Relocating your headache

I hear a lot of people tell me about how they trap raccoons or groundhogs or foxes or skunks or squirrels in live-traps and then relocate them to a new area to be let go. The reason for relocation is because they tell me they feel "bad" for the animal and don't want to kill it but they also don't want it eating their garbage or chickens or getting into their attics. Well, guess what? That animal you just relocated from your property is now at someone else's property causing them the same problems it caused you.

Relocating a raccoon 12 miles down the road does not break its habit of getting into people's garbage cans. It's just going to find new garbage to get into. Then it is going to be live-trapped again and relocated back 12 miles to your property! It's a never ending cycle. That raccoon will have baby coons which it will teach to eat garbage. Those babies will get trapped and relocated to a new place where they will breed and teach their kids to eat garbage. Eventually the whole stinking area is full of raccoons who get into garbage cans because you felt "bad" for the animal and wouldn't shoot it.

If you do not break the cycle by euthanizing the problem varmints, they will continue to be problems. Don't ever assume that just because you drove 12 miles into the "wilderness" on what seems to be an uninhabited road that you aren't just dumping your problem varmints into someone's backyard. They WILL find a way to continue to eat garbage or chickens or get into attics unless you put a permanent end to them. Animals are very smart and once they find an easy meal ticket or a nice place to live, they will try to find that again even if relocated. Once they know the things that human habitation offer, like food and shelter, they will continue to seek out humans and continue to be a nuisance.

This is the reason nuisance bears often get euthanized. Once they learn to cause a problem, they never ever forget it. Bears are a lot harder to trap and relocate, plus they can cause fatal damage to humans, so euthanasia is the only option. Raccoons, skunks, squirrels, foxes and woodchucks, on the other hand, rarely cause fatalities. They do cause property damage, livestock losses, and can hurt people/pets. Is this no less a reason to foist this harmful animal on someone else?

Keep in mind too that all of these animals can carry rabies. Rabies is on the rise with more cases reported in this area each year. It can be fatal to you or your pets to have rabies carrying varmints around your property. Rabies is not a fun disease and is fatal in any animal that contracts it who isn't vaccinated or immediately treated. Treatment is a long process involving several series of shots. Those shots make your whole body ache to the bone. They are not something someone wants to do voluntarily. The vaccine is available for your pets and livestock. It does need to be updated every couple of years. If your pets or livestock come in contact with a rabid animal and you can't prove that they are up to date on their rabies vaccinations then you must put your them down whether or not they actually have rabies. Since rabies is so dangerous, the Health Department does not fool around. All potentially infected animals must be euthanized. My brother's dog was put down because the dog didn't get his rabies booster vaccination on time and then killed a potentially rabid skunk. My brother cleaned up the dead skunk. My brother had to get treated for rabies and the dog had to be euthanized because both of them were potentially exposed to rabies due to the skunk. My only comfort is in hoping that the skunk was a native of that area and not one that had been live-trapped and relocated by someone.

Please don't relocate nuisance animals from your property. If you are going to trap them, please be responsible and euthanize them.

Fall on a Goat Farm

The air is crisp and cold
Frost is on the ground
Every leave and blade of grass has crystals reflecting light
Fall is coming

The kid goats are fat and growing bigger
The milk does will give the same amount of milk from now until infinity
Only one night of frost makes the bucks stink
Fall is coming

Fresh apples from the tree
A whine of a doe in heat
The lurking scent of male goat on the wind
All make me feel that
Fall is coming

Start Your Own Goat Club!

I love clubs and associations and societies and organizations and what-not. I love getting together with like-minded people who share the same interests to yack about those interests. I have been involved in my professional society through my job at both the local and national levels for years. Professional societies for occupations are a great way to keep up the learning and to motivate yourself when your job gets blah.

My passion for clubs started in high school. One of my friends encouraged me to join the Eco-Club when I was a sophomore. Up until this point I had never been involved in anything extra-curricular at school. All it took was one Eco-Club meeting and I was hooked! By the end of sophomore year I was in three different clubs and having a blast.

I still have a passion for clubs. When I heard there was St. Lawrence Valley Dairy Goat Association, I drove an hour and a half to the meeting and had a wonderful time meeting new people who also raised dairy goats. Unfortunately the SLVDGA was centered around Potsdam/Canton which pretty far away from my house. I can't make it to many of the meetings due to the travel time.

