Goodbye Goats

Well, we have reached a very difficult and upsetting decision. We are no longer going to be keeping goats.

Due to a number of reasons, mainly:

• Accommodation on our property needs to be extended at a very high cost;
• Inability of keeping goats and being able to get any time away from the farm; and
• Health and wellbeing of the family

We have taken the hard decision to get rid of our goats. This will give us more time to focus on the family and will allow us to finally have a much overdue holiday.

I am very sad that this has happened, but we are still looking forward to having goats in our life (mainly by staying in the Tasmanian Dairy Goat Society, and through the friends that we have made with our goats).

The flock left the property last week and I miss their bleating and affection.

All of the other animals on our property can be either left to their own devices for long periods of time or left at kennels.

Campbelltown–Branch Show

Today was the annual branch show for the Tasmanian Dairy Goat Society. My youngest and I got up early and headed off at 7am to arrive in Campbelltown at about 8:50am.

The studs that were represented at the show had some awesome goats at the show. There were two Anglo-Nubian studs, two British Alpine, a Toggenberg and a Saanen stud. The two British Alpine breeders also had Saanen, Australian Melaan and Australian Brown goats, so there was a very good representation of Australian goat breeds. This was also the first show that I attended that had bucks. There was one buck > 24 months and several bucklings.

My daughter and I were both enlisted in the showing of the goats as there were many more goats being shown than there were handlers. I was a little daunted when I was showing the buck, he is a big animal and I didn’t have a lead … just a collar to grip. Still, he was very pleasant and quite gentle. I felt very pleased with myself that the bucks owner trusted me with him.

My daughter did a lot of showing, she was the “little helper” of one of the studs, and she got to play with about six kids (one, just 3 weeks old).

I felt very proud of my daughter, she got in and helped and hardly lost her energy for it at all. At the end of the day, she was awarded a ribbon for “Best Junior Handler” she was well pleased with her ribbon. All of the breeders were very supportive of her and were very impressed with her care and attention.

I didn’t take any photos of the event, but there were many photos taken by the society, I will post some pictures when I get them.

Gratuitous Goat Shots

Here are some pictures of our goats.

Minnie, Daphne and Darius …

and Holly

Here’s a shot of Minnie standing on top of the cable wheel. They like playing on their cable wheel, they play “King of the Hill” on their toy.

Standing on the cable wheel … having a yodel!

I have covered the holes in the cable wheel with some ply-wood so that feet don’t accidentally get stuck and goat’s end up with broken legs. A friend of mine had a goat who broke her leg like that.

Goat Fence – Repair

Last week while I was sick, one of our goats (Holly) escaped from the goat field a couple of times. Yesterday she did it again, so I thought “Enough!” it was time to fix the fence and, hopefully, make it a little more goat proof. Now I know that the only way to make a fence truly goat proof is to make it a 30 foot high sheer concrete wall … but my budget doesn’t go that far, nor do my neighbours think that that would make for a particularly attractive country idyll.

I had some 3m long star posts from the dismantling of the goat quarantine pens, so they would be the foundation of the higher, improved fence.

I wasn’t about to remove the old fence, but bolster the existing fence and increase it in height. As you can see, we had a lovely Sunday here in southern Tasmania. I then went along the fence and put in some plastic electric fence clips. These clips are great, they have a pin that goes through the star post fence-line hold and then another pin holds the electric fence tape in place. The idea is that you can have your electric line close to, but not touching the steel post and with enough space that the line will move with the wind.

I put a loop at both ends of the line and made the electric fence reasonably taut. Now the electric fence line runs at just over 1.8m above the ground.

Next, I ran a new support line along the length of the fence-line. The support line is attached at the top end of the fence with a simple loop and twist (so that the wire “knot” tightens itself when it is pulled taut) and then attached to a line stretcher at the other end.

