LovinLife- Happy New Year's all!

[miss_thenorth]

I have romanov/suffolk cross. The one ewe has beautiful teats, the ohter, not so much. If you plan on milking sheep--get them as young uns. Ours were so skittish, once they dried up, we decided not again. We are keeping them, b/c we decided lamb is our favourite meat.

Mmmm lamb....I just don't think I could....

Both of our ewes had triplets, so we had 6 to butcher. We did three ourselves, but didn't have time for the other three so we sent them to the butcher. We don't really have enough land either,so we feed hay year round. In the summer, they go out on pasture from noonish to about 8 or 9 pm, then they come back into the paddock and eat hay overnight and until they are let out again. It works for us so far. When you buy round bales, 6x6 for $35, it isn't that bad, at least for us. In the winter, we go through one bale in about 8 or 9 days, in the summer they last much longer. My thinking is I would rather pay for their feed, and know what kind of meat and milk ( when she gives us milk) I'm getting than to buy grocery store meat. When we win the lottery we will buy more land

Lamb meat is delicious!!!!!!!!!

 

[CrownofThorns]

Why do people prefer owning goats over cows for milk?

I LOVE my goats! I have Nigerian Dwarf's and just adore them. We looked at possibly getting a cow, but there was three BIG issues that made us decide on goats.

First of all land. We only have 4 acres, although access to 14, but it's all wooded and hilly. Not the best for a cow, but perfect for a goat.

Second, my husband works long hours and will be having to drive an hour to work and an hour home every day so that means I have to be able to take care of the animals pretty much 100% on my own. If a 1500lb cow doesn't want to go where I want to go then I can't do anything. It's too big. We even ruled out larger goat breeds for this reason.

Third, money. Cows cost a lot of money to care for if you can't pasture them all the time. They aren't as efficient in feed to milk ratio so having an animal that is efficient is also important. This is also one of the reasons why we chose Nigies over larger breeds of goats. The lady I bought 5 of my Nigerians from once goat sat a friends Alpines. The 2 Alpines ate TRIPLE the amount all 5 Nigies at, and produced only 2 quarts of milk more a day then the 3 Nigie does! They were producing an average amount of milk for a Alpine too.

I love being around my pint sized goats, I'm not intimidated by them in the slightest, after all they are only lower thigh high! If I want them to go somewhere they don't want to, tough. I'm bigger and stronger. They are so gentle, sweet and quiet. I only have to muck out their pen and house once a month. That takes me an hour, and it takes about 2 months for it to start stinking noticeably, so no stinkiness! (a big issue for me!)

Oh and my Nigies should produce more cream then a Jersey.... Since my girls aren't in milk right now we have a cow share for milk. When my girls were in milk we did a blind test taste. The ONLY difference you could tell in taste was that my Nigie milk was sweeter. No goatiness at all.

 

[CrownofThorns]

On the note of sheep milk.... Our local store recently started carrying some WONDERFUL sheep milk Ramano cheese. It's SO yummy! Well worth the $15 for 2lb!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Thats also a good deal!

 

[lorihadams]

That's why we went with Nigerians too...I have little ones and my DD is bigger than a full sized nigi. The babies are so stinkin cute and they come in crazy colors and nigi milk is really good!

I have 3 acres but access to more but to have cows here we would have to have a much bigger barn and much more fencing and even with the acreage we have we could only raise 2 or 3 cows. Our winters are pretty mild and we probably wouldn't need a lot of hay to suppliment them but still, just made more sense to get goats.

Nigis also can breed all year long so we can stagger our breedings so that we can have one goat in milk all year round. And how can you resist the nigi cuteness???

 

[Sebrightmom]

I have both goats and cows. I would say if I had to choose one, I would go with the goats. I like drinking the goat milk better, but I love the cream on my jersey's milk. My goats take a lot less space than my cows. They also eat a lot less. Then it is muddy the cows udder are always a mess even thou they are out on pasture. They just love laying in the mud. My goats are never dirty.

 

[Denim Deb]

Lori, love the pic.

 

[CrownofThorns]

Love the pic too! I want some Nigie babies! My girls are holding out on me...

 

[lorihadams]

I want mine too.....that pic was from our breeder's farm last year! My two girls are due April 12th and April 16th, they are at the breeders until they are done kidding. I only have 11 mallard babies in my barn right now but they are cute too!

I have another pic of my DD from last year, she is standing next to Asriel who is full sized and was in the baby pen nursing. Maddie had just turned 3 in this picture

 

[LovinLife]

Them baby goats are super cute!