Last year I decided to remedy the lack of a local goat club and start my own. The Adirondack Goat Club was created as a group where local goat owners and potential goat owners could get together in order to share information, education, resources and goats. The area goat community is small but vibrant. In order not to exclude anyone, I decided that the ADK Goat Club should accept all types and breeds of goats. There is a lot of cross-over around here between meat, fiber, and dairy goat breeders. Most people have more than one breed of goat and more than one type. Due to lack of variety and a desire to consolidate resources, many dairy goat breeders will crossbreed their goats with meat goats and many fiber goat owners crossbreed with dairy goats or meat goats. There's very few "purebred" breeders who won't crossbreed when needed.

To start the club all I did was post a couple of meeting announcements on Craigslist, send in a meeting announcement to the local paper, and alert the surrounding goat clubs to my intent. People were very supportive and I had about 20 goat owners show up to the first meeting. Some of them were old friends that I had worked with their goats before, some of them were new people who I had not known had goats. Many awesome connections were made that day.

Other meetings since have been well-attended. We have meetings every other month. The meetings are on the weekends and are a potluck lunch. Meeting locations rotate between the farms of the members. This way no one person gets burnt out hosting all the meetings. Also rotating locations allows a variety of people to attend based on where they live.

The club is free to join. There's not a lot of expenses for the club so I didn't want to charge membership dues and have to track people down each year to get them to pay up. Contacts and updates for the club are run through email and a blog. I maintain an email list of all the club members. I send out periodic email updates with meeting announcements, articles of interest, goats for sale, equipment for sale, and goat events. The blog is free to maintain and open to the public. I update it with much of the same information that goes out through the emails. The blog allows new people to check out the club and allows members to keep updated with what is going on just be checking it on the web.

If your area is lacking a goat club, I recommend starting one today! It's a great way to meet like-minded people and to have a lot of fun enjoying goats. In the future I hope the ADK Goat Club can host events for the public around the area, get involved in the local fairs and farmer's markets, and continue to spread education to all about the wonderful world of goats!

Goat Parasites

Lots of people ask me about goat parasites and what to do about them. Well, here is what I have to say about that:

All goats can have internal and external parasites. Most goats become infected at birth by whatever parasites happen to be living on their dam or in her feces or in the soil. Internal and external parasites have a knack for being able to survive outside of the goat for a long period of time so they can simply be living in the soil and on the pasture waiting for a goat to come along. There's no way to avoid infection from parasites in goats. The only thing we can do is manage the infection so the parasites do not negatively impact the goat's health.

When a goat is born, they don't have any internal parasites. Their first exposure to the outside world is when they pick up things like coccidia, tapeworms, barberpole worm and other internal nasties. These parasites have a lifespan of a couple of weeks from when they enter the baby goat as an egg or dormant cyst. In these weeks the parasite hatches, morphs into an adult while using nutrients from the goat to do so, and then starts to reproduce. The eggs that are produced by the adult parasite either stay in the goat and become adults or are shed from the goat through its feces. Another goat picks these eggs up from the soil, pen or pasture and the cycle starts all over again.

Coccidia have a 3 week life cycle from cyst to adult. This is why you see kid goats get diarrhea around the 3-4 week old phase. The coccidia infected the goat at birth and at 3 weeks old, there's enough of them reproducing and living within the kid to cause intestinal damage, thus the diarrhea. It is very important to try to prevent coccidiosis by treating all kid goats who are 3 weeks old with a broad spectrum antibioitic that kills coccidia. There are several on the market, like Sulmet 12.5% drinking water solution, Corid powder, and Di-Methox 40% solution. These medicines kill adult forms of coccidia only so you must treat kids at 3 weeks old and then every 3 weeks after that until they are 15 weeks old. After 15 weeks they should be somewhat immune to coccidiosis. Adult goats rarely suffer from coccidiosis.

I currently prefer to use Corid. Corid kills adult coccidia by inhibiting their absorption of thiamine (vitamin B1). Some people feel this could cause thiamine loss in the goats too, so it is recommended to supplement any goat taking Corid with thiamine and other B vitamins. This can be done by giving the goats Fortified B Complex (it's "fortified" with extra thiamine) or thiamine/B vitamin gel. Since all of the coccidiosis medications are antibiotics, I also recommend giving any goats on them supplemental probiotics to replace any of the good gut bacteria that got killed by the medicine. I use Probios probiotic gel. I usually give the Corid to the kids in the morning, and then in the evening give them thiamine and Probios each day during treatment and for 1 week after. The thiamine and Probios will not hurt the goats in any way, so it is better to give lots of this and be safe.

Tapeworms are another internal parasite to worry about in kid goats. Goats over 6 months old tend to have less problems with tapeworms than kid goats for some reason. Kid goats who have lots of tapeworms will get a pot-bellied look and be smaller and slower growing than uninfected kids. It is recommended to preventatively treat kids for tapeworms and other stomach worms by giving them Valbazen dewormer at 1cc per 10 lbs weight, starting at 3 weeks old and repeated every 10 days for 30 days. Valbazen is okay to use in kid goats and non-pregnant adults but should NEVER be used in pregnant goats (or potentially pregnant ones) because it can cause birth defects and abortions. Repeat the Valbazen every 10 days for 30 days because it is only effective against adult tapeworms. The first deworming will kill all of the current adults but leave eggs and cysts in the goats to hatch and reinfect. The second deworming takes care of all the internal eggs that hatched after the first. The third deworming takes care of all of the eggs and cysts that were picked up by the goat from the environment and hatched into adults. The 30 day cycle is very important to use every time you deworm, regardless of dewormer chosen. This is the most effective way to deworm.

So now you have your kids on preventative coccidiosis medication and preventative dewormer. What about the adults?

The best way to manage parasites in adult goats is to monitor their condition frequently and only treat for worms when warranted. I never recommend to use a strict deworming schedule on your entire herd. Always deworm only the goats that have the worms! I have my own 4 step monitoring system for parasites.

1. Body condition - I want my goats to look sleek and shiny with just the right amount of weight. I don't want my goats to be too fat nor too thin. Parasites rob nutrients from the goats and cause them to be thinner than they should be. If I see one of my goats eating well but not gaining weight, I check for parasites.

Another external clue to parasites is the condition of the goat's hair. Their fur should be sleek and shiny. If it is dull and looks like it has split ends, the goat has worms. If the hair is shedding constantly and looks dry, the goat has worms. If when I brush the hair back and there are little bugs moving around, the goat has lice. Mites cause hair to fall out in patches. If the goat's tail is rubbed raw and missing lots of hair from scratching, the goat has pinworms that live around the anus. A goat's coat can tell you a lot about what is going on internally.

2. Mineral supplementation - This is very important to parasite management in goats. Goats need lots of minerals to stay healthy and any goats that are deficient in minerals are very susceptible to parasite problems. I supplement my goats with a loose mineral blend made specifically for goats called Sweetlix Meatmaker 16:8. It is a great all-around mineral that works for all types of goats (not just meat goats). I also supplement my goats with a copper bolus every 4 months. Copper is very important for goats and plays a huge roll in parasite control. Most goats are deficient in copper so they need extra copper even when getting it in their loose minerals. I use Copasure cow copper boluses that have been re-sized for goats. I give 1 gram of copper per 22 lbs of goat. The boluses are little gel caps filled with copper rods. It is important that the goats swallow the boluses without chewing them and on an empty stomach. It is also important to either wad the bolus in wax or shortening or follow bolusing immediately with Vitamin A, D, E gel. The wax, shortening, or gel helps to encapsulate the bolus within the goat's rumen and keep the rods in there for slow absorption. If the goat chews the bolus or eats it on a full stomach or takes it without wax, the copper rods can be flushed from the rumen and not absorbed.

3. FAMACHA - A cheap and dirty way to assess parasite load in goats is to look at the color of their lower eyelid membrane. This helps to tell you if the goat is anemic. Anemia is most often caused by barberpole worm (a very common internal parasite) that is sucking the blood from your goat. Where there is barberpole worm, there are usually other internal parasites so it is good to deworm a goat when they are anemic. The lower eyelid membrane should be dark pink or red in healthy goats. If is it white or light pink, the goat is anemic and needs deworming. Unfortunately FAMACHA does not tell you the type of parasites found but it does give you a good measurement of potential worm infestation. It is best to do FAMACHA on all your goats at least once a month, if not once a week.

