English River Farms -Our New Adventure!!

Ever since purchasing our piece of heaven on earth, we have been brainstorming ways that we could possibly make a living with our farm or at least the farm could sustain itself.  It is very difficult to revamp a farm, acquire animals and feed them all if you are on a limited budget.  We finally have built our animal herd into something potentially profitable.  Time to start thinking seriously!

We do all we can to save money such as:

1.  Raise grass-fed livestock (except the animals the kids show in 4H) -This allows us to only have to buy feed (hay) in the winter.  Since we don't crop-farm it would never be profitable to feed our livestock grain as it is expensive to purchase.

2. We do 99.9% of the work ourselves.  From fencing to chores to cutting trees and maintaining everything  --WE do it!

3.  We have mostly been able to grow our herd by retaining the young --except last year we did buy quite a few Boer does for our goat herd.  We only did this after deciding our budget could afford it since goats don't cost an arm and a leg.

Recently, we have been thinking more intensely on the profit side of things and how could we possibly make a decent profit.  That is the point in keeping livestock in the first place! (Also, I love them all)  We are truly blessed to have our 40 acres and maybe someday will be able to sustain our living from it.

We have started the process of obtaining a meat sales license from our state which will allow us to sell frozen meat from our home after being processed and inspected at a licensed facility.  This may sound a little sad, but that is in fact what livestock is intended for. (I just keep telling myself that when it's time to refill the freezer.)

The meat we will be selling is goat, beef and possibly lamb.  The animals are grass-fed.  This takes longer, but the meat is tender, flavorful and leaner than grain-fed meat.  We don't use antibiotics but we do vaccinate.  

I am very excited to get this adventure started and start to market our farm, English River Farms.  I have started planning our marketing strategies, also.  I will be putting up a website featuring our herd, our farm and life on the farm.  We will also sell produce this summer at a local farmer's market.  This is also very exciting as we always have extra produce from our huge garden and will be planting some extras this year for this purpose. 

It's always exciting to begin a new adventure and while it is not exactly "new", it will be different.  I do have high hopes for our adventure.  It will take hard work, but that is something we would never shy away from. 

This farm really is our little piece of heaven on earth!

Love Baby Goat Kids!

I have always loved the babies of our farm and the calves were the first we ever had.  I am still a little bit partial to calving season and look forward to it all winter long.

These days, however, the baby goat kids are stealing my heart.  They are amazingly cute and have so much personality from day one.  We have had 6 babies so far this year and they are such characters.  I thought some of you may enjoy some of the photos I have of them:

Boer billy kid - one of the twins 

Triplets peaking while waiting for their bottles!

Big goats exploring the barnyard after winter.

I love each of these goats and each has a different personality just as people do.   It makes each day very interesting and unpredictable.  Cannot wait until we have more babies to show off and adore.

Spring Has Finally Arrived

Just two short weeks ago we experienced yet another night of -25 degrees with windchill.  Two weeks later we hit 65 degrees today!  I have said time and time again how much I detest winter, snow and cold.  It makes chores an unpleasant job that I hurry through as quickly as I can and that I enjoy so much in nicer weather.  I love to spend time with my animals and I believe they like it too.

Today I let some of the larger goats out of the barn for the first time in what seems like forever.  They loved the warm sunshine and so did I! I spent a couple hours outside with them.

We have had 6 baby goat kids survive being born in our worst winter in years and only 1 didn't make it.  Pretty good record considering that it has felt like the arctic tundra.  All but the new twins are eating hay and grain. We are still bottle feeding the triplets but they are growing like weeds!  I am finally working on names for both girls.  

Baby cows are due to begin arriving April 9th.  This is an event I anticipate all year long.  The most we have had in a season is 2 and this year we are expecting 5 possibly 6!!  Wow! Hopefully everything will go well for all of them as we have lots of first time mommas.  The cows are also starting to spend time in the pasture.  

We are beginning a new chapter in the meat goat raising saga.  Our first two wethers are ready to butcher.  While it is a little bit saddening, it is the reason we started this adventure.  Our meat sales license is ready to send, the locker is lined up and all we have left is to purchase a new freezer exclusive to the business.  We are then ready to start selling goat meat, or chevon.  I will post more detail to the process later for those interested.

We are continuously brainstorming ideas to make money with our acreage.  I have a few more ideas on the table and we will see where they lead.  My ultimate goal would be to sustain our family life with farm income!

As always have a great day!!

"Don't forget to pray today. God didn't forget to wake you up this morning." 

(unknown)

Farming is Hard Work

As we prepare ourselves and our farm for the umpteen millionth snow storm and frigid cold weather spell this winter, I have been thinking about how much work running this little farm is.  It is hard work on a “normal” day and sometimes downright horrendous on these terrible winter days.  Trudging through snow while carrying heavy loads, at least for me, is hard labor. 

I do the chores by myself during the week and my husband does them on the weekend due to our work schedules.  This works out very well for all of us. This hard work does take it’s toll on a body, especially a 5’2’’ small framed body.  For most of the winter, hay must be carried to the cows and goats, buckets of feed carried to all and the heaviest part of all -the buckets of water to all the animals housed in the barn in the winter.  This is hard heavy work that must be accomplished each morning and afternoon.  We are just a small farm, but without any automation that many of the larger farms have.

In the summer the animals are out on pasture, so there is no hay to haul and most of them drink from the “big” water tank, so there is little to no water to haul.  Chores usually take me about 20 minutes.  Winter is a totally different chore beast.  Chores usually take an hour and maybe longer if there are baby goats to bottle feed, such as now.  We have triplets that had to be brought in the house for a few days at birth due to the cold.  They are now back with momma, but we still have to bottle feed them.

