I have Storey's Guide to Dairy Goats and I remember loving it when I first got it forever ago. I have not cracked it open in a long time but if memory serves it goes over nutrition, disease, housing etc...though is probably lacking info on meat raising, obviously.
Maybe because I am on the opposite coast but I am surprised how little news coverage I am seeing on the fires. So horrible and sad and I hope everyone stays as safe as possible. Absolutely heartbreaking.
I don't have sheep, but I do have goats and two bucks. If I could go back in time I would absolutely not socialize them as well as I did.
I agree that you don't want them fearful of you. But the line should end at "feed-giver" and not at "friend" with male animals (imo). There is nothing...
@Baymule ooooh that barn :love I have big dreams of investing in a barn and making my horse dreams come true!!
@CntryBoy777 that is SUCH a neat goat house, very innovative! I love the deck and all the levels and resting spots, our nigis would love that
I won't post pictures of our multi year rental for landlords privacy, but I did learn a lot!
I will never again rely on a setup that requires moving the animals into a secure night pen. It was by far the most time consuming part of chores and the most...annoyance inducing when goats decide to...
I got such great opinions on my fencing quote thread, but I realized one big thing: we all look for and need different things in our farm set ups!
I thought it'd be fun to talk about how we have our farms set up, and for what animals, and climate! Also, PROS and CONS of your current set up...
I'm not a fan of barbed wire at all (for my purposes). The more I think of it the less I want to rely on electric.
I don't think I will do woven wire again though. I think it's perfect for small acreage but the maintence on a large tract would be too much for me. Ah well, long time before I...
I'm thinking of doing the high tensile for the rest of the acreage when we are ready to fence it! I definitely wanted the woven wire to start as I knew we would be too busy with the move to worry about any sort of learning curve with the animals.
It'll be a lot of fun moving forward to learn...
Just to update, we bought fencing materials for about 4k and rented an auger for the weekend for about $200. The Amish labor costs for about 20 hrs is around 1500. So even if it takes them 40hrs, we are sitting happily at less then half of the quoted price. Thanks for all the help everyone...
Hey all!
We ended up being able to hire our Amish neighbors to do the job so it is looking like it will be up before the official move! Yay!
So I am now in the process of buying materials. I decided to go ahead and cut down on the pasture size by half-to 1/2 acre pastures, so that we could...
Funnily enough, the 25k quote was the only one who even had details on the project. The 18/ft quoted that without knowing size or layout. Others I'm calling are busy, or don't do ag fencing. Looks like we will be doing it ourselves :-)
Glad to see this worked for someone! That is my idea as well; I think it is much more trouble to have the only through-way be through pastures. I grew up on horse farms so maybe that is a common factor LOL.
The big reason for the alley was because the property has essentially a bottle neck of about 5 acres cleared which then widens out to the remaining wooded 15. So to utilize the 5 cleared, I wanted to make the edges of the fencing just shy of being perimeter fences. The alley was so that there...
Hmm...all things to think about. Perhaps I will draw up new plans and see about getting quotes with those. Though I will say the price is not coming from braces, it's coming from being charged $8 and $18 a foot. So though your points are valid, I don't think it's the braces that are causing...
BYH is AMAZING!!
I made this thread to make sure I wasn't crazy for thinking those prices were out of the question and you all have been so supportive!! I feel very equipped to get everything done in a reasonable price range with all of this support