You guys have no idea how much i needed to hear this. We sign the contract to sell our homestead this week, and it is so easy to feel like a failure instead of realizing this needs to happen due to the season we are in. It doesn't mean we won't ever get to come back to it, but due to health issues and family growing, this is what needs to happen in this season. It is a bittersweet heartache.
It’s bittersweet for sure! Just remember, You are entering the seed stage… And the exciting part of that is you never know where you will land and start growing next!
I quit almost everything this year due to being pregnant, giving birth and looking after a baby. My husband and oldest daughter took on most of the milk cow chores. I gave up on my garden after planting it - some of it survived, mostly the weeds. I quit making cheese and feeling like i needed to be productive every day. And yesterday we had to quit having our once amazing dog; he had become increasingly territorial and food aggressive towards other animals and then yesterday he attacked and bit one of our children, who happened to be walking towards the house where he had a bone. 😢 We also quit chickens last fall because ours had a disease that kept flaring up every winter. Eventually we'll get chickens again. And a dog. But for now, we quit a lot of things.
Well if you parted ways with your goat before a couple of months, then you needed to probably give her more time to settle in and for her system to get balanced. And feed her the kind of feed that you like that makes the milk sweet. Their milk taste terrible right after they relocate because their body is under so much stress. I've never had the milk go right to tasting good after relocating. 3 weeks is what I've experienced is when I noticed the change to better. For goats anyway. But I totally respect y'all's reasoning, we can't be reasonable or resourceful if we are hanging on to every animal that isn't producing or serving us in some way
Such an important video, thanks for covering this! I used to make hard cheeses, then baby #2 came around. I also sold a cow every time I had a baby. 😆 We sold our first goat Grace because she was a terrible mother and obnoxious as hell. I think people outside of homesteading might see quitting is failure. Folks in the community though know quitting something is often a sign of wisdom. It’s always a big comfort to me during this busy time of baby raising, not right now doesn’t mean never. Just not right now. ❤
Oh goodness, you made my day! What a sweet surprise; thank you! Guess I have to keep going and NOT quit...RUclips at least lol I often think back to your 100 day video challenge and wince...you have grit! I dont know how you do it. Thanks again, you all are an inspiration. ❤
People should evaluate what works and what doesn't work for them so they don't waste effort. "Click bait" thumbnail 🤣. You definitely have a lot of experience with a variety of livestock. ♥
Congratulations on baby #7! I just had baby #5. I'm living my homesteading dreams through y'all ❤ We don't have time for even a small garden right now, but I enjoy watching everything y'all are doing on your homestead 😊
Thank you so much for this video!! I've been living on a 20 acre parcel in Maine. I'm totally wanted animals. Now on having health problems and can barely take care of my dog. This is great information for when I get better to make better decisions on our homestead❤❤❤ thank you for so much information
I had to quit my horse! Broke my heart, but he was a semi-lame rescue that was literally terrorizing my beef cattle. Not enough space to house them seperately. Although sad, it was the best course for us. We also had two distinct breeds of goats, and ended up selling the entire Boer herd, as we realized we aren't fans of goat meat! We still have the Alpine dairy goats, but birthed too many males (5/7!!!) so they'll be going to freezer camp if we don't find any buyers. Life on the farm! Thanks for sharing 🙂
The Camel journey was so cool but challenging. When you did it you did it for live and that makes it special ❤. Great info for folks who have trouble with it👍. JO JO IN VT 💞
Yaaah congratulations!!!! On baby #7!!!! We just had our #8! Having feeding issues with nursing we’re at 6 weeks now we struggle with tongue ties.. 🤦♀️ nightmare but been praying for number 9&10 since before this baby was born! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🥰 loove our kids soo much!!! Seeing them all grow together and interact and help each other out… soo endearing🥰
Thank you for this video. I recently lost my job and started a much higher stress job. My husband is also dealing with health issues the past year and can’t help. At some point, homesteading felt overwhelming instead of bringing me joy and we had to downsize and give up some of the future plans. It’s hard not to feel discouraged about it. But we live in a wonderful time where we have options!
For a while I wanted a couple of horses as pets or somethin to ride all the time. But then I learned how expensive horse fencing, feed, and how much they can hurt themselves I kinda was like “ehhh I don’t think I can keep them due to not being someone who is from old money.” So now I’m just going to think about either having 2 goats or 2 steers. If I ever want farm animals as pets or food.
