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I never raised animals to be butchered, I just can't do that, but when we had our dairy goat farm, one of my potential milk buyers ( a cheese maker) wanted to see my farm and determine if my goats were treated humanely before she would buy my milk. Since we considered each of our 125 goats as a...

I always thought bartering was a "rural thing". I don't have a store, but have sold agricultural products on my farm. I've bartered lots of time, such as trading goat milk for hay. It's usually a win-win for both parties, or else you wouldn't do it.

It's an easy job if you can get to the belt, and if you can easily get another belt of the same size. In older tractors it's usually really easy, but last year I broke a belt on my 2007 Kubota tractor. I couldn't get to the belt. Luckily I have a local tractor maintenance guy who has a...

I really like the idea of an electric mower. We have to eliminate our use of fossil fuels, that's a good way to start. I wonder if it has enough power and how often you have to replace the batteries. This is very interesting. I'd love to hear from someone who has one.

When I was raising pigs, any unfortunate chicken who ventured into my pig pasture was pretty quickly eaten. I couldn't believe it, but it happened several times.

Before you do anything else, you have to be sure that you have a market for them.

Some types of geese are friendlier than others. African Geese are REALLY aggressive, stay away from them.

Birds are very observant in looking for food sources, and some species of birds, such as chickadees, are very adventurous in checking out possible food sources. Less adventurous species of birds watch the more adventurous ones, to see if they are finding food. Chickadees are often the first...

I'm with Cowhuna. I had one barn, but needed to expand it and build another. Then I had to fence my pastures. I started developing my herds of dairy goats and fiber sheep. Then I had to build a milk house. It took years and LOTS of money. Luckily, farming was not my main source of income...

Cowhuna, it does get hot here, well into the 90's sometimes. It usually happens when we have a good window for haying. You know well how much hard work haying is. We used to do both round and square bales. Putting up the square bales in my hay mows in the barn isn't fun in the high heat. We...

Holii, see if you have any local goat farms who bottle their own milk near you. If not, local health food stores may carry fresh goat milk. Canned goat milk is TERRIBLE, but then canned cow milk is pretty bad, too.

My most important winter tool is a four wheel drive tractor with a loader and backblade. I use it to dig out my driveway and paths to all my outbuildings. It allows me to do almost no shoveling by hand. Having a cab on the tractor makes it easier to keep plowing during a snowstorm. Before I...

Susanna, for the past 20 years, my wife and I have lived in upstate New York, about 250 miles from New York City, but before that we lived on Long Island, just 50 miles outside of New York City. Neither of us ever went to Times Square on New Year's Eve. Actually, I never knew anyone who did...

Basically, they taste very similar. Fresh goat milk is slightly sweeter than cows milk, best exhibited by our grandkids who call it "juicy milk". When I asked them why they called it that, they said it tastes sweet like "juicy juice". Leave it to kids. I've heard many people say they don't...

I've been a union member for over 40 years. Unions protect their members from abuse by managers and get you better pay and benefits. I think the dues that you have to pay are well worth it.

Cowhuna, I've lived in New York my whole life, so winters are normal for me. You have to have lots of barn space in the winter for your animals, but for us here in upstate New York, that's just normal. It's not unusual for us to have snowstorms of 2 feet of more (we had one two weeks ago),so...

Like Susanna said, geese are larger, louder and more messy. They need water to swim in and they're very aggressive. The best thing about them is, when I had geese, they were better watchdogs than my dogs were. I had people afraid to get out of their vehicles, because the geese would surround...

Cowhuna, up here in upstate New York, goats need shelter at night and in the winter. My goats and sheep have pasture, but they have a barn that they sleep in and they spend most of the time in the barn during the winter, especially when there's snow on the ground. Our chickens also have their...

How about a set of starter tools. I would have killed for that when I was a kid. My father always had no problem with me using his tools, but I would have loved having my own.

We've had ducks and they're really nice and fun birds, HOWEVER, they will swim in every stock tank that they can get to, and when they swim, they poop. Their water has to be changed once or twice per day, and you have to find a way to keep them out of your other livestock's water. They're a...