If you want to raise your own food, pay for nothing but salt, coffee, and property taxes, and work for yourself, you must be a homesteader at heart. Having a small allotment of land and making it produce all the food you and your family need is a dream - but it can come true. Many achieve sustainability using goats as one of their domestic animals.
These long domesticated animals have many good points. They produce delicious and nutritious milk. You can eat them. They are easy to handle, even for the inexperienced, and their pasture and shelter can be modest. They don't require much feed. Two good milkers can give all the milk a family needs.
Actually you don't even need to provide a pasture for a goat. This animal is a browser rather than a grazer and prefers brush and weeds to grass. You can also keep one on hay, but that's more expensive than letting it eat weeds that are free. Save manpower and let the goat clear out all the weeds and grasses that grow where a mower can't go.
They will need hay during the winter but not nearly as much as a cow. You need to feed them grain if you want to get a lot of milk. Again, they need a lot less grain than a cow will. Goat's milk doesn't make butter, since it has little cream, but that's about the only drawback to not having a cow. Making cottage cheese and wonderful soft cheeses is easy with goatsmilk.
Your milk goats can also clear the land for you. A temporary electric fence thrown up around a weedy lot will keep them confined, and they will quickly clear it out, even if there are rocks or down trees that would defeat a mower. You can also tie them out on a picket string. Just be careful that they can get out of the hot sun, since they are prone to heat stroke, and make sure they have water.
Many people don't milk their goats but use them solely for clearing or use them for meat production. There's not a lot of meat on a goat, but per pound it's economical. Anyway, a small family can find it hard to use up an entire cow, so raising a beef cow may not be practical.
Goats are like sheep in that they often have twins, so it's pretty easy to get a herd going. You also don't have to breed a goat every year. Unlike a cow, a good milking goat can go for two years or more before needing to be bred back. Many health authorities say that goatsmilk is more digestible than cowsmilk, and it doesn't need to be pasteurized since tuberculosis is almost unknown in goats. Many cultures have used raw goatsmilk as a wound dressing, and it's considered excellent for infants, the sick, and the elderly.
It's fun to raise goats, too. They can be as affectionate as dogs, and they love to go for a walk. A family with a small herd of goats, a few chickens, a vegetable garden, an orchard, a berry patch, and a beehive will really have all it needs.
These long domesticated animals have many good points. They produce delicious and nutritious milk. You can eat them. They are easy to handle, even for the inexperienced, and their pasture and shelter can be modest. They don't require much feed. Two good milkers can give all the milk a family needs.
Actually you don't even need to provide a pasture for a goat. This animal is a browser rather than a grazer and prefers brush and weeds to grass. You can also keep one on hay, but that's more expensive than letting it eat weeds that are free. Save manpower and let the goat clear out all the weeds and grasses that grow where a mower can't go.
They will need hay during the winter but not nearly as much as a cow. You need to feed them grain if you want to get a lot of milk. Again, they need a lot less grain than a cow will. Goat's milk doesn't make butter, since it has little cream, but that's about the only drawback to not having a cow. Making cottage cheese and wonderful soft cheeses is easy with goatsmilk.
Your milk goats can also clear the land for you. A temporary electric fence thrown up around a weedy lot will keep them confined, and they will quickly clear it out, even if there are rocks or down trees that would defeat a mower. You can also tie them out on a picket string. Just be careful that they can get out of the hot sun, since they are prone to heat stroke, and make sure they have water.
Many people don't milk their goats but use them solely for clearing or use them for meat production. There's not a lot of meat on a goat, but per pound it's economical. Anyway, a small family can find it hard to use up an entire cow, so raising a beef cow may not be practical.
Goats are like sheep in that they often have twins, so it's pretty easy to get a herd going. You also don't have to breed a goat every year. Unlike a cow, a good milking goat can go for two years or more before needing to be bred back. Many health authorities say that goatsmilk is more digestible than cowsmilk, and it doesn't need to be pasteurized since tuberculosis is almost unknown in goats. Many cultures have used raw goatsmilk as a wound dressing, and it's considered excellent for infants, the sick, and the elderly.
It's fun to raise goats, too. They can be as affectionate as dogs, and they love to go for a walk. A family with a small herd of goats, a few chickens, a vegetable garden, an orchard, a berry patch, and a beehive will really have all it needs.
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