Independence Homestead

It’s been another chilly week here on the farm! While it feels like spring may never come, I remind myself that this cold weather means less pests will survive winter and be around to cause trouble in spring and summer.

More Goats!

This past week we added two more goats to the homestead!

Champ heading to the homestead

First I picked up Champ from a local farm in Lucketts using our recently made livestock carrier. He’s a registered Nigerian Dwarf buck. He’s also a real sweetie! One thing I love about buying livestock is getting to see other people’s farms and learn from them. Champ came from a home where the goats were given lots of love, and that made him a very friendly goat who runs up to you for pets and attention.

Champ

Champ’s former home didn’t use electric fencing, so he had to spend a few days in our electric fence training pen, where the electric fence is in front of a physical fence. This setup teaches livestock to back up when the get a shock from electric fence, not get scared and barrel through the fence. If you don’t fence train animals in a setup like this, when they get shocked they run forward through the electric fence. Ask me how I know.

The day after getting Champ, we drove down to Washington, Virginia to get a registered Alpine buck named Grayson, but we’re trying out the name Bear, which is another part of his complete registered name.

Grayson/Bear and Harley getting gas on the way home

We used our livestock carrier once again. Grayson came from a home where the goats were given a lot of acreage to graze, and that space made him a very healthy goat with a low parasite load.

Both goats spent time alone in quarantine for a few days. I used this time to monitor for health issues, get the goats acquainted with me, and to complete routine health maintenance: deworm, give copper, etc.

Two goats and a hog!

Yesterday I did a trial run with the two goats living together with our boar, Alaska. I thought I’d put them in the pen just for the day to see if they’d get along. All the animals adjusted to each other with minimal butting of heads, so I moved in the goat houses and let them all stay in that pen overnight. This morning the two goats were cuddled up in one house instead of sleeping in their own separate houses! I guess they’re good with each other now.

Goat House

For the goats we owned previously, we have built a new and improved goat house!

The goat house

We took our hoophouse that used to house chickens and ducks, made some improvements, and redeployed it as a goat house. The hoophouse was catching a lot of wind with the way the tarps were on it, so we had to change something. It ended up working well to make it into a goat house, and the goats love it! Right now our two Pygmy goats and our Alpine doe are living in it.

Chick Update

Our red sex link chicks are doing great! They’ve grown a good amount of feathers this week, and are healthy little ladies.

Chicks growing and feathering out

Duck House

This week we completed our new duck house, and moved the ducks out of the chicken yard and into the woods with the goats.

Ducks running around in the snow

Ducks are very messy, and they were making the chicken yard a muddy mess. I’m very happy that they’re now out on their own, and the chickens can have their space back to themselves.

The duck house

The duck house is 5ft by 8ft, and is made of two cattle panels, wood, poultry netting, and a tarp. We made this structure a two story affair so we could have increased square footage without making the overall structure larger and therefore more difficult to move. The ducks have about 65 square feet of floor space in there. Each end also hinges down so the birds can be let out and free range daily.

I’ll post a video of the duck house soon, when it’s a bit warmer outside.

Fodder

This week we’ve made major progress on growing fodder for our livestock!

Brand new fodder rack

We have built a fodder rack and have it in use with fodder trays, and some bins to catch the waste water. The first step is to soak barley.

Barley seeds soaking

Then spread the barley seeds in a thin layer on sprouting trays, which have drainage holes on the bottom.

Fodder growing

Water a few times per day, and watch the fodder grow! We still have work to do, like adding an automated watering and drainage system. Still, we are well on our way to supplying our livestock with nutritious green feed year round!

Thanks for taking the time to read about the homestead this Friday! I’ll post more videos of our farm adventures over the next few days, so come back soon.