One thing I thought while watching this was all the side quests I needed to drop. Learned how make fruit wines. Way more super boozy plum wine than any person would want to drink. The carboy and supplies took up massive space and collected dust. Homemade apple cider vinegar? Corroded through the faucet of its container and made a super sticky mess. Cheese-making. Homemade ricotta IS really good. I really didn't need those goat cheese strainers. Steam-juicing...tried it once and sold the juicer. All of those were really good skills to learn but just aren't a real part of my life. So, what DO we do? Chickens. Huge garden. Preserving food in ways we'll eat it. We're improving our hay field. Basic home herbal remedies like face cream, salves, teas, tinctures, etc. Those things have all stuck. Combine with some locally purchased meat, it's enough! After a multi-year property build, it's now about dialing in what we really want/need and editing everything else out rather than adding more.
Great post! Sometimes it's like spaghetti- throw it at the wall and see if it sticks! I want to do ALL. THE. THINGS. but honestly? not enough time in a day. I've found that I'd rather master sourdough bread than be a master quilter. IF I can find time between animal chores! Over 100 creatures keeps me pretty busy. Great perspective.
Thanks for the video. I'm in New Zealand. I needed to hear this today. I've been struggling with trying to run and feed everything on our property. It never occurred to me. Instead of buying more feed fir our sheep.. why the hell not just sell a few. Penny dropped and it all made sense the penny dropped. On many levels. Thank you ❤
I just quit milking one of my cows. We had a baby 6 weeks ago and then he was in the hospital with an infection last week. This cow has had mastitis issues and it took us a while to breed her back and honestly I’ve been asking my cow forum for “permission” to dry her off for months. We weren’t even drinking her milk so all the work was just for pig food. Everyone’s advice was that it would be best to keep milking her…she could lose the calf being early bred and a dry open cow is a headache, she could put on fat and have metabolic issues, she has mastitis issues and they could get worse….in the end though it was dry off this cow or get rid of all our cows because it’s just been too much. Trying to coordinate everything while in the hospital was the last straw. We dry treated her and dried her off and accepted the fact that come calving- things might not go well, but we just had to quit. You said in one of your videos once that when you add a new baby you’ve got to get rid of something else on the homestead and my husband always brings that up. 6 babies later on our homestead, that always works out to be the truth. Even if we try to fight it eventually we have to face the facts!
Great points!.. What works for some doesnt work for others and how each farm does it varies on how it works for you... So glad to see you back and that baby bump! We are going to quit pheasants this year. Been raising them for a few years but they just don't have the turn around nor interest to sell.
My dad's beef, the best ever. My love of lamb is not from eating lambs at grandmas because the never ate lamb but raised them. I love jersey milk and the amazing ice-cream. I am the farmer/rancher daughter. That said, my kids have a sanctuary and would never eat any of the home raised food. I am failure. remembering the camel 🍳🍔
Great message! I got accepted to my dream physician’s assistant school, but I recently turned it down to start our homestead and raise a family. It was really difficult for me to let go of the mainstream idea of “success”, but I discovered that it really didn’t matter to me as much as it did my parents. I really only wanted to make them proud because only then I could be proud of myself. I was very very hard on myself, and it put me into a really bad depression and I became very bitter. I had this idea in my head that this was the way things had to go for over 10 years, so it was hard to think I could be anything else when this is what I was “destined” to be. It’s what I was good at! But I figured out that I didn’t want to spend the next 10 years paying off school debt just to have a high stress job when it just made me a mean, miserable person. My husband and I have a different dream now, and I know I will be “wealthier” than I could ever be as a PA. I “quit”, but the knowledge and other skills I have gained are not a waste. It’s all in God’s plan, and we don’t have to know what it’s for yet. 😊
This was such a good video! Thank you for sharing all of this. It was very validating. We felt like failures when hawks ate our free range chickens, we didn’t like rabbit meat, and we needed to get rid of the animals on our homestead to take care of my mother-in-law when she was dying along with homeschooling our kids. I felt like we failed a little bit, but we also made room in our schedules for a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in our family, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Rabbit is our favorite but only after since learning to make the meat drier by cooking on the pit longer. Kunekune take longer to grow out but eat less daily and meat is exquisite. Meat, bacon and lard. It also helps that they can eat the acorns during the fall which makes the meat even sweeter. Goat milk from mini LaManacha is very good. Sweet and fattier than regular lamancha because of the Nigerian side of them. We make ice cream, cheese and drink the milk and make kefir. We milk once per day and most of our goats have been long milkers without drying up. Around 3 plus years on most unless we rebreed them sooner which can help them to produce more volume over time. The ones we don’t keep are cabrito and the fat is tallow. We had like 5 ducks but family overall were not fans of the meat and eggs as a whole. Didn’t keep those but hadn’t set up a big area for them thank goodness since we were only dabbling in the idea of keeping them. That area ended up more garden space. Learning to grow high producing and some winter storable food over the last 5 years is now allowing us to make large impacts on the feed bill. Be very careful about what you quit and never trust the store to have your needs especially these days. “Quitting”, unless extenuating circumstances doesn’t necessarily mean longevity. We’ve had issues but worked around them. 11 years in and have kept 5 of our 6 animal investments and it’s paid us back immensely. Plus the store food is no where near the quality you can produce from a homestead.
