All About Silkies, Nigerian Dwarf Goats & More
Even though Spring and Summer garden seasons are over, and we are not planting a Fall garden this year, we are thinking about our garden planning. We usually start garden planning for our Spring garden in the late Fall/early Winter.
Having a solid plan for the garden well ahead of time to actually plant just makes things run so much smoother.
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If you are just starting with goats, or even if you have been around goats for a while, there will often be times you run across terms that you just don’t know what they mean. Goat terminology is important to know and understand especially when you are just getting started with goats.
Like most things, once someone is “in” it, they will throw around terms that are not necessarily common place with the assumption that everyone knows what they are talking about.
Wether – a wether is a male goat that has been fixed and cannot mate. They make great pets.
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 There are a lot of things to think about when it comes to getting goats. Once you have decided on a breed, you must then decide on which specific goats you want. But how will you choose your goats? Although we are writing this with Nigerian Dwarf goats specifically in mind, I imagine the following could also apply to any dairy goat breed.
Factors to consider to help you choose your first Nigerian Dwarf (other other dairy breed) goats:1) Registered or Unregistered – this should really start to narrow down your field of potential candidates. We suggest paying extra up front and getting registered goats.
First, with registered goats, you have the potential to see their background and production records. Second, if you are getting a dairy goat to keep in milk, you will have to breed and( in theory) sell kids each year. Unregistered goats will cut down on the number of buyers interested and also bring in less money.
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 I suppose our journey to starting with small scale farming started several years ago in a small fishing town in sunny Florida. Even though the sun and surf were spectacular, the housing market was not one that suited us well.Though we by no means owned a farm, I would say we still had a small herd of dogs….4 of them at that point. We were really looking to buy a house with, at the very least, a decent sized yard. Unfortunately, that was not really one of the selling points for properties in our location.
We had tossed around the idea of moving to various locales. But, I was not buying the pitch to move back to Virginia. At least not until the promise of a goat. I guess animals have always been my weakness. (I suppose a goat was not the only thing that convinced me. However, it was at least an important item on the list). That was just about three years ago. At that point we were not actually thinking about small scale farming or homesteading. Since then we have purchased a house with a small amount of acreage and started to build out our very own small scale farm (or mini-farm as I like to call in). When we first moved in, I would look out our back window and ponder what we would ever do with that huge field…..now I start to ponder how many more things we can fit back there (now that my goat promise has been cashed in I am holding out for something else exciting. How about a mini cow, sheep, a mini horse, a wallaby even!). |
We started out gardening. We try to stick with organic foods and, well, they can get quite pricey! So, what better way to save a penny or two (as well as have delicious veggies) than by starting a garden. We quickly added in a flock of 17 laying hens for farm fresh, organically fed eggs.
During the last few years we have not only discovered how very tasty homegrown and home raised food can be, but how rewarding it can be as well. Since we have so enjoyed the journey and adventure of starting our small scale farm we thought it would be fun to create a space where we can share our stories. And so, here we are 🙂
We can’t wait to start growing our mini-farm this year. We are looking to expand past supplying just ourselves with farm fresh items. In the short run, you can expect to see our Blog continually updated and expanded. We are excited to share our experiences growing the mini-farm.
By mid-year 2015, we hope to start offering products such as day old to point of lay chickens and free range, organically fed eggs. By end of year 2015, we are looking to add goat milk products from our new Nigerian Dwarf goats.
Thanks for taking the time to learn about us and how we got started with small scale farming! Please feel free to leave a comment so we can also get to know you! 🙂