rachels.haven's Journal

Working on things now. Dh is going to fix the truck to give us a chance to buy another without the rush. Working other things out too, like our long term plan.

Having a long term plan is a good idea. It can be changed as y’all go along, but it gives you a sense of direction.

I discovered yesterday that at grocery store Giant, the price of lamb is lower than even the cheapest current price of beef. I guess we're switching to lamb until the beef market turns right side up again or until the lamb price per pound goes up. It's more tender anyway. Feels really backwards, but I guess we can do that.

rachels.haven said:

I discovered yesterday that at grocery store Giant, the price of lamb is lower than even the cheapest current price of beef. I guess we're switching to lamb until the beef market turns right side up again or until the lamb price per pound goes up. It's more tender anyway. Feels really backwards, but I guess we can do that.

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I love lamb. We used to have lamb chops on occasion when I was a kid. Not in decades, though.

rachels.haven said:

I discovered yesterday that at grocery store Giant, the price of lamb is lower than even the cheapest current price of beef. I guess we're switching to lamb until the beef market turns right side up again or until the lamb price per pound goes up. It's more tender anyway. Feels really backwards, but I guess we can do that.

Click to expand...

Do you ever have wethers slaughtered for meat?
Usually lamb is way higher than beef.

Yes. We've shipped wethers to the processor and I am excited to do it again. I had a doe get bi lateral mastitis that wouldn't go away while she was in milk that I got to survive dry off and I left her open and I'm booking her for their next available spot, as sad as that is.

This buck is driving me crazy. He seems to look different every time I look at him so I've been taking lots of pics (to try and feel less crazy)


He's still too long from knee to hock, but I feel like he's changing...and I also feel like he crouches down and stands with his hocks together when he's paying attention to me when I'm in the pen ready to run and with his legs only a little bit close like in the above or spaced naturally it lines him up differently.
Pete has become so rowdy in the last week I'm not looking forward to spending money on more future chaotic energy, so I'm considering just using Aramis when the time comes. A buck like Pete, as tall as I am when he's on all fours strutting, jumping into the air and spinning, ramming the other boys and considering courting me...too much (he's got a collar now and a loose scur that if I tap it he suddenly decides to go away for a few minutes that I've used a few times).
The heats this year have been weird too. The natural cycling just now started, and they've been short, quiet heats and I kind of wonder if its making the bucks extra desperate.

I'd better start shipping and growing out some goats. The lamb was $8/lbs but beef around here tends to be $10/lbs and up. We eat a lot of stew lately.

Nothing like raising your own meat.

Puppy finished her shots yesterday with a rabies shot at TSC-a perfect angel for nose rubs for the 1.5 hour wait to the front of the line (price we pay for $44 legally documented vaccine). No pics, but she got named Polly for the record. 66 lbs at about 6 months. Nice and growthy if she was a goat.

I have the opportunity to buy a 2 year old buck of Pete's breeding with perfect conformation that would compliment his genetics in his daughters nicely out of an AI breeding by Little Orchard BR Pure Thrill out of Lucky*Star's RJ Minty (proven dam, proven sire several times over). He'd be perfect, disease tested herd, and he's a reasonable, normal price for a nice buck...but transport to the opposite coast would be a lot. I have 12 does to breed him to, 9 out of Pete.
My husband and partner is leaving it up to me.
We still have the savings and income to do it. But things are an expensive mess. And our house continues showing and showing and showing (agent thinks we're getting another offer this week, someone has been house hunting a long time and has fallen in love with the way our log cabin screams WOOD...which I guess it does. Personally I'm more in love with the fact the weather radio can scream "winds in excess of 70 mph" and our house shrugged it off like nothing was happening while big trees get blown out of the ground and other people's roofs get blown off and busses and semi's got flipped, but to each their own)
I could sell every doeling out of that buck for two years and I guess that's okay because right now I'm at my own personal level herd capacity, but selling goats around here seems to be very "who you know" and nobody knows me. I worry I'd be selling stunning goats as home milkers because my herd is unknown. I'd feel awful if this was a wasted investment that I went for.
Anyway, the stewings of a dairy goat herd owner.