Thanks for all the content as of late. 🙂 I'd just like to share a thought on all the jokes about camels, because a lot of people (not talking about you, but people in general) seem to think camels are "exotics" just because they're rare in the west. Same with water buffalo, yak, llamas, and sometimes even donkeys and others, are considered "exotic". But in reality, they've been domesticated for just as long as "normal" animals like horses and cattle, and they all come from far-off lands (horses from the Central Asian steppe, chickens from India, turkeys from America aren't considered exotic in Europe, cats from North Africa, sheep and goats from the Middle East, and so on). So camels, llamas and alpacas from Arabia/North Africa, China/Mongolia and Peru/Chile, and domesticated for 4000-6000 years really aren't "exotic" at all, just rare outside of their countries of origin. 🙃 I'm a big fan of camelids and I think if the vikings had got to Peru and found llamas, they would have thrived here in Scandinavia and been a very popular animal in Europe. And donkeys are also seriously underrated as pets and work animals in the west.
I needed to hear this! People are so judgemental when getting, selling and trying new things that fit better. We had goats (weathers) for pets and land clearing and then a few years we sold them to travel w our family. Now we’re back but looking at dairy goats and the comments are so annoying!
Yeah. We have had our fair share of annoying comments about the changes. It’s ok, way to go trying again! (But can I interest you in a mini jersey instead? 😂)
I have Kiko, meat goats. I'm not ready to quit them yet, mostly because my fence problems are because i moved them into the areas that were built to keep the turkeys in, so the fences are tall, but thin wire. Easy for a rutting buck to break through. I haven't yet managed to get my does on a scheduled breeding/kidding, but it's been an experience. Taking my first two bucklings in for processing next week, so whether they stay or go is really going to come down to your #1 - and how much I like or don't like goat meat. Chickens/Eggs have been my goto for the last 14 years. Have 100+ now and egg sales completely pay for all their feed and the cartons. I'm hoping to do meat birds in the next year. I'm a solo homesteader, so every thing I do has to fit in to a one person operation.
Stick with the basics, a cow for milk, beef cows for butcher, pig for butcher, chickens for eggs and meat chickens. And if really good, set up a garden, and long term food storing. Final note, stay with in your means that includes the size of your family.
Raised rabbits as a kid, side business and all. 4H ribbons and loved the taste. Lots of recipes when I raised them.. Definitely not for everybody, but I grew up on it and love it. I spend a fortune for rabbit meat these days. I can understand the issue with Kune Kune pigs. Same with not a specific goat breed but some have their own issues. I understand both why you started with camels and he decision to quit camels.
Horses. I love them. They drove me crazy. They jumped 5 foot fences. Ate and ate a ton. Cost of shoes. Veterinary, worming, fence repairs, etc, etc, etc. very expensive. I had horses for 50 years. Sold nine horses in 2021. I miss the beauty of horses I don’t miss all the other things. Selling them was a good quit
I have a lowline angus bull who likes to fight my saplings and water spiggots. Also tried to rub on my AC unit. Had to fence off all those things and run electric to keep him away. He and his steer son are soon to be freezer bait. Keep my 2 cows and find them another bull later.
I wouldn't say that you actually quit things, it looks like that you're just trying to find better ways to do them. For example, you quit one type of cow but you didn't give up on other types. You're just trying to find the type that work for you. From what I understand, this happens a lot on many farms. Farmers try new crops or animals all of the time.
