Shepherd Level: Advanced A year ago today we set out with a borrowed livestock trailer to pick out and bring home our herd of goats. We have learned A LOT about goats and about ourselves in the last year. Lesson 1: If it can go wrong it will. Less than 24 hours after picking up our goats all 6 were roaming around our 10 acres not to be seen unless from a distance or on trail cam for 10 days. Lesson 2: The way to a goat’s heart is through its stomach. We were able to contain our herd by feeding into one area. They wandered right into our net fence trap! Goats love their breakfast in bed. And supper. You can also get a goat tamed up with some patience and sweet feed. It took only few months and all of the goats were eating out of our hand. If we want to cut the grass in the front of the property, the goats will follow us down there and are happy to eat for a couple of hours. Some goats are more “affectionate” than others and some are just plain rude by invading your personal space. Having goats that are relatively tame helps with health care and herd management. Goat horns help too. Lesson 3: Bottle babies can be useful. We have one. She's long graduated from bottles, but we are still her Maa. She’s a pain in the neck sometimes - always under our feet, but she has come in as a huge help a few times this year when we needed a stray goat reined in. She’ll lead the herd like a champ! And she’ll do it over and over. Bottle babies are also great at calming the rest of a group that might be a little leery of humans. Lesson 4: Goats clear land. The primary purpose of our initial herd of goats was to help us thin and clear the dense brush on our farm. They have surpassed all of our hopes for them and are a valuable tool. Sure we could have gotten the same effect quicker with a tractor, but with the goats they are “green” and their manure will help to fertilize our poor soil. Lesson 5: Goats are very strong. Bigger is not always stronger when it comes to goats. What you think is your strongest goat will surprise you. Our largest goat is definitely not our strongest goat. And up until last weekend, what we thought was our strongest goat is probably not. A larger goat is not necessarily the strongest. A short little compact goat will give you a good workout. Goat horns, while useful as handles, do hurt. I've been tapped by them a few times just by being in the way - they do leave a mark.
Lesson 6: Have patience. While starting our second year, with hopefully 6 pregnant goats, we hope to expand our herd and sell some goats. We hope to be able to put at least one goat in the freezer for our personal consumption – because the farm has always been to sustain ourselves first – and pick the best of the best (this place is tougher than Top Gun) to stay full time. Farming success doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time. We’ve learned patience this last year. Lesson 7: Have fun. I’ve mentioned it a time or two, I’m sure, that in order for us to fulfill our dream, become successful and to go the distance with this farm, we have to have fun. Sometimes it’s easy to forget. So, when the chores seem mundane, the work is getting hard, and the sun is baking our brains, we take a time out,sit in the shade and hang with the herd. There's always some little goat that puts a smile on our faces.//tr Herd dynamics are most interesting. There is order among the group and as the goats grow and change the order is sometimes shuffled. Since June we have been running a split herd, because we have doelings that we can’t have around the bucks just yet. We added a couple of older does into their group just to maintain some order and keep the kids safe. Our Odie experiment from March did not go according to plan, so in order to live up to our name, Must Bee Kiddin’, we have get everyone bred in the next month or two, so we had to shuffle things around again. Our largest goat has reigned supreme as Herd Queen since the day we acquired our herd. She’s been the leader, protector, and biggest bully. She ran a tight group, but was a bit over the top sometimes with her actions. Many of the other ladies did not like her, but had to take her butting and pushing around the food bowl and choice treats. She was quick with her horns and sometimes even would go out of her way to butt a goat she particularly didn’t like for seemingly any reason. It’s the order of the herd. HQ as we have called her was split off from the main herd and has been leading the group of doelings and a couple of lesser ranked goats for the last couple of months. She’s easy going enough, but her dress size has increased and WE have had to bully HER away from the food dishes after her rations have been scarfed down. Labor Day was a pivotal day for our herd. The doelings have been left in one herd and HQ and the other two goats have been integrated back in with the remainder - including a buckling and a buck. Well, things didn’t go quite according to plan for the HQ. Two goats took her down – down a hill, down into a tree, down into submission the only way goats know how – loud, hard head butting, biting, humping, more butting, and some shunning. It was difficult to watch at times, but it’s nature and how goat herds deal with their hierarchical structure. I believe that we have a new Herd Queen. The goat we call Mrs. Badger or Mrs. B or Mamma B, and often in my case, Mrs. Bitch, because she bites. We shall see how this plays out. Life is always interesting on Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm.
Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and you have get through the rough patch the best you can. We have had some heavy off the farm stuff happening, and while life at Must Bee Kiddin' Farm went on we had to let the blog sit quietly in the background.
We have some cool stuff happening, and will be back to regular updates in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!!! June was a busy month on Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. On the cusp of completing our first year of our farming adventure, June had a lot of hard work and a surprise or two in store for us. Goats This past June saw the arrival of a future herd sire. We had been casually looking for a buck for quite a while, but the search kicked into high gear in May. We did find a nice buckling in Georgia, but before making any “ buck trek” we committed to staying as local as possible with our buying decisions. We believe in trying to support as many other local farms and ventures as possible, and when it comes to livestock, locally adapted is usually a better choice. In late May and made we visited a local farmer that had some kiko bucklings for sale. Fortunately, we were able to find a good fit for our herd from his current stock selection. This was nice since it saved us from the Georgia “buck trek”. On June 7th we picked up the kiko buck tagged 608. 608 spent the rest of the month finding his niche in the herd. He’s the ever-present figure lurking the herd fringe among the twisted live oak shadows. 608 is Shadowman. BeesThe bees on the farm have been on quite a ride this year. Several of the nucleus hives that were looking promising in the early spring have crashed. Although this sounds bad, the few that have made it are flourishing and will result in a good foundation for future hive expansion on the farm. Overall, our hives are looking good with our overall hive numbers growing. Early June is the last “easy” period for honey bees in our area. The days become long and hot. Summer’s dog days take over. After the early June honey harvest (not much of one this year) it’s pretty much a waiting game as the summer dearth takes hold. Late June becomes a time of scant blooms, intense heat and waiting, waiting, waiting… ProgressAs June turns up the heat and frequent showers drench the afternoons in our area of Florida, the work tends to slow a bit. There’s a solid six hour window where one can get a lot done, but once late morning melts into early afternoon it’s best to play things on the loose side. This time of year Thor welds the skies and uses Florida as his anvil. Making ambitious gains in the larger projects is something that can be hard to come by. But, with all that being said, we made solid progress on finalizing the driveway into the farm. Several towering pines were felled and the drive’s final shape took hold. Completing the driveway is the primary project on the agenda right now. Once it’s completed we’ll be able to drive right into the middle of the property. This will make things super easy for dropping off any building materials as well as cut down on a lot of the daily leg work. MiscellaneousThere’s always a bunch of little things happening and June was no exception. We finally got the bamboo we purchased in late April into the ground. All the varieties chosen are clumping bamboos, not running bamboos. We planted giant timber bamboo (bambusa oldhamii), graceful bamboo (bambusa textilis gracilis), and golden goddess (bambusa multiplex). Bamboo is a foundation planting on Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm which means it will satisfy many roles on the farm. Another good reason to get it in the ground! The last week of June we were notified by the county tax assessor that the Must Bee Kiddin' Farm property will receive an agricultural designation. This was outstanding news. Obtaining agricultural status for the property was a primary goal for the property in year one. We can now say that goal has been achieved. The agricultural designation was a critical detail that is essential for green-lighting our farm's expansion. We also purchased an incubator in June and made contact for obtaining hatching eggs. The incubator is a simple table top model, but it's the start of our poultry division plans. We told ya'll this farming thing was going to get out of hand! //mr A year ago today, we started down a path carrying a few hand tools and a back pack. Today we walked that path with 7 of our goats and barely touched a branch. A year ago today, we couldn’t walk through our 10 acres. Today we criss-crossed our way through well-worn paths to get from one side to the other. A year ago today, we were run off by a thunderstorm in the early afternoon - taking refuge in my tiny Honda Civic. Today, we worked through the thunderstorm, getting soaked to the bone because goats needed to be fed, watered and other farm chores done. A year ago today, we would let the thick underbrush give us a feeling of overwhelm. Today, we see that underbrush as food for our goats A year ago today the neighbors that passed by our farm would slow roll by probably wondering what the heck was happening. Today, our neighbors honk and wave and stop by to chat. We’ve made some great friends in the last year. A year ago today, we made a list. Today, we are crossing items off that list and adding new items every few months. We are accomplishing goals and making plans. A year ago today, we made a promise to each other to have fun and enjoy this new adventure in our lives. Today, we are able to laugh and enjoy the hard labor we do each day and can really see the possibilities for our future. A year ago today we started to live our dream. Today we are continuing that dream. Here’s to the start of year two at Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm! We have divided the herd recently. While this did not go exactly according to plan – more on that in another post – it’s actually working out quite well in many ways. Mark recently built a ½ acre semi-permanent pen. The original plan was for this to be