To contact me:
Phone: 608-844-1444
email: [email protected]
snail mail: Bonnie Fritsch Land
N9534 Muskrat Rd.
Portage, WI 53901
I've been raising goats for over 41 years now and have found some "out of the ordinary" things that work for me.
1. During the year, when I have excess milk, I often do like many other goat keepers and raise calves or pigs. But sometimes the price on the calves or pigs is too high, or I'll only have this glut of mik for a short time. At those times, I can my excess milk. I strain the milk, pour it into jars (I usually use jelly jars, pickle jars, spaghetti sauce jars or the like because they are cheaper, they don't break as easily as regular canning jars, and the lids for them will re-seal many times), put them in the pressure canner and heat until the canner comes up to 15 lbs. of pressure. Just like you would do if you were canning green beans. Once canned, the milk will last in the basement for a couple of years. But it tastes "cooked", so I don't use it for my personal consumption. I save it until I have baby goats that need to be raised on pasteurized milk and use it to supplement or totally feed them. Afterall, it certainly is pasteurized, and it's a lot easier to use than frozen milk. The biggest drawback is that the jars are a pain to wash. But having milk on the shelf gives me the flexibility to take on extra "meat buck kids", a calf or a pig to feed at a times when I may otherwise not have the milk available. And if some of it does "go bad" (it will smell like rotten eggs) the pigs or chickens still like it.
2. During the summer, when I see that the county crews are "brushing" the ditches and road right of ways, or people in town are pruning their landscaping, I grab the leafy branches and throw them in the back of my truck to bring home as a treat for my goats. It also saves a little on hay. You do have to be aware of Japanese Yew in my area and what ever poisonous vegetation is in your area, but if the goats have a full belly of hay and not very much of the bad stuff is available, the goats seem to do OK even with the "dangerous" stuff.
3. The weeds from the garden and the unwanted pea plants, carrot tops, squash vines and such are another treat with a variety of nutrients that the goats might not otherwise get.
4. In the fall, I've noticed that those nice city people rake up all their leaves and put them in plastic bags out at the curb. My goats really like them! Maple seems to be their favorite, but as long as they are nice and dry, tree leaves trump alfalfa in my barn. I gather up all I can and feed them all winter. A bale of hay and a bag of leaves for every 10 goats, twice a day.
5. Christmas trees are abundant and free right after the holidays, too. And I used to fear the "sprayed" ones until I talked to a Christmas tree grower who informed me that the stuff they spray on the trees has to be non-toxic in case somebody's toddler eats the needles. (Somebody's toddler would eat the needles?!?!?!?! I thought my "kids" were the only ones that liked pine needles). I either lean the trees up against the cattle panel on the outside of the pen, or if the weather is too nasty for them to go out and get them, I'll tie a twine around the trunk and hang them from a nail in the barn ceiling. (Do this while the goats are up on the milk stand or otherwise out of the pen, or they will climb up your body to get at the trees - and this does not feel good!) So for the few weeks or so after Christmas that the trees are available, it's a bale of hay, a bag of leaves, and a Christmas tree.
6. When it comes time to raise new babies, I set up an old playpen in the house and line it with a huge plastic garbage bag followed by newspapers for bedding. Babies get their colostrum (I freeze heat-treated colostrum in small pop or water bottles for quick-to-thaw individual servings), and then they learn to drink from a caprine feeder (I made a tiny one from a 1 gallon pail with 2 nipples on one side) that I hang in the corner of the playpen with two S hooks. I know the babies don't need the warmth of the house - but I do. And it's easier to keep an eye on them for those first few days if I don't have to go out in Wisconsin winter to do so.
7. In the winter, when most of my adult does are dry, I move the doe kids from last spring (the soon to be 1st fresheners) into the "milker pen". That way, the old does aren't there to beat them up and the pen becomes the property of the little girls. And the old does, as they freshen, are the intruders, and not the other way around. I would rather have 20 yearlings beating up on one mature doe who just freshened than 20 mature does beating up on one just fresh yearling.
8. When moving goats into a new pen with existing goats, I try to move several at a time, so that the "owners of that pen" have too many targets to give any one animal too much grief.