While I have not quit yet, I'm unhappy with bantam chickens. They slip out of my fencing and spend daytime over at the neighbor's property, then return at nighttime to the coop with the standard-sized hens. I thought we would eat the bantam eggs while selling the medium brown eggs from our standard-sized hens, but we are having trouble finding the secret nests in the neighbor's woodland. I'm not keeping the bantams forever. The funny sideline to this is that the bantam roosters don't like to bend down to get through the fence, so they don't leave daily (they sometimes fly over the fence to check on the bantam hens).
Even in the old days when every farm had a few cows of their own, a horse was luxury. I'm a Swedish millennial and all my grandparents grew up on farms. They would have the ONE draft horse that was basically a tractor (which not everyone can afford today). Just like today, horses were luxury, but they were luxury that worked. A slim riding horse is a different level of luxury. It's an expensive pet today and it was an expensive pet 150 years ago.
I enjoyed raising rabbits for meat, just didn’t like the butchering part. My hubby didn’t like the taste so we ground up the meat and used it like hamburger. Last spring we sold off the rabbits and now just have laying chickens year round and meat chickens during spring/summer.just right for this 68 year old.
We have gone through this as well! Rabbits Chickens Now we are selling our ducks and geese So far the only thing that has really stuck with us is goats and I’m okay with that! I think it’s important to try out different animals/food sources and I think it’s very responsible to decide that certain things don’t work for you and to let them go! It makes the animals life and your life much easier ❤
Also not saying you should try goats again if you don’t like them but if you liked goats just not the milk, Nubians have really sweet milk! Those Swiss breed like saanen and alpine tend to have very “goaty” milk where a Nubian or Nigerian has a milk that most compare to whole cows milk (Nubians are easier to hand milk though)
I quite ducks a couple years ago, we didn’t have a water source near the coop and I was done hauling buckets of water down constantly. But not we have a water collection system in place and I’m excited to get them again but this time getting call ducks since I don’t need the extra egg or meat production and just enjoy them instead
We try to produce enough from one protein source in 1 year that we have enough for two years. Then we’re essentially managing only half of the protein sources at a time, but still have all the variety. For example, will raise 100 meat chickens one year and then take the next year off since they freeze well and can up well two years. In the chicken “off years” we’ll raise enough pigs to meet 2 years of our pork needs and so on. 😊
Its Your homestead, you got to find what fits for You. I hate breeding Pigs, city boy husband's idea and I have to take care of them. Now I have 2 Tamworth cross pigs over 600lbs that need to go in my freezer because they haven't even been breeding in the last year. Hopefully the weather turns cooler here in FL for us to process before one of them just keels over...
We changed from chicken to rabbits. We love the taste of rabbits more than chicken but the reason we changed was because we can raise them for free on our property and must buy feed for our chickens. Try everything and see what works for your individual circumstance.
I kinda feel that way about quail; though they're easy to raise, you do get so little meat off of them. The only problem is, I live in the suburbs, where we're limited on what kinds of homestead animals we're allowed to have. Gotta admit that quail are a great animal for a small space.
I am not homesteading yet but love to draw up plans and plan for the future. Currently planning for a 1/4 acre homestead. What would that look like? I've determined that if I try goats on such a small scale, I would have a high probability of selling them. With the way I want to raise animals, I can easily see myself becoming dissatisfied and stressed. Funny thing about plans though. You never know till you actually do it.
Thank you for reminding me that quail is a great animal to get rid of on out homestead. I don't know why but i do not like them and they aren't working for me and my wife at all.
When I was a child we had a dairy goat. I loved her so much but her milk was horrible because of the weeds she ate. I recently have had goat milk from a local dairy and it was delicious. Our family have had multiple breeds of goats since then, but only for meat, and they are always escape artists and hard on fencing. Have always had house cows, of various breeds. I loved a nice Jersey. Camels are never a good idea! Neither are Emus!!!
Thank you, I'm going to butcher the rooster. That's funny, having a camel. I'm a seed in the dirt, after divorce. I got to retain some land, starting over. Homesteading is my health.
I found its easier to kill birds for food. We all have our preferences. Couldnt do it to our rabbits. We decided to keep them a long time was for fertilizer makers and pets. There were pros and cons and when we go back to homesteading again next year I plan on getting them again. I liked goats and learned a lot but they werent the right kind of goats for our situation. Horns are a good thing for all the reasons but they werent good for our situations. Next time we are doing nigerian dwarf goats. We started with big horned grown goats. I miss having chickens we will be getting chickens and some normal ducks. Currently we have a turkey and 3 muscovy ducks. They dont lay much, and they are odd for ducks. Good in many ways but we miss friendlier ducks that lay more eggs. I like to eat chicken more than chicken eggs and can see getting mostly meat chickens. I want quail again but other priorities first and going in with a different setup. Its good to quit if you need to and its fine to come back to it again with that knowledge to problem solve better the next time around.