the bachelor pad for our two bucks, but they both had their own ideas and we ended up keeping them in the net fences that we use for rotational grazing. We had to get the youngest doelings away from the boys, so we moved them to this new pen along with one doe – the mother of the twins. With all the goats in a holding pattern within the new pen, the forage was getting a little thin. So Mark thought we should try taking them out for a walk around the property to graze the grass along the front fence. Not only would it feed the goats it would get Mark out of weed whacking duty along that section of the perimeter electric fence. Since all the goats follow us around the pen looking for hand-outs, we figured a little sweet feed would be just to ticket to lure them along and to a lesser extent control them. What did we have to lose? Well, 6 goats on 10 acres and a bunch of plants that are just getting a good start--that’s what! This better work! After taking a deep breath we shoved the holding pen gate open and off we went. I was in the lead position and Mark, along with the previous bottle baby, brought up the rear. Foraging our way down the driveway the goats didn't miss many yummy, tender shoots. All us shepherds had to do was stand in the shade and enjoy the show. Not too bad. There was a small hang up once we got to the front of the property where the truck was parked. One goat caught sight of her reflection. For a brief moment we thought a fight might break out, but all went well. We made our way along the front property line to the tall grass in southeast corner. We grazed the goats alongside the road and had fun watching both the herd react to the locals driving by and the locals reacting to the herd. Several drivers did a double-take as the kids grazed the fresh shoots along the fence. One driver, a lady, yelled “They really are goats!!!” Recently we planted some clumping bamboo and when the herd passed by it they didn't pass up the opportunity to swarm the meager planting's fresh leaves. No worries, sweet feed to the rescue as Mark lured them up the path and away from the bamboo. I still have to master my herding skills a little bit and get a better handle on reading the goats, but pretty much all went well. We foraged back up the line, and it was amazing to watch their rumens fill with each bit they chewed. Through mastering herding and close shepherding, we have started incorporating a new angle into our overall herd management plan--flash grazing. With the ability to walk our goats almost anywhere we want, we can eventually make a permanent containment paddock or barn area to secure the herd overnight, then herd them to the net fences surrounding the foraging paddocks in the morning. Let them graze all day and then return them to safety in the evening. This will make moving the net fences a little easier and if need be, one person can do the job. Not that we've been having problems, but by doing this we can add a layer of security that is essential during kidding – the coyotes are abundant in our area. Also, when our pasture grows as desired, we can then put the goats onto it for shorter lengths of time (as little as a few hours) and get them off the plants exactly when needed, allowing proper regrowth--not destruction. This system will also help with managing parasite load and should reduce the frequency of wormer use. This flash grazing has become a daily ritual for the goats being kept in the half acre pen (the buck pen that has yet to have a buck in it, LOL), one that I look forward to on the weekends when I am there. The goats also look forward to it and are practically banging on the gate when they feel it’s time to go for their walk. Now we just have to see if our remedial group of goats will eventually catch on. There are a few wildcards in this bunch. But, best of all, the perimeter weed whacking duties will be a lot less. //tr & mr
Hey June, What Happened to April & May?Wow, time sure does fly when you're farming! Yes, I know that we've been a little remiss and neglectful of the blog over the past few months. Let me assure you it's benign neglect, LOL. The farm work has been hot and heavy (literally) so the blogging has taken a definite second seat. Remember this is only a one man and woman operation. Yes, progress is being made on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, but sometimes it's slow and tedious. Now, enough with the excuses and on to what's been going on! April
April went pretty smooth and was mostly about carrying out the grazing plan with the goats. More half acre paddocks were cut through the thick brush and the goats placed on them to thin said brush. All in all it went swimmingly well considering one of us went down for a week with ankle issues that needed to be rested. As on all good teams, the teammate picked up the slack as the goats took it easy on us with no outlandish antics. Plans for fencing a half acre with more high tensile electric were put into motion. The purpose of the fenced paddock would be mainly to hold our buck goats while they weren't being put to use running the does. Felled trees from the property that would make good fence posts were gathered and their bark stripped. The buck pen plans were now in motion. Our comfrey patch at the house needed to be transplanted to the farm. It was as good a time as any to go ahead and divide the strong plants and bolster the comfrey patch numbers. May
The goat grazing plan continued and by the end of May the goats are close to completing the grazing of the property's thickest parts. An isolated storm dropped over two inches of rain on the property late one afternoon/early evening. Returning the next morning to feed the goats, the 81 day old buckling had one serious case of scours (goat diarrhea). Coccidiosis was suspected and without delay electrolytes were administered three times daily. A quick trip to the farm supply store for an initial dose of Corid got things going in the right direction. Sulmet finished the job and the buck still made a 100 day weaning weight of 41 pounds.