The stretcher is kind of like a winch, it has an in-built ratchet and pawl with a box nut on the outside so that you tighten it with a wrench. The stretcher is attached to the end fence post with a kind of wire slip-knot (again so that it tightens when pulled). Then the stretcher is tightened and the wire becomes quite tight. I am always very careful when doing wire stretching, my wife’s friend lost an eye from a broken wire, and I have had a couple of nasty cuts on my face from wire breaking under strain (thankfully, I have never had any serious injury).

The support line is then attached to each of the star posts with a wire twist. I cut about 4” of wire and make a V. The bent wire goes through the hole in the star post with the point of the V in the middle. I then twist each end of the V around the support line three or four times. I find this method to be quite easy as I can bend both ends of the V simultaneously and just wrap them around the support wire.

Next, I rolled out a length of dog-proof wire mesh. The mesh has smaller holes at the bottom than at the top, this is also good for keeping out rabbits and other smaller animals. The mesh is then attached to the support line in much the same way that the support line is attached to the star posts. I attach the mesh to the existing fence at the bottom as well so that it is held in place. I left a gap of about 3” between the top of the dog mesh and the electric fence tape so that the electric fence doesn’t earth on the mesh. It is possible that a bird will alight on the tape and make the tape droop, but the bird will get a shock and it should just spring back.

Now that the fence and mesh is all connected up, I just need to power the electric fence and, presto … new fencing in the goat paddock.

Normally, I can handle the electric fence with my hands when it is powered without any pain, but when I was leaving the field, I got zapped on my upper arm, just below my armpit and, wow, that was a good jolt!

Goat Proof Barrier

Yeah, right.

Today, I had the goats out in the garden having a browse. Normally, the goats are well behaved and leave most of the trees alone. Of course, it is in the nature of goats, that they will see a tree and try it. If they like it, they will eat it.

There are some trees that you don’t want your goats to eat. Take my lovely wife’s hakea for example. We have been nurturing this along for a while and they usually take a while to establish and for them to flower. At the moment, the hakea is about 2 meters tall and has had one inflorescence.

The goats decided that it was at the perfect height to have a go at (tee hee) so they did.

My lovely wife was a little put out by their antics, so I had to come up with a solution.

I had a couple of 8 foot star posts, some fencing wire and some 1.5m rose-wood stakes. MacGyver time!

I drove the posts into the ground about 1.3m apart and then tied 4 stakes across the bottom of the star-posts making a box. Then I tied another 4 stakes at about 1.5m above the lower stakes.

Then I tied 5 rose-wood stakes between the cross pieces making a series of “palings” from the stakes. This gives me a 4 sided cage around the hakea that the goats can still get their noses in (some browsing of the hakea is still good). This will encourage the hakea to bush up without the goats pushing the plant over, break the main stems, strip the bark … all of the things that goats like to do when they find a young plant that they like the taste of.

There is no such thing as a goat proof fence … if you really want one of these, consider a concrete bunker.

Goat Judge Exams

Oh well, I needed 80% to pass the exam, but I only got 70%. Still, not bad since I’ve only been working with goats for a short time and I have yet to see a goat show. I’ll be going along to some of the major shows so that I can get more experience and learn more about goats and goat judging. The downfall of the newbie.

We have the Royal Hobart show coming in October and a number of other shows around the state in the coming months, so there should be plenty of time for us to get more experience at goat judging.

My goals have still been achieved, I wanted to do the Goat Judging course to learn more about breeding goats and what it is that makes a good goat. I have learned an enormous amount while studying for the exam and there is still loads that I can learn. I just have to keep my mind and ears open.

The path to a better herd of goats is still a long one and stretched out in front of me. My goat mentor took 10 years to get her herd to a level where she was consistently breeding such high quality goats.

Like anything that is worth doing, it is worth learning as thoroughly as you can and with as much energy as you can devote to it. Besides, learning with my goats is such a pleasant experience, they are lovely, active, energetic and just plain funny animals. On top of that, it is an activity that 3/4 of my family is participating in.

Now I am planning my breeding program with a view to correcting some of the faults in my goats and improving their quality. I can only do that if I know what those faults are, so … win!

Hoof Trimming Job

We trimmed the goats hooves today. Not such a huge job because there are only four goats. Two 2 year olds and two 8 month old goats.

The older goats hooves were in a bit of a state, lots of wet weather and not a lot of rough hard surface to wear their hooves down naturally. I think that they are missing some calcium in their diet because their hooves are delaminating a bit. Dirt and crud is getting in between the white hoof material (sole) and the fibrous horny outer shell of the hoof. This is also because of the wet weather.

We just got some kelp to improve their diet a bit, so that should help somewhat (kelp helps to improve their coat and hooves as well as improving their gut flora.

The kids hooves were much easier, the hooves are a lot smaller and softer. Cutting Darius was a bit of a problem, though. I cut a little too much off a rear toe and he bled a little bit. I immediately cleaned the hoof with methylated spirits and then ran in and got some iodine to apply to the bleed.

The blood vessels that run through the hoof are not very big and it is difficult to transfer any bacteria into the hoof through such a small vessel (particularly because after they are cut, when the goat puts pressure on the sole, the sole flexes and closes the vessels). Nevertheless, better to be safe than sorry, so the iodine helps to clean the wound. The bleed lasted for about 5 minutes and then it was all clean again. Still, I’m keeping the goats in the back yard for a couple of hours before they go back into their field (less chance of faecal material being in contact with the hoof before it is better healed).

I need to research the delamination problem and see what I can do to prevent or reduce it.

This weekends hoof trimming was only a light trim. I will need to do some more trimming and rasping in the coming weeks to get them into better shape.

Getting the hooves into better shape reduces the pressure on the goats pastern and so improves their gait and, longer term, improves the goats back health.

I could not have done the hoof trimming without the help of my lovely wife.

Goat Judging Day

Today we did our cadet judge exams. First we had a written examination. That was a lot of questions and lots of “oh damn … I knew the answer to that”. We had to achieve a score of 80% on the written exam, so we’ll have to wait to see how we went.

Next we went on to practical judging. Most of us brought goats and some other people in the dairy goat society kindly brought some more goats along for us to give us a wide range of animals to get out hands on.

It was all about chins, chines, lines and loins, girth and thurls, hips and other goat parts. I think that, overall, we all did very well with the help and mentorship of the senior judges that ran the course.

Now all we need to do is to get some practical experience with judging in the show ring. Hopefully, we will get some good help and knowledge from actual hands on.

Goat Judging–Part II

This coming weekend is the final weekend of the goat judging course. Last weekend we covered a lot of the theoretical side of goats and judging. My youngest went very well and stayed pretty focussed for the whole time (mostly) with the aid of chocolate and biscuits. I’ve got to say, that my focus was also “enhanced” with the use of performance enhancers (chocolate, coffee and biscuits).

The three instructors were very helpful and we had loads of good discussion about goats and goat judging.

The agenda for next weekend is to finish the theory work and then sit an examination and a practical … so we are going to be bringing some goats along for the practical exam.

We will finish the course with a bar-be-queue lunch (not goat) so that should be nice. Hopefully, the three of us will do OK on the exams.

Wheel Jig – Part 2

Today I made some improvements to the wheel rim jig, I marked out the outer rim using a transom arm protractor. That is, a protractor that is made by fixing a batten to the centre of the circle and then rotating the batten through 360 degrees marking a line at the end of the arm. This gives you a circle. Then I cut along the line with a jigsaw to leave me with a circle. I still need to rasp down some high spots and fill some low spots, but it gives me the shape that I need.

I drew a line through the centre of the circle to give me the starting point. This line passes through the centre point in the circle, the line gives me 0^o and 180^o. From there, I marked off points at 36^o, 72^o, 108^o, 144^o and back to 180^o. As the circle is divided by an even number, I can simply draw a line from each of these five points to the opposite side of the circle to give me 10 equal divisions.

Next, I marked out a point on each of the division lines about 1 and a half inches back (2.5cm) from the perimeter and drilled holes through for the jig clamps. Turn the jig over and clean up the slight tear-out from the drill and, presto, a wheel rim jig is made.

You should be able to draw a straight line between each opposing pair of jigs and they should all meet in the centre of the circle.

I may need to fix another layer of fence palings to the jig to make it thick enough. Otherwise there will be a tendency for the laths to warp because one side or the other of the clamp will be off-set.

 

The threaded bar that is used in the clamp has been left quite long so that I can have enough clamp to make a rim up to about 15cm.

In the top photograph, I have put the topmost clamp all the way through and brought the next two clamps all the way forward so that I can use the clamp as a hanger to hang the clamp off the ground. I have also got a hole drilled through that was at 45^o from the first hole. This will be where I can hang the jig up in my workshop. Hanging the jig means that I can have bench-space cleared up while I wait for the epoxy to cure. The epoxy that I will be using is a two-part marine epoxy. This epoxy has a little bit more flexibility in it than other woodworking epoxies and the wheels will take a bit of bumping around when under load.

One of the reasons that I have made this jig with 10 jig clamps is that I intend to make my wheels with 10 spokes. The clamps also provide me with a guide for making the spokes.

Anyway, that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed it.

Making Cart Wheels

I need to make some cart wheels for my planned goat cart. Some time ago, I had some jig clamps made (to my design) by a local engineering company, they are simply a pair of round bar of equal size and diameter. The bottom piece is tapped so that a bolt can be passed through it, while the top piece has a hole for the bolt to pass through. When the bolts (2) are tightened, the two pieces are brought together.

The idea is that you have a timber form and you drill a hole through the form and pass the tapped clamp piece through the hole. The work piece that needs to be clamped is then put on the form and the top piece of the clamp is added with the bolts (I have fixed nyloc nuts to the ends of the threaded rod to make my bolts). I have 10 of these clamps.

On another project that I was working on, I made some crude timber wheels (using fence palings).

The wheel was only being used in a “proof-of-concept” so I never actually used the wheel. The next part is to mark up the wheel and put in the holes for the jig clamps. There are 10 clamps, so 10 holes around 360o means that they will be at 36^o from each other … well I can work with that. First, drill one hole and put the clamp in.

Here you can see what I mean, one part of the clamp is fixed in the jig, while the other is able to move in and out by turning the bolts top and bottom. The only real drawback with this design is that it is easy for the piece to skew, so I have to be careful when tightening the bolts.

So, to prove the concept for you, here is a piece of Huon pine that I cut from a larger piece, this is called a lath. I cut many of these laths to make laminated longbows from (another story for another time).

I’ve placed another jig clamp at 45^o (because it is easier to measure with what I had at hand. I will put the rest of the clamps at 36^o).

You can see how the clamps are pulling the Huon pine in to the shape of the former.

For this to work properly, I will need to steam the lath (and the lath will need to be much longer). I will be cutting many more laths on my table saw from Tasmanian Oak since that’s a fairly easily obtained timber in the widths and lengths that I need. I also need to refine the timber wheel that I am using as a form. It is not a perfect circle. For that I need to set up my router on a swing arm from the centre of the wheel. I’ll use a straight cut router bit so that the wheel is cut cleanly from the centre.

The lath will be set on the forming jig while pliant from steaming and then taken off the former. When the lath has cured, I will then use epoxy to glue it to another lath until I have a wheel rim that is approximately as high as it is wide.

In between laminations, I will leave the progressing wheel rim on the jig as the next lath will need to be formed to the wheel rim as it goes.

The above lath is about 3mm thick and 30mm wide, so I’d need about 10 laths to make a wheel. Also, each lath needs to be about 3mm longer than the previous one to account for the increase in thickness.

So, there you go. Apart from a bit of tidying up in the workshop that was my playing around in the workshop.

Tomorrow I have a Goat Judging course to attend, so I won’t be doing any more work on this project until Sunday.

Goat Judging

This weekend will be the first weekend of the National Goat Judging program for my lovely wife, my youngest daughter and myself.

We have been working on the “project” which is about the six main dairy got breeds in Australia (Anglo-Nubian, Saanen, British Alpine, Toggenburg, Melaan and Australian Brown Goat). The breed history, description and disqualifying faults, etc.. I’ve found the project to be fairly easy and kinda fun. I’ve certainly found some excellent resources on goat breeds while doing this project.

The course is held over two weekends and covers various judgy stuff. When we are done, we will be able to start attending goat shows as assistant judges until we have enough experience and knowledge to be able to step up to the plate and do some judging ourselves.

I figure that doing this course can only help me to become a better goat breeder since it will give me access to SO many more goat breeders and goats nationally and I can get a better understanding of exactly what makes a good dairy goat. The other perk is the going along to agricultural shows as a judge.

I still need to help my youngest with her project. She knows what she needs to know to complete the project, she just doesn’t have the confidence in herself to be able to articulate it.

I am very proud of my youngest daughter and how she has been taking an interest in goats and goat showing. She loves the attention that she gets from the other goat folk and from their goats too (particularly the kids … but, meh, that’s to be expected). I am hoping that this experience will give my youngest some skills, knowledge and self-confidence that can carry her through the rest of her life. She is a peach.

Was there a memo that says “Ruminants Escape Today”?

After fixing the fence in the sheep paddock, I went to check on the goats. The goats were making their normal racket … but something was wrong. Holly was being much more vocal than she normally is. Then I noticed that there was a fence between Holly and the rest of the herd. Damn, she’s got out again!

Holly had gone over the fence into the blackberries and, when she saw me, she acted like some weird mojo had transported her to the wrong side of the fence and she had NOTHING to do with it. She followed me down the fence to our front gate and then bolted back to our property. That’s one of the truly wonderful things about goats, they have a strong sense of place. The only problem then was getting her back into her paddock.

I had intended to move the goats up into the top paddock for a bit of a forage, so I had some goat treats in my pocket. Collecting the rest of the herd wasn’t too difficult, and getting them all into the top paddock with some bribery worked just fine.

The rest of the goats were at the fence wanting some of that sweet, sweet grass from the other side too. Although Darius did lose his concentration temporarily … was there any food in the bowl?

Now I just had the problem of fixing the fence so that Holly can’t get back over (for a little while at least). Of course, goats love to escape, and once they have an escape route, they will use it again, and again, and again … and again.

I had to drive in another star post and tension the fence up as well as I can with the wire being old and rusty. That really has to go.

It really did seem that a memo was sent to all ruminants to remind them that today was the day to escape.

Thor’s Goats

Just an interesting “Goats in History” thing. The Norse God Thor had two enormous bucks that drew his chariot. According the The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson:

“Thor has a car drawn by two goats called Tanngniost (teeth bearer or “snarler”) and Tanngrisnir (teeth gnasher or grinder). From his driving about in this car he is called Auku-Thor (Charioteer-Thor). He likewise possesses three very precious things. The first is a mallet called Mjolnir, which both the Frost and Mountain Giants know to their cost when they see it hurled against them in the air; and no wonder, for it has split many a skull of their fathers and kindred. The second rare thing he possesses is called the belt of strength or prowess (Megingjardir). When he girds it about him his divine might is doubly augmented; the third, also very precious, being his iron gauntlets, which he is obliged to put on whenever he would lay hold of the handle of his mallet. There is no one so wise as to be able to relate all Thor’s marvellous exploits, yet I could tell thee so many myself that hours would be whiled away ere all that I know had be recounted”.

When Auku-Thor was about his adventures, he would ride all day and then, at the end of the day when he would make camp. He would be filled with hunger and, consequently, he would slaughter his goats and eat them. In the morning, he would resurrect the goats so that they could pull his car again. Apart from the killing, eating and resurrection … Thor was a very responsible goat owner.

One Last Jab

Today I got another vaccine syringe to vaccinate Daphne after yesterdays debacle. Getting Daphne out of the goat field was no problem, and getting her onto the milk stand was easy and giving her the injection … no problems at all. So what was all of the problem about yesterday, I ask. Goaty troublemaking is all that I can put it down to. After injecting, I found that I had made a little lump under the skin, so the injection probably went into to right place but formed a bubble of vaccine. After rubbing this lightly, the bubble went away and no vaccine came out … jab job done.

After that, I took down the last of the electric fencing from the goat field. It wasn’t energised, so it was just forming a potential tangling danger in the field, so it had to come out. That only took a few moments.

The last job with the goats today was a weigh-in. I don’t have a set of livestock scales, so I need to use a weight estimation method where you measure the goat around the girth behind the front legs. This is a pretty easy and relatively accurate method of estimating the goats weight. I use the weight estimation table provided on-line on the Fias-Co Farm website (by the way, Fias-Co is an excellent resource for dairy goat breeders carrying loads of information on breeding and goat husbandry).

Goat	Girth	est. Weight
Holly	98 cm	71.7 kg
Minnie	81 cm	41.7 kg
Daphne	77 cm	39 kg
Darius	75 cm	36.3 kg

Last time I estimated their weights was in December 2011

Goat	Girth	est. Weight
Holly	91 cm	62.6 kg
Minnie	81 cm	45.3 kg
Daphne	51 cm	13.61 kg
Darius	48 cm	11.79 kg

So, Holly is … as has been said before, our biggest goat. Actually, she has lost a lot of weight since May, so I’m kinda glad that we didn’t weigh her earlier.

Daphne and Darius are still pretty much the same size as each other and Minnie is still a healthy sized goat, with an average weight of 61kg for an adult. She’s still only 2 years old and is still expected to grow somewhat. Holly, on the other hand, is already a big girl. Daphne and Darius have pretty much tripled their body weight in the last 8 months, so I am pretty happy with their growth and diet.

I’ll keep giving them a weigh-in every six months or so, so that I can see how they are progressing. Weight is a very good indicator for health in any animal. If they start shedding weight, and you are still feeding them the same feed … then start looking for the problem. By the same token, if an animal is putting weight on and the feed is the same, other problems may be the cause.

I’m using their weight as an indication of overall health and, for the kids, growth. The weight of Holly and Minnie is pretty consistent for each goat, so I’m not worried about worm burden. I still need to send a poo sample off to get a definitive worm count for the girls, but at the moment, they are looking pretty good. It has been cold and wet lately, so the fact that they are still able to maintain their overall weight is a good indication that their feed supply is up to the task and that their health is good.

Goat Vaccination Time

One of the great things about goat people is the level of collaboration and cooperation that exists between them. One of the people in the goat community is a breeder of Boer goats. She had bought a bottle of Glanvac 6-in-1 (which contains Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis (ovis), Clostridium perfringens type D, Cl. tetani, Cl. novyi type B and Cl. septicum and a purified formol culture of Cl. chauvoei). These come in bottles of 100ml, 250ml and 500ml. These volumes are too large for most of us and we would be throwing a lot of it away. Plus, it seems that Pfizer has stopped selling Glanvac in 100ml bottles. It’s 2.5ml per goat, so I’d need 100 goats to use a bottle and it has a shelf life of 30 days after it has been opened. It makes good sense to use what you need and try to sell the rest to other goaties. The particular breeder measures out the dose into a syringe with the appropriate needle, so $3.00 per syringe makes it very easy.

The last time that I vaccinated the goats, I only had two. Holly and Minnie were both very easy to vaccinate, I had done my goat husbandry course so I was pretty confident that I could get it all done with the least hassle. Holly and Minnie had other ideas. We didn’t have a milking stand then and we did it all in the field. At one point, the needle shot off the syringe and I had to scrabble around to find the needle amongst the grass. We had to wrestle with the goats with one of us holding the goat by the collar, while the other was straddling the goat making skin tents to inject. Once the needle was in, the goats were very accommodating. After the injection, both Holly and Minnie developed subcutaneous lumps from the vaccine, so I was advised to try injecting in the skin behind the front elbow.

This time, four goats and a milking stand. Much easier … right? Well it all went pretty well until the last goat came under the needle.

First was Minnie, straight up onto the milking stand. She knew what was what. Probably, her experience being put into the milking stand for an extra feed while being milked when she had kidded made her very keen to get to the food. Make a little tent from the skin behind the elbow, jab, plunge and rub. No problems and no needle going right through squirting vaccine onto the coat. Minnie didn’t even flinch.

Darius was next. Pretty much the same as Minnie except that he didn’t like the jab.

Holly … what a champion. When the food was in front of her, I think we could have hung hot coals from her earlobes and she wouldn’t have been phased (I am NOT suggesting that this would be good goat husbandry).

Daphne was where it all came unstuck. I had put the full syringe in my jacket pocket so that I could wrangle her because she refused to get up onto the milking stand. No amount of food was getting her into the stanchion. So, I lifted her up and got her to the food bucket then put my hand into my pocket … my pocket was wet … sticky and wet. Argh! The plunger had plunged while the syringe was in my pocket.

Now I need to go back out to my friends goat stud and get another syringe for Daphne. Such fun.

What a lovely bunch of goats

Well, I’m home sick today because I’ve come down with the flu. Still doing some paid work, but from  the comfort of my home office instead of contaminating the university.

A quick walk outside to say ‘hello’ to the goats always makes me feel better, they are always pleased to see me and they always want a scratch behind the horn nubs.

Holly is particularly keen for a pat.

Why Go Green?

I suppose that some people don’t see the point to adopting a green approach to their lifestyle. I’m by no means a tree hugger and I am less interested in the state of the planet than I am the state of myself.

For me, the motivation is financial … I don’t like to spend a lot of money on stuff that I can do myself, and do better in a lot of ways.

I’ve been keen on getting some land for a long time, and buying our 4 and a bit acres has certainly given me a lot of what I want (although I would rather more land too). Our property has three 1 acre paddocks. The top paddock isn’t really usable at the moment as there is a lot of rubbish on the land that needs to be cleared, and the paddock is not flat (about a 15 degree pitch).

Each of the animals on our land have to be able to provide something for the table, directly or indirectly, if they have any place on the smallholding.

Chickens

The chooks cost us about $25 per month in feed and they provide us with an average of 3 eggs per day (5 white leghorn hens + 1 Rhode Island red rooster). As we are not breeding the chickens, the rooster has to prove his worth. Fortunately, he protects the hens and improves their community, they don’t fight with each other nearly as much as without a rooster. Also, the chickens eat insects and weeds, so they are good workers. I sell the eggs at $5 per dozen when I have enough eggs. On average, I would sell about 3 dozen eggs a month. They cost me more than they make in direct income, however, they also save me another $5 per month in eggs and much more in pesticide and herbicides. The chickens also convert kitchen scraps into rich compostable chicken poo … which is excellent for the garden. Saving me even more money. The bottom line for the chickens save me about $5 per month or $60 per annum.

Goats

The goats cost a lot to feed, there isn’t any way to get around that. Each goat costs about $350 per annum to feed. If I breed a goat and sell the kid when it is about 7 months old, it has cost me about $200 to feed. Add in the veterinary costs (an average of $35 for worming injections and boosters etc.) and I am losing money if I sell at $200. Fortunately, I can get a little bit more than that for a dairy goat … but not much. I need to improve the quality of my goats so that I can improve their value. The does are class “D” at the moment, but I am breeding them up with better quality bucks to improve their kids. More shows and more knowledge is what I need to improve the quality of the dairy goat breeding program. A top quality buck can fetch >$3,000 and a good quality doe something less than that (these are prices that I have heard, but never had quoted). Each pairing costs me $80 per doe, so that’s another annual cost to factor in.

