Greetings and salutations!

[Chevoner]

Hello to you all! I'm thrilled to have found this forum!
I am an aspiring homesteader from South Carolina, USA.
About a month ago, my family and I moved to 18 country acres to pursue our dreams of small-scale farming, and sustainable self-sufficiency.
I look forward to making friends and learning much here.

 

[elevan]

 

[goatcrazy421]

:bun.

Great to have you! Do you have any livestock on your 18 acres?

Welcome!

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Welcome to BYH!!!!!

 

[Chevoner]

Thanks for the welcome, folks.
The land is mostly wooded. One section is mostly pine, and another is a good bit of hardwoods with pines mixed through. We have 14 guineas we got about 2 weeks ago. They're about 6 weeks old now. We are also looking into getting chickens and rabbits. Eventually, we will be running goats. I'm leaning heavily towards Kikos and Tennessee Meat Goats, but fencing is a major expense, lol.

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Lol, yes, fencing is a BIG expense! I am in the process of redoing a bunch of mine this summer! :/

 

[OneFineAcre]

Hello.

 

[Chevoner]

What type(s) of fencing do you have, Four Winds?

 

[Southern by choice]

Welcome!

We have Kikos and they love the woods! We use polywire rope and polytape for the kikos with a heavy charger... alot less expensive than field fencing and they respect it as well as the Livestock Guardians. We do have permanent fencing also but this way we can move the kikos so they don't dead kill everything! We want the vines, brush, tree leaves to grow back so we move them before they dead kill. They eat alot!

 

[Chevoner]

Southern by choice, as a third-grader my class took a field trip to a horse farm that bred Arabians. Trying to get a better look at some of the horses, I made the unfortunate mistake of grabbing a hot top wire and WHAM! Needless to say, I learned respect for the wire instantly-- well, as soon as I figured out what had happened. Looking back, I can't believe they didn't have the fencing clearly marked as electric, and no one warned us about it. We were third-graders after all!
When I began looking into fencing, I was against electric at first thanks to such fond memories but improvements over the years, and being intelligent enough to mark my fences and caution any visitors (especially children!), has had me rethinking it. Also, as you mention, finances are always a factor!