I do chores as fast as I can on the coldest days so I can warm up.  In nicer weather I enjoy staying out with them for a while and watching them interact.  This is how most of our animals became as tame as they are.  I love all of our animals.  I enjoy this daily interaction and I like to think they do too.  In the wintertime this usually doesn’t happen for long if at all.  I really miss this until it warms up in the spring.

My conclusion is that farming on any scale is very hard work, but worth it if you love having animals as I do and the best thing about winter is that eventually spring will come!!  Hopefully sooner rather than later in this especially horrible cold and snowy season.

Spring is on it's way! Have a wonderful day!

Arrival of Triplets!

Saturday morning as my husband was finishing chores he heard a strange sound from the barn.  He, thankfully, went to investigate and found one baby goat kid on the ground.  He rushed in to tell me and the kids and we all rushed out to see.  Momma was cleaning baby off and a few minutes later she laid down for another!  

This momma had twins last summer and she has proved to be a very good mother.  We waited and watched as it is very cold here and we don't have a heated area for them.  Momma gave birth to baby #3 roughtly 45 minutes after baby #1.  We set up the heat lamp for them and helped momma get them dried off.  They were all doing well.  She had 2 girls and a boy.

We came in to warm up a bit, ourselves.  An hour later we went to check on them and thankfully.  They had moved away from the heat lamp and were freezing, literally.  Two of them had frozen ears and one of the little girls I was sure would die. All of their mouths were freezing cold inside, which is a very good sign they are just way too cold. We felt terrible for this wonderful momma, but we were going to have to bring them in the house to warm up.

We bundled them up in an old towel and hurried them inside.  We ran a shallow bath of warm water and soaked them for about 20 minutes.  The smallest little girl was doing the worst.  She couldn't even hold her head up.  After their bath came the blow dryer and towel drying.  After we dried them we attempted to get them to drink.  After a few minutes, they all did drink a little bit.  At this point they were doing better, but I was not convinced we were out of the woods yet.  We left them in the bathroom (small room that doesn't take long to warm up) with a space heater for a little while.  

Eventually they were all running around the bathroom and drank a good amount of the colostrum we had on hand for this kind of situation.  As of now, 4 days later, they are doing great!  We have them in a pen in the house with wood shavings for bedding.  Four times per day we let them run around the kitchen to play while feeding.  My kids and I love to watch these kids run around and play.  They are adorable as ever!  As soon as the weather warms up, they will go to the barn, but for now they are entertaining us in the house.  After a couple days old, goats are pretty hardy animals in cold weather.

One lesson I have learned is that if you keep animals on your farm, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to save them.  Some of our "non-farm" friends think we are crazy to keep animals in the house if needed in winter, but anyone that ever grew up on a farm without a heated barn has either done this or know people that did.

I am so happy we caught them in time.  Love my goat kids!!

Anxiously Awaiting More Kids

As we barrel through this winter one subzero day after another and one snowstorm after another, one thing that keeps my spirits up is looking forward to more baby goats! 

We have 2 more does, well 1 belongs to my son, that are due soon.  Our older doe, who had twin boys last year, is as big around as a barrel!  She looks like she is going to pop so I am hoping for twins again.

We do have a few more goats that are starting to look pregnant, but won't be due until spring.  That will be a fun time as there are about 10 of them.

One of the babies we had in December passed away on Dec 24th.  We had brought him inside due to he wasn't searching for something to drink.  He just laid there looking content and couldn't walk very well at 6 hrs old.  He never acted quite right so we brought him inside and he did drink a few times, but still did not act right.  

The other twin is doing amazing and she is growing like a weed!  She jumps around all the time and drinks like there is no tomorrow.  She is very playful and momma gets annoyed when we play with her.  Her mom is an old doe that had miscarried just before we bought her.  We weren't sure if she would be able to have kids or not, but I guess we got lucky!  She is, however, the crankiest goat we have.  

I have not been out to take pictures of the kid lately because it is all I can handle to be outside for chores in this cold.  I will take pictures to post soon, though, as soon as it warms up a bit!

Boer Goat Kids in December!

Just in time for Christmas this year we have had our first set of Boer twins!  Actually due on Dec. 27th, but with the big winter storm on our doorstep, it's not a surprise she would have them now.  The twins were found in the kidding stall in the barn having just been born this morning.  The little girl is solid red and the little boy is a bit smaller and traditional colored with a few paint spots.  

We moved her to the kidding stall only a few days ago and so glad we did!  She is doing well with them, cleaning them right away and now at least the solid one is nursing.  The little boy was a little colder, so we set up the heat lamp on him, hoping that would get him goin.  We just came in from checking him and he was still lying in the same spot.  We got him up again and fed him a little colostrum (go-go juice as my husband calls it) which did get him standing at least and wagging his tail!  He hopefully just needed that little "pick-me-up" and will be off and running in no time.  Usually, they don't drink much the first time, but he drank over 1/2 cup.  

We will keep a watchful eye for the next few hours to see if he drinks from her or if he is destined to be bottle fed.  We are hoping to keep him on her as they always do so much better with health and growth that way.  

These little ones are the highlight of the dreaded winter so far and they are just adorable!  Goat kids are truely the meaning of cuteness and just so sweet.  Soon, we will be thinking of names for them so any good ideas would be welcome!!

I cannot resist including a few more photos of them: