We set it up as a test and I think it's pretty informative so far. He lives this stuff on a daily basis. You can leave comments after each entry. Feedback is appreciated.
Glad you all seem to like it so far. On the healing part, its no big thing, just another day. It should heal up fine. OGM, I take it at least that you raise goats as well, by all means if you have the chance leave a comment and offer another point of view on goats and their usefulness, limits, advantages and disadvantages and so on. I figure a lot of the trafic there will be from here, especialy for now but will also be likely to get some folks stumbleing on it from elsewhere and hope it can provide some tidbits of info. I dont even claim to know everything on most any of the stuff I do, its still very much a work in progressand learning as I go, so while I may bring it up if I have had experiences that may be different from what you or others have had on a subject I welcome more info so folks can at least realize that they would need to do more research rather than just take my word or experiences as true or the norm.
Ok it is sent, I think it sounds a little insulting please don't take it that way. I din't have time to reword it I'm trying to shove my lunch down my throat and type before I have to go to work. OGM
No insult take, actualy a majority of what you said I agree with and may have just not made real clear, like that goats tend to be more efficent at makeing milk but if you were milking just for your own family that 1 cow will still produce more than most would use where 1 goat would be about right for most folks. Even on the things that were different from my own experience I have no real doubt that what you mention may be true of your herd, I do havesome VERY strange goats, we had 2 sisters and 1 had a false pregnancy where showed all signs of being pregnant then never delivered any kids but started milking. No after birth no blood NO signs that even might have had them and a predator got them or anything else and would have been her first kids. Both of the does produced milk before their first times of kidding and so on so like I say we DO have STRANGE goats, and I can only speak from my own experience. One thing I did wonder about, especialy since you run the billy with the does (and any billies I have been around stink and tend to rub off on the does if around them) and mentioned it not effecting the milk and in my experience any milk absorbs odors easily, and since I got the impression you milk 9 does, so do you use a milking machine? If so I could see where that would eliminate that problem since it would be a closed system from the uder to the bucket. We just have the 2 so we milk by hand into a bucket so it would be more exposed to the air and odors from the goats than if we had a milker.
Scavenger, thanks. I kind of thought that as well especialy when I saw your coal forges you posted the pics of. I used to do some blades and such on a coal forge but havent had acess to a forge in years. Would love to get back into it, just haventbeen able to come up withthe stuff to build one yet.
Monkeyman We only have 3 does that we are milking right now. We had more before but we had plans to move to Alaska so we down sized. I was just using the 9 goats as an example as to how many goats could be raised on the same amount of land as a cow calf would use. We only hand milk but have never had problems with odors. OGM
Who knows, maybe we have just had extra foul billies.lol I know my other half is real picky about milk also so that may even be a part of it. I just know when we do it the way we normaly do that it comes out tasteing almost indestinguishable from the 'whole milk' that you buy in the grocery stores from cows. Now thats not to say that some of the things we are doing are about as relevent as turning in a circle 3 times while patting your head and rubbing your belly saying 'goooood milk mooo' 5 times before milking, just dont seem broke or excesive in the labor so havent really tried changeing it. Also our billy likes to be a PITA at milking time trying to get at the grain and or into the bucket and so on if he stays with them so we just keep him seperated while they are lactating and raising the kids then put him in with them for the fall and a generaly just leave him in untill around time for the kids.
Which is why he has his pen and place and the girls have theirs. At milking times, ne'er the twain shall meet. Plus, it helps if you do their Pavlovian training when they're young.
Since winters are cold and boring, I am sure MM will update his blog more often. Of course summers are busy from before sunrise to after sunset, so maybe he will write less often We shall see, it is an interesting item. Cheers CG
Yeah, here lately just hasnt been much of anything going on to post about as far as stuff being done, and also have been in the midst of a lot of 'planning' I guess you might say for upcoming stuff but nothing is for sure yet so kind of waiting to find out what is going on before mentioning much about it. I will try to post more on it as there is something more than the same "went to work, came home and surfed for a bit" or 'fed the animals, watched some TV, surfed a bit' to post or get the time and creative juices to post kind of mini tutorial and such on how to do odds and ends of stuff.