4. Fecal samples - Once you have determined through lack of body condition, lack of mineral supplementation, and FAMACHA that your goat has internal parasites, it is important to find out what type of parasite it is and how large of an infestation. Fecal samples can tell you that. They are easy to do and can by done at home by anyone with a decent microscope. Just take a sample of poop from each goat (3-4 berries), process it per fecal sample instructions (found on the Fiasco Farm website), and look at the prepared fecal slide under the microscope. You should see little bits of fecal debris floating around on the slide. You should also be able to clearly see parasite eggs and cysts. Count up the different types seen and the amounts per type. Coccidia oocysts are tiny. Barberpole worm and other stomach worm eggs are larger. Liver fluke eggs have a flat spot on one end. Tapeworm cysts are square. There's lots of pictures on the internet of what parasite eggs in goats look like on a fecal sample.

Once you have figured out what types of worms are in your goats, then you can choose the appropriate treatment. Coccidiosis requires a sulfa-based, broad spectrum antibiotic (NOT A DEWORMER). Tapeworms are killed by Valbazen or Fenbendazole. Barberpole worm and stomach worms are killed by most dewormers, especially Ivermectin and Cydectin. Liver flukes require Ivomec Plus injectable (the "Plus" is actually what kills them so regular Ivomec won't work).

Like I said earlier, always use a 30 day deworming cycle when you deworm. Treat the goats every 10 days for 30 days in order to kill all the adult worms that have hatched. It is not at all effective to deworm once and then not again for 6 months! This does absolutely nothing to help reduce the worm population because the worm eggs that are in the goats and the worm eggs in the environment are still alive to reproduce. You need to treat twice more to kill these.

It is best to give any dewormer on an empty stomach and not give any grain or hay for at least 30 minutes after dosing to allow absorption of the dewormer. Giving dewormers during feeding time is not effective because the dewormers will get flushed out if the system by digestion of hay/pasture and grain. I deworm my goats in the morning before putting them out to pasture or feeding. Then I wait at least 30 minutes and put them out to pasture or give them hay. I do not give them grain after deworming for at least 12 hours because grain is quickly drawn into the digestive tract from the rumen and I don't want the dewormer to be taken out of the rumen faster than necessary. I want it to stay in there and be absorbed or at least be slowly drawn into the rest of the digestive tract.

Most people recommend using one brand and type of dewormer exclusively until it is no longer effective. This helps to cut down on possible worm resistance to dewormers. Worm resistance is a common problem because no dewormer is effective against 100% of the worm population in all goats. There's always going to be a small percentage of worms that are naturally resistant to a particular dewormer. For example (I am making these percentages up just for this example, so don't quote me!!), if you use Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste for deworming, it will kill 98% of the worm population in your goats. The 2% that is left will be the ones that will reproduce the next generation of worms. Now the next time you use Ivermectin, only 70% of the worms will be killed. 30% will be resistant due to genetics and will reproduce the next generation. The next time you deworm with Ivermectin, 40% of the worms will be killed and 60% will be resistant. And so on, and so on until a large majority of the worms are resistant to Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste. This will be when you notice that after you deworm, your goats still have rough coats, anemia and worms on their fecal samples. Time to switch dewormers. Your worms may be resistant to Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste but they won't be resistant to Valbazen because it is a totally different class of chemical. So you start the resistance cycle all over again by switching to a new dewormer and continuing with that one until resistance occurs.

Don't rotate dewormers every time you deworm because you could potentially create a "super worm" that is resistant to all dewormers. For example: You deworm with Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste and it kills 98% of the worm population in your goats. The 2% that is left will be resistant to Ivermectin and will reproduce. Then the next time you rotate to Valbazen and it also kill 98% of the worms. BUT there is a good possibility that the 2% of the worms left this time can be resistant to both Ivermectin and Valbazen, after having lived through the first deworming with Ivermectin and the second with Valbazen. Then you deworm again with Cydectin and kill 98% of those worms. Now there is a possibility that the 2% of worms left are resistant to Ivermectin, Valbazen, and Cydectin! Eventually if you rotate through all the classes of dewormers available often enough, you could create a super worm that is resistant to EVERYTHING!! Only rotate dewormers when the one you are using is no longer effective or your goats have a type of worm that isn't killed by the dewormer you normally use (ie: you use Valbazen but the goats have liver flukes you may have to switch to Ivomec Plus for the liver flukes).