To finish the month off with a bit of a bang (more like a rush), the mother to the sick, little buckling decided to test the electric netting. Well, she lost. After a sprint through the thicket she was found entangled in the netting receiving a full three joule jolt every two seconds. Needless to say, she and the whole herd were stressed thus ending the month with an adrenaline fueled headache for us. The first day we started clearing the north line of our property we arrived in my tiny Honda Civic coupe. We had a cooler with water, lunch and chips. We also had an assortment of tools; 2 machetes, 2 pair of loppers, 2 bow saws, and a folding pruning saw. I carried a backpack with our camera and some other odds and ends that I was sure we needed in the course of our workday. Lunch never got eaten until we got home. Why? Florida in July and it was hot. In hindsight we should have brought a change of clothes and more water and left the lunch at home. As we spent more time and made more progress on the property, we had more items to carry. We started to bring two coolers of water, the same hand tools as before, but added a Rogue hoe, a couple of shovels, and a chainsaw (with fuel, bar oil and ear protection) into the mix of items. The small backpack turned into a larger ruck sack and contained towels and the most needed change of clothes. When Mark went out alone during the week, it sometimes took him two trips to get everything to the area he was working in and he was packed down each time like a pack mule. It was a bit easier on weekend when he had his mini-mule to help. A friend and fellow farmer suggested a garden cart. It was a great idea, but not the best solution for us. We cut a lot of trees and still have a lot of stumps and staubs to deal with. A garden cart wouldn’t be stable enough and turn over, not to mention getting stuck on all the stumps. We were doing one of our early morning Rural King shopping runs, and we saw the perfect solution! A wheelbarrow! Our little wheelbarrow is the best at getting items around Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm, especially when we have to haul two marine batteries to the very back of the property. Wheelbarrows are built in a way that uses balance and physics to carry a heavy load very easily. Now either of us can load up batteries, water and feed for the goats, the chainsaw and amenities, water for us, and all sorts of other interesting items. And finally, the coolest thing we've carried in our wheelbarrow: Oh, It's On! April now has full momentum and spring is slowly yielding to the higher temperatures of summer here in Central Florida, but before we hit that tax deadline here’s the Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm March wrap-up. March was both a busy and physical month for us on the farm. Here, in our area of Central Florida (referred to as the Nature Coast) spring advanced full throttle. With this came all the traditional farming tasks of planning and preparing the year’s plantings and herd management. March was also a month of firsts for us. March on Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm was the first time we witnessed our property in spring flush mode. By the end of the March the land came alive with green shoots everywhere. For most people this spring subtlety is a reassurance that Old Man Winter is packing it in and a reaffirmation of life. But for the rotational grazer it’s a crucial period. It’s a period where Mother Nature is hard at working her magic and it's time to switch on student mode. Spending lots of time with the herd, watching which shoots are preferred and at what development stage. Many things that were unpalatable in summer’s dog days are chomped and munched with nothing more than a precursory sniff. Those goaties know what they’re looking for and releasing them to a new paddock rotation during this seasonal growth spurt can provide a masters level education to those patient enough to stop and watch. With the spring flushing it’s now all hands on deck in the apiary. Before you know it the wild blackberries are blooming and March’s rapid expansion is on! Once lazy queens are now laying full throttle and the brood nests are expanded to wall-banger levels. What’s “wall-banger” levels? A wall-banging queen is a positive term I use for queens that lay up and entire frame of pure brood. When you pull a wall-banging frame there’s no room for any resources. The frame is chocka-block full with nothing but capped brood. It’s definitely a positive thing and if you’ve walked the tightrope that is early stimulation correctly, this brood explosion should have happened in late February and carried through to the middle of March. If the beekeeper has been too eager in overstimulating their hives, the receipt for the bill usually comes due in March. The payment? Watching hard work and dollars swarm away with the opening of spring’s first blooms. Now, it’s all about staying up to the task for the beekeeper and keeping up with the workload pace until mid-June. Better have already assembled those frames and hive bodies. Happy to say that