Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Norma Sutton" <sweetspringfarm@gmail.com>]

Paul,

In this case it was the soil.  The individual in question had just moved to this property and has been raising goats for close to 50 years.  The vet couldn't figure out why the babies were dying.  When a soil sample was sent in it was virtually dead, after doing a little research, it was found that the property had been over farmed, over fertilized and over sprayed for anything and everything.  

 What I was saying is that IF you move to another state, another area, and you do not no the background of the property you are moving too, and you plan to raise livestock, a soil test might be a good thing to have done. 

In the wild goats are hardy and do live in some really inhospitable areas, but in domestication, when they are fenced in and in goups they aren't nearly so hardy.  In the wild, if a area is lacking in what they need they will move to another area.  They can't do that when they are fenced in.  In a fenced situation you can have overloads of parsites, over browsing, etc and in a fenced situation they will eat thing that they would leave alone if they could move to another area.

 I'm moving to E. Montana in a few years.  I will probably do a soil test when I get there just to be on the safe side.  I can't afford to lose my breeding stock.

Norma

 

On 5/31/07, TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

Yes it can be necessary, but as Ken pointed out the test interpretation is
too often iffy. I'd question the cause and effect of the kid loss. Goats
survive in the worst places. And again, I'd suggest studying what kinds of
vegetation grows there first, and decide the condition of the soil from
that.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/30/2007 at 10:20 PM Norma Sutton wrote:

>I don't soil test, but on occasion it is necessary.  I have a friend that
>raises dairy goats and the first 2 years on her property her babies did
>really well until they were weaned and put out on pasture.  She had a 100%
>kid loss both years.  When she finally broke down and had her soil tested
>it
>had virtually no minerals left in it.  She is slowly bringing it back to
>production, but what a hard way to learn what over farming can do to a
>piece
>of land.  I think the last 2 years she has had better luck with her kids,
>but I'm sure the soil is still not where it should be.  Each winter she
>uses
>the cold pack method of bedding her goats and supliments them with the
>minerals they need.  Every spring she spreads that bedding in a specific
>area.  She can now run her babies on those areas.
>Norma
>



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