Herbal dewormers work well as a preventative for both internal and external parasites. They do not treat any outbreaks of parasites but they make the goats' bodies an unwelcome environment where parasites prefer not to live. I use Hoegger's Herbal Dewormer in my goats and have had great results. I still have to use chemical dewormers occasionally but the necessity of these has been lower since starting the herbal. Also my goats seem to have less lice, mites, nasal bots, lungworms, and pinworms than before starting the herbs. The most important part of a herbal deworming regimen is to be consistent in giving each goat a proper dose of the herbs every week, continuously for life. The herbs do not work unless you are giving them consistently because they do not stay in the goats' systems for more than a week. I prefer to mix the dry herbal dewormer with molasses to create a ball. The goats love these little "treats" and will eat them out of my hand which makes a very convenient way to ensure they are getting their individual doses of herbs each week.

Farmcycling

I like to save resources on the farm by reusing things or reducing waste. Here are some things I do:

I have two male goats who live outside in a pen all the time. They have two hay mangers and two nice dog houses to sleep in. I take any uneaten hay from the hay mangers daily and spread it in their dog houses for fresh bedding.

The male goats waste a lot of hay by pulling it out of the mangers and not eating it. Every week I rake this fairly clean hay up and put it in the chicken yard. The chickens love to dig through it for seeds and bugs. If I throw 1 cup of scratch grains on this hay, the chickens really tear into it!

My does go into the barn at night where they have individual hay mangers in their pens. My oldest doe and my youngest does are picky and won't always eat all of their hay each day. I take this clean hay out of their mangers and put it in the mangers of my two middle does. They will eat just about anything so they don't mind getting clean leftovers from the other goats.

Any spilled hay gets raked up in the barn and distributed in the goat pens for fresh bedding. This helps to keep the pens fresh and eliminates the need for me to buy hay or straw just for bedding.

My goats love fresh, clean water. After two days they will not drink any water if it is stale. I take this stale but clean water and use it to water the chickens and the lettuce plants by the barn. Any poopy water goes to water the flower pots and seedling trees.

When I rinse my water buckets out I always dump the rinse water on my flower pots. I never dump it on the ground.

All of my dirty goat bedding goes directly on the garden for mulch. This works great during the fall and spring to cover the empty space and renew the soil. During the summer I put the dirty bedding in the compost pile for later use as topsoil. The chicken manure goes in the compost pile.

My husband owns a wood chipper for his business. Any wood chips that people don't want, he brings home and puts in a big pile. I use these as a base for my goat pens and for covering muddy spots in the goat yard. I also use them for the chickens.

I unplug the electric fence at night. I bring the goats in the barn at night so no one is out on the pasture anyway.

When I prune the maple trees or raspberry bushes I give these cuttings to the goats. They love them! I also cut raspberry canes in the fall before the leaves fall off and bundle them for drying in the hay loft for the winter. The goats love to eat these when they are in labor and right after giving birth. It's a nice treat and raspberry is supposed to help with labor and delivery.

I rake all my maple leaves up in the fall and bag them for the winter. The goats love getting a few handfuls of these every few days as a treat. Just be sure that they are very dry before bagging so they don't mold during storage.

I never mow my lawn. I use portable electric netting fence to move the goat pasture all around. It takes only 20 minutes to move and I move it every 3 days to give the goats fresh forage and to keep the lawn cut short. The goats do a good job at cutting the grass and they fertilize as they go. I have gotten pretty creative with moving the fence so the goats get to all parts of the lawn.

My chickens get any melon rinds, corn cobs, leftover pasta and vegetables from the house. I compost the rest of the food waste. The goats get any stale cookies or crackers.

All cardboard and paper from the house go into the compost pile. It composts fairly well and is cheaper than paying a dump fee to dump it in someone else's hole in the ground. In the winter we use it to start fires in our two wood stoves to heat the house.

I use rolled up feed bags as insulation in the eaves of my hen house for the winter. The eaves are open for ventilation so I plug them with feed bags for the cold weather.

I use an old lid off of a large tote bin as a rain cover for my electric fence charger. It covers the charger and the power cord so they don't get wet. I also have a solar fence charger that I can move around for spots where the plug-in can't reach.

All of my milk that I don't need for my house goes into buckets for the neighbor's pigs. The neighbor's drop off buckets with lids once a week and I fill them up with goat milk. The pigs don't mind if the milk is a little fermented by the time they get it, they love it!!

That's some of the things that I do. How do you farmcycle?

Pictures!

 Time for some pictures to prove I actually do have animals here somewhere. Up there is Daisy looking out of the barn.

