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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Goats and Hay
  • Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 12:27:22 EDT



> Indeed it does. I think my advice was fine for a homesteader who wants
> to keep 2 or 3 goats rather than 8 or more for milk and cheese

No, you were saying that you knew about goats because you had kept so many
and that if I'd kept more, I'd know better.

"You haven't had enough goats. I would have agreed with you at one
time. I've seen too much evidence to the contrary.{"


Reminds me very much of what happened this year at Appalachian Regional Fair
(Gray, Tennessee). They held a milking contest where dairy owners were
invited to take the stool and bucket and naught else and milk a cow. They
couldn't
do it! Just because they owed dairies that had 200 cows didn't mean that
they
knew squat about milking ONE cow. My young daughters know more about milking
ONE cow than they do because had they been there and invited to participate,
the cow's eyeballs would have been sucked in from how fast the milk would be
going out!

I've kept goats for more than a quarter century and at all times I've had no
more than four lactating. What I have experienced and compared for many a
year is small, homestead based dairy goat herd integrated with a very diverse
homestead operation. Like the dairy farm owners who fumbled with the one
cow,
I've found people with experience with vast herds of goats really don't have
a clue how to manage half a dozen goats. They end up spending way too much
for goats, way too much for feed, and obsessing over things that just get in
the
way of integrating goats into a balanced farmstead.

I bring up the 'pounds' thing because it is fun to bring it up, but also
because in general I've found it to be a reliable clue. Caveat agricola!

So if that's the advice for a few goats, not a miniature commercial dairy,
it's at best not the only way although to hear a goatatericist tell it, it
very
much sounds like it.






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