), meat breeds (CVM, suffolk) and color (balwin welsh mountain). he's 325, more or less, gentle and calm, incredibly easy to handle. throws big beefy babies that grow fast and ewes that produce a lot of milk, with a good mix of both black and white lambs and wool good enough to use for handspinning. not all have his super calm temperament... no goofballs in the lot, but some are super calm and some are just normal. and my line gets some tripplets too.

I do love my sheep. I totally get what you're talking about.

we tend to get lamb races in the morning as a warm-up after a cool night... but our goat kids - yep, they'll get bouncy and bonkers any time. we have king-of-the-rock. or stump. or momma-goat. sometimes king-of-the-Ram. occasionally they'll litterally bounce off the walls... with all 4 feet!

it is better than TV. in fact we gave up TV about 6 years ago...
but we did have to put a couch out where we can watch the lamb races and the goofy goats in comfort... ok, I admit to having a barn couch. and to having slept in the barn on cold lambing nights.

really, it's possible this sheep-and-goat thing might be a disease.

but the milk is excellent and the meat is amazing and it comes with entertainment.

 

[ScottnLydia]

He he he, a disease, he he he! ! !

~S

 

[cassie]

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Keep in mind that a donkey must be acclimated to the sheep or goats. Otherwise he may kill them. I once met a woman in New Hampshire who had a mini donkey with her dairy goats. He worked out very well as a guardian and, as a bonus, he was very cute. I think she got him when he was a baby. As for the problem with coyotes using a female in heat as a lure, you can use neutered male or female guard dogs. Neither one will be very interested in a female coyote in heat.

 

[ScottnLydia]

zzGypsy I can hardly wait until we get the milk thing going with our young ewes! I'll be putting them in with Hamish in October or Nov. That will give me time to build a stanchion. I have 4 young ewes that love being touched so they will be ideal candidates. Katahdins are supposed to be good milkers, though not in the league of the true milk breeds. The mama of one of these had a bag that nearly rivalled a goat, but unfortunately she died in my arms from frothy bloat. We cried for days. Hopefully Blossom will have inherited that from mama. I will probably have questions for you on milking sheep when the time gets closer.

Sounds like you've developed quite a breed for yourselves! Do you spin the wool? I went hair sheep so I wouldn't have to shear them since we don't really have any use for it. We have friends that raise wool sheep and they can't give their wool away.

Did you say couch in the barn for cold lambing nights? I wouldn't know about that since hair sheep lamb between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

I'm always heckling my woolly friends about that!

~S

 

[DennisK]

I think I am being convinced. Perhaps I should buy that bottle of goat milk I saw in the store – try it out, anyway ….. I don’t believe the stores here sell lamb milk. I LOVE lamb meat – more than I do beef. However, the goat meat that I sampled was very tough. Perhaps it wasn’t prepared right.

 

[DennisK]

When I was in the workforce, I worked for a company that had their own cafeteria. The company hired a very good cook. For one memorable lunch break, Sheppard’s Pie was offered. I remember it had a layer of spinach along with the potato layer, but that is all that I remember, except how absolutely delicious it was. Since then, I have tried numerous recipes of Sheppard’s Pie without coming anywhere close to what I experienced during that lunch. Since that lunch, I became a fan of lamb meat.

 

[Peep_Show]

Also when using donkeys to guard sheep, have only one. Friends adopted a pregnant burro. It was great until the foal arrived at which time it totally ignored the sheep and, well, predation happened again.

 

[zzGypsy]

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I do spin the wool, and I weave. we sell a bit, mostly the colored wool, to hand spinners, but we generally have more than we need. however you can compost it, and it makes good garden and flower bed mulch. I do understand why lots of folks are interested in hair sheep though.
on sheep milking, there are some things to know. I've found goats much easier to milk, they've got a gravity-feed system with the teats at the bottom of the udder so it's easy to get them milked completely down. and with dairy goats in particular, it's almost impossible to get them to go out of milk. sheep, on the other hand, have a suction-feed system with teats half way up the udder so it's much harder to hand-milk them completely out, and they generally have much smaller teats, so they're harder to hand milk in general. in addition, they easily dry off if you don't get them milked completely down every day. most won't stay in milk for more than 6 months at best, and the best I've been able to do with hand milking is about 4 months. so I bought a surge milker this year, we'll try it this spring and see if we can keep them in milk for longer.
all those caveats aside, let me say again ... Best. Milk. Ever.

totally worth the effort.
hopefully this year I can get enough milk to try making sheep-milk cheese. generally we don't have enough left after coffee and cereal to make anything out of. however, we have made sheep butter, and I can say it's the best butter I've ever had. better than goat butter, better than jersey butter, both of which I really like.


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I've heard this is true with llamas too... keep only one, or they bond with each other instead of the animals they're supposed to guard.

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see if you can find someone who had goats and get some farm fresh raw goat milk... I really don't like the commercial stuff, tastes very goaty to me. the milk from our goats doesn't taste goaty at all until the day before it turns, and then I can taste a bit of goat in it. I find the milk from LaManchas and Alpines to be very mild, not goaty. I've got a kinder also, and her milk is also mild, but the toggenburgs are reputed to have stronger flavored milk. if you're planning on making goat cheese and like the stronger goat flavored varieties, the togg is the way to go.

I've never seen sheep milk for sale, best bet for trying it is a local sheep dairy, but there aren't that many of those. sheep aren't the top milk producers of the dairy world, so if you're making a trial trip into the dairy world, goats are better.

goat meat is like any other, young animals are tender, older animals not so much. preparation makes all the difference for an older animal. the crock pot is a wonderous thing.

we have slaughtered sheep up to 18 mo and been very happy with the meat. in fact the best lamb I've ever eaten was a year old ram we raised ourselves, spit-roasted stuffed with apples, pears, onions and rosemary (a gift to some friends for their wedding celebration). so far, we've only processed goats under 10 months, but I've eaten older and liked it.