Another Michiganiac, LOL! ;)

[LostNation]

Greetings from extreme south-central (almost Ohio/Indiana) Michigan! Just discovered the forum & am looking forward to getting to know all you guys.

On our humble, little farm we have Lamancha, Toggenburg & Experimental dairy goats, a Guernsey milk cow, countless free-range fowl, working Welsh Pembroke Corgis (herders), Komondorok (livestock guardian dogs) & a couple of mixed-breed rescues (also herders). . . oftentimes have a pig or two, &/or a steer wandering around being raised for the freezer &, of course, at least a few cats, esp. since people feel the need to ditch their unwanteds here on a semi-irregular basis. :/

We're into self-sufficiency & trying to raise as much of our food as we can, as naturally as we can. Okay, well I am, anyway. The darling husband just tolerates my silly endeavors - kinda/sorta/most of the time, that is. I'm an avid gardener - organic & heirloom as much as possible - do a lot of wildcrafting, herbalism & stuff like that . . . also, do a lot of canning, freezing & dehydrating; make all of our own dairy products, do some butchering of the smaller things I can handle myself, here & there (read: squeamish husband), blahblahblahhhhhhh-rambling-b/c-I'm-not-sure-what-all-I'm-supposed-to-write, LOL. *blush*

Thanks for having me!

 

[ksalvagno]

 

[michickenwrangler]

Sound like my soul mate!

I have LaMancha goats (my neighbor has Toggs, my 2nd fave). My poor husband also has to tolerate my experiments with gardening, canning, dehydrating, chickens and cheese-making. He is looking forward to our fruit trees bearing fruit (pun intended).

I from the NE section, about an hour north of Bay City.

Welcome!

 

[LostNation]

Thanks for the welcome!

Michickenwrangler - LOL, why is it that we WOMEN are the ones who are always wayyyy more gung-ho abt these things than the guys?!

My husband would love nothing more than to live in a nondescript ranch-style house in a subdivision full of houses that looked JUST like it. Itty bitty, perfectly manicured yard (the less in the yard to mow around, the better), MAYbe a coupla dogs/cats for pets, buying all of our food from the store - & hopefully eating out A LOT.

& hanging out w/ a bunch of clueless, consumerist-minded, vapid humans who are more concerned abt materialism than they are anything else.

No thanks.

Whew, that was pretty harsh, huh? Sorry. Been there, done that. Not going back.

I'd lovvvvve to hear all abt your LMs & your neighbors' Toggs - pedigree junkie alert, LOL!

Kind regards,
Sarah

 

[michickenwrangler]

DH would like to be in the country, but he does love his manicured lawn. All of his friends are dairy farmers. He's actually suprised me, such as allowing the goat in the cab of his pickup truck when he won't let the dog ride in his truck or telling me "I don't want you to get chicks ... get an incubator so we can hatch our own."

Enjoy our forum here

 

[LostNation]

Soooo . . . did you indeed get an incubator & hatch your own? Successfully? I tried that & it was a major flop! So then I ordered chicks & made a 'brooder' in our basement . . . & that worked great - didn't lose ONE chick, believe it or not! Nowadays, though (10ish years later), our free-range flock of totally NOT fancy, mixed-breed - but extremely hardy!!! - chickens raise their own . . . a few of which actually manage to survive & make it to adulthood in our pretty harsh "Survival of the Fittest Environment", each year.

Loving the forum, already!

 

[michickenwrangler]

They're in the 'bator right now, so I'll let you know in another 2 1/2 weeks

Our partridge cochin rooster is my husband's pet. He saw a blue cochin at a farm once and said he wanted a rooster like that. Well, we found a partridge one out near Traverse City (the woman there lived my dream life--cherry orchard, old farmhouse, old dairy barn, Saddlebred horses, could see Lake Michigan from her window, lives right by a winery) so DH tends to have "proud father syndrome" when it comes to that rooster.

Bear, our LaMancha buckling who actually looks more like an earless bison calf, is also DH's pet. He wants to leave him a buck to see what kind of offspring he can sire.

What kind of chickens do you have?

 

[Roll farms]

Welcomes Sarah again....(hugs)

She knows A LOT about goats and various other critters, folks....a great addition to the 'herd' here.

 

[LostNation]

A completely mixed menagerie derived of the original layer light/heavy breeds that we'd originally started out with . . . added a few here & there over the years, intentionally - Barred Rocks, Ameracauna (sp?), Black Australorp - & get a few "donations" from neighbors every year or so who dump their extras off, here (usually more "mixed menagerie" types but that have incl. the occasional Banty-types - great setters & chick-raisers but don't usually last very long, here). I stick eggs out of my fav hens under the ones who want to set, so I can get more of those types to continue the flock. Yep, as you can see . . . very strict chicken breeding prog going on, here, LOL.

 

[LostNation]

Roll! Shhhhhhhh! Don't embarrass me! I might have a few goat years under my belt, but come ONNNNNN - you know as well as I do: the longer you have these darn goaties, the more we realize we don't know SQUAT! *hugs back*