Sure people decide to not raise some Animals. That is your right and privilege. Some animals are just not a good fit for some situations and families. From.whatvwe seen you are winners !! No Doubt !! Blow off the naysayers. Your doing Very Well. Then Braved Alaska !?? You all are Tough. Don't let no one tell you no different. 😁😁
I thought you got goats because you can't do dairy. Why did you get the buffalo. Have you looked into what causes the pandemic that starts with a c. Has changed all our pancreatic differences.
Thought you guys were actually quitting the full homestead way of life. Relieved to know you're not, but a bit click baity if idare to say. I understand the first point of rabbits well. I raised three liters one year and butchered 21 in one day. Too much. Too much emotion. I wound up giving it all away so at least it wasn't wasted, but I'll never do rabbits again. In future videos it would be nice if your saying you're quitting a certain venture, and not homesteading in general. I found that misleading, amd frankly, a tad bit annoying. Sorry. I do love you guys. You inspire me to do more.
You guys have no idea how much i needed to hear this. We sign the contract to sell our homestead this week, and it is so easy to feel like a failure instead of realizing this needs to happen due to the season we are in. It doesn't mean we won't ever get to come back to it, but due to health issues and family growing, this is what needs to happen in this season. It is a bittersweet heartache.
It’s bittersweet for sure! Just remember, You are entering the seed stage… And the exciting part of that is you never know where you will land and start growing next!
Appreciate the good memories. you aren't quitting, you are graduating. Now enter the planning stage for the next part of this excellent journey!
That's hard. Air hug. Prayers for you
I quit almost everything this year due to being pregnant, giving birth and looking after a baby. My husband and oldest daughter took on most of the milk cow chores. I gave up on my garden after planting it - some of it survived, mostly the weeds. I quit making cheese and feeling like i needed to be productive every day.
And yesterday we had to quit having our once amazing dog; he had become increasingly territorial and food aggressive towards other animals and then yesterday he attacked and bit one of our children, who happened to be walking towards the house where he had a bone. 😢
We also quit chickens last fall because ours had a disease that kept flaring up every winter.
Eventually we'll get chickens again. And a dog. But for now, we quit a lot of things.
Well if you parted ways with your goat before a couple of months, then you needed to probably give her more time to settle in and for her system to get balanced. And feed her the kind of feed that you like that makes the milk sweet. Their milk taste terrible right after they relocate because their body is under so much stress. I've never had the milk go right to tasting good after relocating. 3 weeks is what I've experienced is when I noticed the change to better. For goats anyway. But I totally respect y'all's reasoning, we can't be reasonable or resourceful if we are hanging on to every animal that isn't producing or serving us in some way
Such an important video, thanks for covering this!
I used to make hard cheeses, then baby #2 came around.
I also sold a cow every time I had a baby. 😆
We sold our first goat Grace because she was a terrible mother and obnoxious as hell.
I think people outside of homesteading might see quitting is failure. Folks in the community though know quitting something is often a sign of wisdom.
It’s always a big comfort to me during this busy time of baby raising, not right now doesn’t mean never. Just not right now. ❤
Oh goodness, you made my day! What a sweet surprise; thank you! Guess I have to keep going and NOT quit...RUclips at least lol I often think back to your 100 day video challenge and wince...you have grit! I dont know how you do it. Thanks again, you all are an inspiration. ❤
People should evaluate what works and what doesn't work for them so they don't waste effort. "Click bait" thumbnail 🤣. You definitely have a lot of experience with a variety of livestock. ♥
"If you don't like the product, just stop producing it." Super basic logic, but we all do need to hear it. 😂
Seasons of life change. We need to be realistic and reevaluate. That is the responsible homesteader.
Congratulations on baby #7! I just had baby #5. I'm living my homesteading dreams through y'all ❤ We don't have time for even a small garden right now, but I enjoy watching everything y'all are doing on your homestead 😊
Thank you so much for this video!! I've been living on a 20 acre parcel in Maine. I'm totally wanted animals. Now on having health problems and can barely take care of my dog. This is great information for when I get better to make better decisions on our homestead❤❤❤ thank you for so much information
We agree 💯%! We’ve had to make some of those decisions and some were easier than others. ❤
I feel the same about rabbits. But my dogs love them, so I keep them around for dog food & treats 😅
I "quit" animals in any catagory that cause me stress and are mean. I also quit goats and guineas and most of my ducks.