 Here's Figaro the Angora wether. Quite fluffy and quite wonderful!

 Here's Miss Primrose. She is also quite nice. Her and Daisy live together and are future milk/kid producers.

Here's Brun. He's the buck for this year. He'll be bred to Lucy. He's got a buddy, Bro, the wether who keeps him company.

Things I have learned so far....

There are some things that I have learned in my journey with raising livestock. 

1. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched: There’s a reason this saying is about animals and not something more predictable, like the weather. Animals will always surprise you. That little doeling goat who shows potential may be a 2 gallon-a-day milker when she grows up, or she might get coccidiosis and kick the bucket next week. Don’t start planning on things that you can’t control. This isn’t to say you should never make plans, but don’t act surprised when your best laid plans are made into manure by your animals. 

2. Do what you can with what you got: Sure, a brand new wood paneled, welded bar horse stall looks pretty, but guess what? Your animals don’t care what it looks like. The only thing most farm animals care about is if their surroundings are safe, sturdy, and tasty. A horse isn’t going to be any happier living in a fancy new barn than living in an old run-in shed. As long as the roof doesn’t leak, there’s plenty of food available, and it is a calm place to live with happy interactions, the horse will be as happy as can be. An old horse trough makes a great new duck pond, a leaking water bucket is a new grain bucket, and an empty feed sack makes great barn insulation. Look around at what you have and make it work for you.

3. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: Farming is a constant learning experience and everyone has a different way of doing things. Be careful, though, about changing things that work well in the first place. Animals tend to be resistant to change. Some people might have great luck with putting their goat kids on a strict CAE, coccidiosis, and deworming schedule starting at birth. The schedule might sound perfect and might be the key to keeping your kids as healthy as possible. But it might also be the key to killing your kids with kindness by changing too much of what you know already works. I killed three kids this year by changing too much too soon. I thought what worked for someone else should work great for me. Big mistake! In all the changes I forgot to keep the same some very key elements that I already knew worked, like using probiotics after using antibiotics and the dangers of feeding too much grain. I should have stuck with my old program and only changed one thing at a time. 

3. Don’t go overboard: I jumped in when I first started by buying up all the goats I could find. I got old ones and young ones and pregnant ones and sick ones. If it was free or cheap, that was music to my ears. I have found that this isn’t worth it in the end. Take your time and research what you really want and what you want to do with it. Don’t just jump at the next Craigslist ad you see. Ask questions, talk to people in your area and on the internet, and look at a lot of animals before deciding what to bring home. Keep in mind that chickens can live from 4-8 years, goats live 10-15 years and horses can live to be 40. Getting animals is a long term commitment. If you get 15 goats and then decide next year that you don’t like goats, what are you going to do them? Have that figured out before you bring animals home. 

4. Breed within your means: This goes along with #3. Baby animals are super cute but they eventually grow up to be bigger, eat more, poop more, and get into trouble. It’s your job as the caretaker for your animals to consider what happens to what you will produce. Is there a market for baby goats in your area? What if they are all males? Are you willing to do what it takes to care for that situation (ie: slaughter them or sell them for slaughter)? I have had a lot of neutered male goats come back to me over the years. This is because people bought them as cute little babies and then realized after 5 years that their cute baby is a large, unruly, food-consuming machine. I have now decided that all of my extra male baby goats will be used as food for my table. I feel this is a much more humane endpoint than being used as coyote bait (that happened last year), or bounced around from home to home (yep, one of my boys got that treatment) or just straight up neglected (seen that, too). 

4. Be willing to go the distance: There are ways to farm that are easier and cheaper than others, but you still have to be willing to do what it takes and spend what it takes to keep your animals happy and healthy. Farming is a lot of work, takes a lot of time, and can cost a lot of money. Be prepared for that before you start. Are you willing to take a day off of your off-farm job to wait for a vet to come and charge you $300 to help your sheep? Are you able to stay up all night long to wait for your cow to give birth? Can you imagine putting down your horse that got pneumonia suddenly and is very sick? If you aren’t ready for this stuff, you might want to reconsider getting livestock.

5. Have fun with it! Farming and raising livestock can be a lot of fun. Animals are amazing to work and live with. Don’t be afraid to change something that isn’t making you happy. If your llama is a pain in the butt and he makes you dread doing chores, perhaps it’s time that llama found a new home. Farming will be a lot of work but it should be a lot of fun too!