Phone: 608-844-1444
email: [email protected]
snail mail: Bonnie Fritsch Land
N9534 Muskrat Rd.
Portage, WI 53901
I've been raising goats for over 41 years now and have found some "out of the ordinary" things that work for me.
1. During the year, when I have excess milk, I often do like many other goat keepers and raise calves or pigs. But sometimes the price on the calves or pigs is too high, or I'll only have this glut of mik for a short time. At those times, I can my excess milk. I strain the milk, pour it into jars (I usually use jelly jars, pickle jars, spaghetti sauce jars or the like because they are cheaper, they don't break as easily as regular canning jars, and the lids for them will re-seal many times), put them in the pressure canner and heat until the canner comes up to 15 lbs. of pressure. Just like you would do if you were canning green beans. Once canned, the milk will last in the basement for a couple of years. But it tastes "cooked", so I don't use it for my personal consumption. I save it until I have baby goats that need to be raised on pasteurized milk and use it to supplement or totally feed them. Afterall, it certainly is pasteurized, and it's a lot easier to use than frozen milk. The biggest drawback is that the jars are a pain to wash. But having milk on the shelf gives me the flexibility to take on extra "meat buck kids", a calf or a pig to feed at a times when I may otherwise not have the milk available. And if some of it does "go bad" (it will smell like rotten eggs) the pigs or chickens still like it.
2. During the summer, when I see that the county crews are "brushing" the ditches and road right of ways, or people in town are pruning their landscaping, I grab the leafy branches and throw them in the back of my truck to bring home as a treat for my goats. It also saves a little on hay. You do have to be aware of Japanese Yew in my area and what ever poisonous vegetation is in your area, but if the goats have a full belly of hay and not very much of the bad stuff is available, the goats seem to do OK even with the "dangerous" stuff.
3. The weeds from the garden and the unwanted pea plants, carrot tops, squash vines and such are another treat with a variety of nutrients that the goats might not otherwise get.
4. In the fall, I've noticed that those nice city people rake up all their leaves and put them in plastic bags out at the curb. My goats really like them! Maple seems to be their favorite, but as long as they are nice and dry, tree leaves trump alfalfa in my barn. I gather up all I can and feed them all winter. A bale of hay and a bag of leaves for every 10 goats, twice a day.
5. Christmas trees are abundant and free right after the holidays, too. And I used to fear the "sprayed" ones until I talked to a Christmas tree grower who informed me that the stuff they spray on the trees has to be non-toxic in case somebody's toddler eats the needles. (Somebody's toddler would eat the needles?!?!?!?! I thought my "kids" were the only ones that liked pine needles). I either lean the trees up against the cattle panel on the outside of the pen, or if the weather is too nasty for them to go out and get them, I'll tie a twine around the trunk and hang them from a nail in the barn ceiling. (Do this while the goats are up on the milk stand or otherwise out of the pen, or they will climb up your body to get at the trees - and this does not feel good!) So for the few weeks or so after Christmas that the trees are available, it's a bale of hay, a bag of leaves, and a Christmas tree.
6. When it comes time to raise new babies, I set up an old playpen in the house and line it with a huge plastic garbage bag followed by newspapers for bedding. Babies get their colostrum (I freeze heat-treated colostrum in small pop or water bottles for quick-to-thaw individual servings), and then they learn to drink from a caprine feeder (I made a tiny one from a 1 gallon pail with 2 nipples on one side) that I hang in the corner of the playpen with two S hooks. I know the babies don't need the warmth of the house - but I do. And it's easier to keep an eye on them for those first few days if I don't have to go out in Wisconsin winter to do so.
7. In the winter, when most of my adult does are dry, I move the doe kids from last spring (the soon to be 1st fresheners) into the "milker pen". That way, the old does aren't there to beat them up and the pen becomes the property of the little girls. And the old does, as they freshen, are the intruders, and not the other way around. I would rather have 20 yearlings beating up on one mature doe who just freshened than 20 mature does beating up on one just fresh yearling.
8. When moving goats into a new pen with existing goats, I try to move several at a time, so that the "owners of that pen" have too many targets to give any one animal too much grief.