My hubby and I have 2.5 acres in the middle of the city. We have two handsome young men ages 2 and 3! Due to our oldest son having problems with most processed foods we make a good bit of our food from scratch. That of course led to us raising our own food.
We have 5 Nigerians (3 does, a wether, and a buck). We are expecting our first babies around Feb. 18th. Then I have to learn how to milk! We also have a few rabbits and 20 chickens. I am also trying to learn to garden. If only my son would stop "weeding" out my seedlings! lol
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Thanks, but the credit all goes to my hubby. All the 2x6s we got used so they were cheap and added lots of character! We can't make pastures for them because of the clearance requirements so they are on paver brick patios! That means they get walked regularly to get their exercise. One day we may move out to the country where they can have lots of room to roam!
I would definitely be interested in a goat book written by you! From what I've read you are one of the Nigerian experts! Keep us posted if you get the green light from the publisher!
Wow! Beautiful goat houses! They look like they're in a petting zoo!
And if everything continues to go as planned, I'll be writing a goat book soon. I'm currently talking to my publisher about it, but it won't be out until 2013.
How great that you were able to get enough land in town to be able to keep goats.
Blair OConnor said:
This is a picture of the construction of the goat houses. I guess I should get some current ones. But you can see the mansion on the other side of the coulee in the background.
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Thanks, yall!
Deborah I have your book. I had not seen any other books on raising Nigerians so I was pretty excited about it. I liked it but definitely wanted to hear more about the Nigerians! I totally understand you were aiming for a broader audience and it was one of the best beginner self-sufficiency books I've read. You have enough snippets of in-depth areas that I do go back and re-read parts every so often. I'll be re-reading the dairy section pretty soon once my doe kids. I remember you had quite a few tips and recipes I wanted to try. We are also thinking about raising worms and black soldier flies so we plan on trying your worm house. I'm at a stage now where I'm researching things much more in-depth and am more targeted. I'm a huge "research" person and I'm pretty sure I own most self-sufficiency, homesteading type books! lol I have been a little freaked out when people claim to dumpster dive for day-old bread and dairy! My husband gets a kick out of the fact that textbooks seem to be my favorite (I'm researching permaculture right now)
It has been a gradual change. I was a breastfed baby myself so that part was not a big stretch. Lucas' first major problem was horrible diaper rashes. We tried every cream, paste, and brand of disposable diaper. We ended up buying cloth diapers and had an immediate change. No more diaper rashes! Then when we started soilds he would break out in hives when he ate certain foods. Its pretty frustrating reading labels on boxes to figure out what causes his reactions. Lots of things can be called "natural flavors!" So I gave up and started making things from scratch. He also has a blood sugar problem which he inherited from his dad. My hubby still has problems every so often maintaining his blood sugar but we find diet is the biggest thing. We try to eat lots of little meals and use ingredients that are as least processed as possible (honey vs. sugar was huge!)!
The animals actually came about more from my husband's fears about the economy and our country's current spending habits. We started with "food storage" a few years ago but with Lucas' diet issues it didn't work out. I do store wheat and grind it fresh into flour, though. It makes everything taste amazing! But we couldn't buy dehydrated milk and eggs to cook with (but who would want to - they taste horrible!) So we started looking into raising our own.
We started with rabbits which was not too big of a stretch. Down here in cajun country people hunt for wild rabbits all the time. That was about 2 years ago. We bought some really nice property in a great part of town. The house was a total fixer-upper. The rabbit hutch was actually built before we fixed the house enough for us to move in!
Then we got chickens. We started with 15 in a chicken tractor. Once we finally fixed our raccoon problem we were down to 8! We just added this year's batch of chicks to our hens so we are up to 20.
Then came the goats. Its pretty funny because my husband wanted goats so bad and I told him absolutely not! Somehow he convinced me to just go look at them. So we drove a hour and a half to go visit a Nigerian breeder. Problem was she had a few two week old kids! lol Needless to say I was hooked. I didn't expect them to be so friendly! They are like dogs with no sharp teeth!
We are still on commercial animal feed. We can not find an organic feed distributor close enough so I will be looking into experimenting mixing some of my own feeds in a few months. That is when our house should finally be finished! (Yes it has been over 2 years!)
As far as neighbors go... We researched our city's codes heavily before starting with the animals. Our little fixer-upper is surrounded by multi-million dollar homes! So we worked really hard to make the animals seem non-existent! We did get a little nervous when we brought home the goats because our wether was sooo loud. Remember how I said they are very similar to dogs? I kennel trained him just like you would a dog. If he screamed his head off he went in the kennel. (not when I was not around) When he stayed quite for a while I let him out. Goats are extremely smart. It only took a few days for him to learn. Don't get me wrong. They "talk" when we are outside. But they do not scream at the top of their lungs! Animal control said to just make sure all of our measurments were correct, and they were quiet once 7pm came around and we would not have any problems. (25 ft from any house for chickens and rabbits, 75 ft. for goats with a 2 acre min. lot) We don't really see any of our neighbors. They are all "doing their own thing." Most are not even home most of the day. Sadly, over here I think you have to live in the country now-a-days to get that close-neighbor relationship. We are meeting people at the farmer's markets and through family that are interested in chickens at least, but we have yet to find anyone really close to give us much advice. Thankfully, I bought my goats from a great woman who helps answer any questions I have with the goats. But, I do love to get as many opinions as possible on everything! lol
Wow! That ended up long! Sorry!
Welcome to the group!! Congrats on your new babies. My doe is due Feb 16th and this will be our first also. I think she will be going sooner though. She lost most of her ligaments yesterday and has been having a few contractions. Welcome again!!
Welcome to the group! I am really excited to hear more about your life. I'm the author of Homegrown & Handmade, as well as a book coming out this fall called Ecofrugal, and I'm always interested to meet people who have made such big lifestyle changes because of their health. I suppose we did the same thing, but we started with baby steps, and it took us about 10 years to get to our place in the country. Sounds like you moved quite a bit faster! I would love to hear more about your homestead and if you've done anything special to accommodate neighbors, or if they think you're totally cool. Congratulations on the upcoming babies. I have seven due within the next week.
Welcome to the group, and congratulations on your coming babies. :)