I plan to have about 12 does and keep the high quality does for breeding. If I breed all of the does in a year, then it is going to cost me around $960, feeding will cost me around $18,000 for the year and medical costs around $500. If each doe throws a pair, then I can look forward to selling the kids for about $18,000. I would still be losing money until the quality of the goats increases to a good level through higher quality milk production and conformation proven at agricultural shows. Goats normally throw twins, but can throw triplets as often as singles.

Also, the goats give milk, at a rate of about 500ml per milking. With 12 does in kid, that’d give me 6 litres of milk per day and that could mean quite a reasonable amount of milk for cheese. Cheese from goats milk earns about $16 per litre. From cheese, that’s a potential $17,000 income from cheese and milk products from about 1,100 litres of milk per annum. Alternatively, I could sell the milk directly at about $4 per litre ($4,380).

So, selling kids and milk would give me about $22,380, or kids and cheeses $35,000 from a cost of around $17,000. Not a huge profit, but there is room to improve by improving the quality of the goats. More land would let me breed more goats and increase profits.

Sheep

The sheep are all about breeding meat for the table. The pair of Wiltipol sheep cost me $500 and won’t be ready to breed until next year. The sheep cost me almost nothing in feed. They eat the grass in the paddock and occasionally get sheep pellets ($25 per bag, per annum … pretty cheap). Annual shearing and drenching costs me $65. Mating the sheep will cost me about $160 per annum and I can look forward to four lambs per breeding season. Getting the lambs slaughtered costs me $70 per animal so it is going to cost me $345 per annum and will save me about $700 per annum in meat, so it will save me $355 per annum overall. I will be doing my own butchering of the lambs, so that has saved me another $120 per lamb.

Vegies

What can I say, they don’t cost much, never escape … don’t need a vet. Seed costs around $30 per annum. The veggie patch also uses the composted sheep, goat and chicken poo and turns it into good food for the table. When I can afford the time to grow and tend the veggie patch, we have had some great harvests (mostly zucchini, cucumbers, rhubarb, potatoes). Growing vegetables doesn’t save much money, but it doesn’t cost much money either, so it is a good value thing. I haven’t done the sums on exactly how much money I am saving, so I can only guess. I reckon that it’s about $80 per annum.

Other benefits

All of the food that we grow, we know. One of the key benefits of this sort of smallholding is that we know exactly what has gone into the food that goes into our mouths. It has been our hands that have tended the animals and plants. The animals are treated humanely and with kindness. We know the animals from birth to death and we can be certain that no chemicals have been added. On top of that, our children have a much better appreciation of what goes into the food that they eat. Winner!

First Federal Meeting for me

Well, this weekend is the annual federal meeting of the Dairy Goat Society of Australia and it’s on here in Tasmania. It’ll be my first go at attending one of these meetings.

Now, I attend meetings and workshops all week for work, and I can’t say that I particularly relish the thought of spending more time in meetings for leisure. However, I guess that having more involvement in the goat shows and timetables will be beneficial for me and for my goat breeding schedule (as well as giving me greater access to breeders with FAR more experience and knowledge than me).

My lovely wife and I have also signed up to participate in a Dairy Goat Judging course so that we can go along to the various agricultural shows, where goats are being shown, and lend a hand. This is another way that I think that I can improve my knowledge of goats and goat husbandry while getting in touch with even more of the goat breeding world.

Hopefully, this weekend will help me to further my knowledge and get more of an insight into the society.

Our Goats in the Kidding Paddock

Holly, Minnie, Daphne and Darius

This is a short video of our goats in the paddock. Not doing much other than eating lucerne and wanting a scratch.