Hi! We're in the process of buying our dream farm in Richmond, KY.
It's got 15 acres of pasture with a wire mesh fence and right now is home to 15 stockers who don't seem able to keep up with the grass, which is very tall and going to seed. We were there last weekend and walked the pasture some - lots of grass and different clovers, a few thistles, not many weeds to speak of. The current owner teaches soil management or something like that at the university, so I'm guessing he's maintained it pretty well in his retirement.
I'm going to want to get some sort of small grass-finishing type cattle - dexters, Highlands, galloways, or shortlines are the ones I've been reading up on mostly. I doubt I'd want to show them so I may just get a mix of whatever I find that looks good and healthy. I've read a few accounts of people keeping a dexter bull in with the herd and not having many problems and I may consider that down the road, maybe raising one from a weanling so it's tame and I know it pretty well. I want to start small and grow my herd as I get "keepers" out of my cows.
I also want a few goats, probably the breed doesn't matter so much as they'll be pets and weeders more than anything. Kikos and kiko crosses look good to me, because of their hardiness. The kids think we should get at least one to milk, tho I'm not so sure they'll really like goat milk but they claim they will.
I'm thinking of dividing the pasture into paddocks for rotational grazing. Right now it's all just one big field, and I think some of it never gets grazed much at all. It's on the top of a hill/mountain and is very rolling with a few streams passing through it.
We *have* to get chickens as soon as I can build a coop. We had them here until we put the house up for sale and I miss them terribly.
My daughter wants to get a pet emu, and is shoving all this information under my nose about them being good livestock guardians and such, but I'm also seeing some people have problems containing them, so I don't know.
I had a cow as a kid, kind of a 4H type thing but I got really attached to her. But my dad, who grew up on a dairy farm, did all the hard stuff because he didn't think girls could and at the time I believed him. So I'm not completely inexperienced, but close to it, I guess.
I home school my kids and my daughter especially is really in to animals so a few years ago they bred hamsters for the local pet store (really pretty ones, too). Last year she bred tropical fish (we had 19 tanks at once - huge bills from all those heaters running!) and sold them through the mail and locally and made hundreds of dollars.
I'm a member of PASA in PA and bother them regularly on their listserv with articles I find.
So that's me, thanks for reading this and thanks for letting me join your group!
It's got 15 acres of pasture with a wire mesh fence and right now is home to 15 stockers who don't seem able to keep up with the grass, which is very tall and going to seed. We were there last weekend and walked the pasture some - lots of grass and different clovers, a few thistles, not many weeds to speak of. The current owner teaches soil management or something like that at the university, so I'm guessing he's maintained it pretty well in his retirement.
I'm going to want to get some sort of small grass-finishing type cattle - dexters, Highlands, galloways, or shortlines are the ones I've been reading up on mostly. I doubt I'd want to show them so I may just get a mix of whatever I find that looks good and healthy. I've read a few accounts of people keeping a dexter bull in with the herd and not having many problems and I may consider that down the road, maybe raising one from a weanling so it's tame and I know it pretty well. I want to start small and grow my herd as I get "keepers" out of my cows.
I also want a few goats, probably the breed doesn't matter so much as they'll be pets and weeders more than anything. Kikos and kiko crosses look good to me, because of their hardiness. The kids think we should get at least one to milk, tho I'm not so sure they'll really like goat milk but they claim they will.
I'm thinking of dividing the pasture into paddocks for rotational grazing. Right now it's all just one big field, and I think some of it never gets grazed much at all. It's on the top of a hill/mountain and is very rolling with a few streams passing through it.
We *have* to get chickens as soon as I can build a coop. We had them here until we put the house up for sale and I miss them terribly.
My daughter wants to get a pet emu, and is shoving all this information under my nose about them being good livestock guardians and such, but I'm also seeing some people have problems containing them, so I don't know.
I had a cow as a kid, kind of a 4H type thing but I got really attached to her. But my dad, who grew up on a dairy farm, did all the hard stuff because he didn't think girls could and at the time I believed him. So I'm not completely inexperienced, but close to it, I guess.
I home school my kids and my daughter especially is really in to animals so a few years ago they bred hamsters for the local pet store (really pretty ones, too). Last year she bred tropical fish (we had 19 tanks at once - huge bills from all those heaters running!) and sold them through the mail and locally and made hundreds of dollars.
I'm a member of PASA in PA and bother them regularly on their listserv with articles I find.
So that's me, thanks for reading this and thanks for letting me join your group!