swarming hasn’t been too big of an issue in the Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm bee yards. Only one overwintered nucleus colony has swarmed. Sometimes there’s just no more room and donating a swarm or two to the countryside is the healthy reality. Another March first was that we welcomed the arrival of the first rutting goat buck to Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm to run our does. Odie, a local Spanish buck, was delivered to the farm on March 10th and departed on the 31st. Odie was chosen for the task due to his carefree background. He has been kept in a minimal intervention environment for most of his life. With this fact his feet require minimal trimming and he’s never been directly treated with any wormers. It appears that he’s pretty parasite resistant. Hopefully he was effective and we’ll have captured his genetics in some of his kids. If he was effective we should have kids on the ground by the end of August. Another first on Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm was the planting of the middle meadow. We picked up our seed from the local seed distributor in late February. Walking past all those bulging fifty pound seed sacks stacked on the garage floor everyday starts making one anxious. I don’t know what it is about stuffed seed sacks; whether it’s seeing dollar bills parked there doing nothing for you as you wait to clear the final frost date, or the anticipation of all the work ahead and timing a rainfall, but either way it’s a nervous time of anticipation. I won’t go in depth about the plantings or the reasons for each here (that’s a post all to itself), but all I can say is that March really made the farm real. Happy to report that we did get the middle meadow hand hoed and planted. Yes, that’s right hand-hoed. We also caught some weather the day following planting and now the area is slowly turning from sand to green with the sprouting seeds. March, a month of transition for both the land and farmer, has come and gone. The land has awakened and the farming life is in full swing. It’s both feet in at Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm!
It's March 20th and the calendar tells me it's the first day of spring. Well, happy spring to you. But, more importantly this means we're transitioning from lion to lamb mode. It may be the first day of spring, but i'd have to say it's feeling more summerish around here. The greener trees and warmer temperatures sure gets the Eager Beaver in us going, but the most noteworthy word of that last paragraph is "transitioning". Yes, "March in like a lion, out like a lamb" says it all. March is a key transition month here in Central Florida. This is USDA growing zone 9 and early to mid March still holds the real threat of frost which spoils any Eager Beaver (cheating) attempts at getting an early planting start. All those days in the high 70's to low 80's with mild overnight lows can seem like a year ago when Jack Frost is threatening a cameo on the edge of a sweeping northern front. Here, March 15th serves well as a final frost date. The first day of spring certainly does put Old Man winter to bed for us. And as March rolls ahead bringing the "official" start of spring, my thoughts linger on the weather. We've written about the importance of making a weather map when planning farm outlay strategies. March is one of those months that the weather starts shifting and paying attention to that is critical. We're still technically in Florida's "dry season", and this March is living up to that moniker. Dirty rooster tails plume from the backs of passing cars along our farm's dusty road frontage. That being said, rainy season starts in May followed quickly by hurricane season. But, for now we'll be happy to just let all that loom large for a bit. A previous life taught me that killing off Eager Beaver passions is good for your wallet. Best to just try and time a good planting in front of some rain. For now, an ear towards the weatherman we must lend. But, before we get too much into looking forward, a brief look back at the lion of March's early roar is in order. Late February served up a little wind storm that gave us some surprises, least of which was putting our high tensile fencing through it's paces, and made some immediate and future work for us. After bucking a tree off the perimeter seven strand high tensile fence, a little walk around the property revealed how strong the winds were. Mother Nature threw a pretty good fastball our way and lets just say we're lucky that it wasn't worse. I believe some straight line winds strafed the farm dealing most of the damage. So, as we welcome the first day of spring and begin playing planting's "hurry up and wait" game, enjoy some images Mother Nature created for us in the final days of February, 2015.
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About UsIn 2014 a couple of 40-somethings decided to make a change. The purchase of 10 raw, pine scrub acres along Florida's Nature Coast started it all. This is that story. Archives
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