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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

Oh yes, the goat only people are obsessive!  When we used to have goats 
(will again in the spring), we ran them in with, OMG, horses, cattle, 
donkeys and sheep!  They didn't have their own space, they didn't have their 
own special feed, they didn't have anything goaty or special.  They were 
just one more animal.  The only kid we ever lost was from a doe that was 
gifted to one of the kidlets and she had obviously been someone's pet. She 
was neurotic!  No, she was just plain nuts! <g>

BUT, the worst of the lot are the horse people.  OMG, did they got 
absolutely hysterical when they found out that our National champion 
broodmares were out with, OMG, goats and sheep!  Although, by then, they 
were probably just saying something about those crazy people because we won 
our nationals by pulling horses off pasture and never keeping them locked up 
in stalls <g>  Bad Lynda <<eg>>  We broke all the rules.  We didn't spend 
all morning wearing the horses into the ground "tuning" up.  I mean, if they 
don't know it by the time you get to the show then you oughtta stay home! We 
didn't use professional trainers.  No one was sitting on the horse all day 
long.  They came out of the ring, the cinch was loosened and the bridles 
came OFF!  Horses didn't spend all their time locked in stalls.  We didn't 
use special feeds or the most expensive alfalfa or timothy.  Our broodmares 
worked until they were too round to use without adding an addition to the 
cinch AND we never had foaling problems like all the pampered precious mares 
did.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> Goat keepers are the worst although any animal fruit or vegetable falls 
> prey
> to this.  If you keep sheep, goats, horses, cows, donkeys,. turkeys, 
> ducks,
> rabbits, quail, ducks, honeybees, chickens, on a farmstead, you tend to do
> whatever works well and no more.  Not time or extra attention available 
> for it.
>
> But if you only keep goats, you tend to see everything as something you 
> ought
> to be doing.  Rare minerals, specialized feed, remove the horns, trim the
> hooves every two weeks, supplement with this or that, prophylacically 
> treat for
> all and sundry rare diseases,  agonize over whether to milk from the left 
> side
> or right, act as goat OB when they are kidding, hallucinate over minute or
> non-existent differences between breeds etc. etc.
>
> If the homesteader is also tending eight or ten other animal species, they
> tend to do just what works and go on.  Oddly their goats do fine with a 
> minimum
> of attention.
>
> I think that same sort of thing crept in because many people grow gardens 
> for
> tomatoes only, or tomatoes and very few other things.  And rightly so. 
> But
> then they plant those tomatoes and during hte weeks and weeks that they 
> just
> watch them grow, they think to themselves, I ought to be doing something.
>
> There might have been real reasons for pruning tomatoes under some
> circumstances and under some methods of cultivation, but I suspect it got 
> proliferated
> as something you 'ought' to do without much more thought or 
> experimentation.
>
> The only "pruning" I do is that the suckers that grow at the joint of an
> indeterminate tomato can be snapped off and planted and they will grow 
> another
> tomato plant.  I use this as a hedge against blight.  The parent plant is 
> far
> more prone to blight with the new rootlings rarely getting it.  Those cool 
> wet
> spells might take out the older plant but the rootlings survive to make 
> tomatoes
> in the fall.
>
> James   </HTML>
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