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This is a tougher one for me than the tattooing issue because there are more compelling reasons on both sides. The primary reasons to disbud that I know of are (in no particular order): a) you can't show an animal that is not disbudded (only true for some breeds) b) I have heard that you can't...

It's a real conundrum for me too. It reminds me of when I got into rabbits and was told, matter of factly, that I had to tattoo my animals. There was simply no choice in the matter if I wanted to show rabbits. After seeing this done I was horrified. The process was brutal and the animals...

I am not sure what the price difference would be, but I've been reading more and more about people getting away from feeding rabbit pellets entirely. I've read in several places now about people switching to feeding only hay and oats (and whatever supplements like minerals, etc, I assume), and...

OMG that looks horrifying. I was already dreading having to disbud but this makes me even more worried. I am so sorry for your loss. I was planning to go to the vet because I do not feel comfortable doing something like this to an animal without sedation, but it's rather horrifying that a vet...

Such adorable little babus. I cannot wait to get mine!

Sure, ruminants will eat seed heads on grass, but when foraging they are not getting a big dose of seed (grain) all at one time, they way they do when they are fed a pound of grain, which is the way grain is usually fed. No, it's definitely not a simple subject, which is why I'm looking for...

I'm really not keen on feeding grain to ruminants, tbh. The book I'm reading right now talks briefly about some people successfully switching goats to purely grass/forage based nutrition and cutting out the grain and mentions alfalfa pellets in the same section, but isn't very clear or...

@alsea1 Of course I certainly don't want my goats to lack for nutrition or to make them unhealthy. Simply looking for a more home-based way to meet their nutritional needs :)

I am quite disappointed right now because I have been trying to find everything from purebred goat breeders to goat supplies and there seems to be very little in Canada that I can find :/ I am moving to New Brunswick, but I am travelling from British Columbia with a large trailer so I am...

@babsbag I was more thinking of replacing the other things in the diet than hay :) I consider alfalfa to be a hay product, because while I know it's a legume, here it's general found in the form of "alfalfa hay" rather than by itself.

It's not necessarily that I want to go off-grid completely. But I get more and more disturbed at how disconnected we are from being able to care for ourselves and our animals without recourse to constant trips to the store. I can't think of a time when people expected to produce EVERYTHING...

(Posted this on another forum as well but figured I'd post here also to get more feedback) I am planning to keep a few dairy goats in the near future, so I'm reading up about all aspects of goat keeping as much as I can. I'm wondering, however, if anyone has thoughts about replacing the goat...

I could totally do this. OK I could do some of it. Guard towers... concertina wire. Boiling pitch. Pit traps. As an added bonus I'll be well prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

I may have the most ridiculously predator-proofed yard in my entire nation by the time I am done >_>

I almost had myself convinced that I could raise a couple of pigs for pork but I guess I'll just be eating a lot of chicken >_>;

It's really hard to know because I don't know anyone in the area I can ask. I mean with that much forest all around I'd expect there'd be plenty for the wild animals to eat without having to go to extremes to get into my pens but who knows. With the goat pen being relatively small I may just...

If coyotes are that deadly, then basically they are going to eat everyone's livestock no matter what you do then, lol. They must have gone on a radical self-improvement plan since the coyotes we dealt with at the trail riding/farm I worked at, where they were basically a danger to chickens...

@Southern by choice I would not let my Frenchton out at night precisely because I do not want her to be eaten by a coyote! But I expect she would still alert me from inside the house if there was anything outside, assuming it was close enough to the house for her to hear. And yes this is my...

@babsbag My main concern is being able to provide what a LGD needs. The property is 1 acre in total, but right now, the way I'm planning things is that there will be 1/4 acre of home and garden, and the other 3/4 acres will be divided into paddocks - probably one permanent paddock for goats and...

I actually found another roll of wire, that is the non-climb horse wire, it's $250 for 100 feet. From the same supplier. It is only 5 feet tall, that's as tall as they seem to make it, though. I could put some hot wire higher up to make a taller fence. Regarding LGD, I thought at first that...