I had to quit my horse! Broke my heart, but he was a semi-lame rescue that was literally terrorizing my beef cattle. Not enough space to house them seperately. Although sad, it was the best course for us. We also had two distinct breeds of goats, and ended up selling the entire Boer herd, as we realized we aren't fans of goat meat! We still have the Alpine dairy goats, but birthed too many males (5/7!!!) so they'll be going to freezer camp if we don't find any buyers. Life on the farm! Thanks for sharing 🙂
The Camel journey was so cool but challenging.
When you did it you did it for live and that makes it special ❤.
Great info for folks who have trouble with it👍.
JO JO IN VT 💞
Yaaah congratulations!!!! On baby #7!!!! We just had our #8! Having feeding issues with nursing we’re at 6 weeks now we struggle with tongue ties.. 🤦♀️ nightmare but been praying for number 9&10 since before this baby was born! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🥰 loove our kids soo much!!! Seeing them all grow together and interact and help each other out… soo endearing🥰
I needed to hear this today. Thank you. ❤
Thank you for this video. I recently lost my job and started a much higher stress job. My husband is also dealing with health issues the past year and can’t help. At some point, homesteading felt overwhelming instead of bringing me joy and we had to downsize and give up some of the future plans. It’s hard not to feel discouraged about it. But we live in a wonderful time where we have options!
This was an absolutely amazing video! ❤
For a while I wanted a couple of horses as pets or somethin to ride all the time. But then I learned how expensive horse fencing, feed, and how much they can hurt themselves I kinda was like “ehhh I don’t think I can keep them due to not being someone who is from old money.”
So now I’m just going to think about either having 2 goats or 2 steers. If I ever want farm animals as pets or food.
We too quit rabbits. I mostly let the garden go this year as well, but the time off has me charging full steam ahead on our Fall veggies!😊
Yes! It’s always a recharge when you take a break!
One thing I thought while watching this was all the side quests I needed to drop. Learned how make fruit wines. Way more super boozy plum wine than any person would want to drink. The carboy and supplies took up massive space and collected dust. Homemade apple cider vinegar? Corroded through the faucet of its container and made a super sticky mess. Cheese-making. Homemade ricotta IS really good. I really didn't need those goat cheese strainers. Steam-juicing...tried it once and sold the juicer. All of those were really good skills to learn but just aren't a real part of my life. So, what DO we do? Chickens. Huge garden. Preserving food in ways we'll eat it. We're improving our hay field. Basic home herbal remedies like face cream, salves, teas, tinctures, etc. Those things have all stuck. Combine with some locally purchased meat, it's enough! After a multi-year property build, it's now about dialing in what we really want/need and editing everything else out rather than adding more.
Great post! Sometimes it's like spaghetti- throw it at the wall and see if it sticks! I want to do ALL. THE. THINGS. but honestly? not enough time in a day. I've found that I'd rather master sourdough bread than be a master quilter. IF I can find time between animal chores! Over 100 creatures keeps me pretty busy. Great perspective.
Thanks for the video. I'm in New Zealand. I needed to hear this today. I've been struggling with trying to run and feed everything on our property. It never occurred to me. Instead of buying more feed fir our sheep.. why the hell not just sell a few. Penny dropped and it all made sense the penny dropped. On many levels. Thank you ❤
I just quit milking one of my cows. We had a baby 6 weeks ago and then he was in the hospital with an infection last week. This cow has had mastitis issues and it took us a while to breed her back and honestly I’ve been asking my cow forum for “permission” to dry her off for months. We weren’t even drinking her milk so all the work was just for pig food. Everyone’s advice was that it would be best to keep milking her…she could lose the calf being early bred and a dry open cow is a headache, she could put on fat and have metabolic issues, she has mastitis issues and they could get worse….in the end though it was dry off this cow or get rid of all our cows because it’s just been too much. Trying to coordinate everything while in the hospital was the last straw. We dry treated her and dried her off and accepted the fact that come calving- things might not go well, but we just had to quit.
You said in one of your videos once that when you add a new baby you’ve got to get rid of something else on the homestead and my husband always brings that up. 6 babies later on our homestead, that always works out to be the truth. Even if we try to fight it eventually we have to face the facts!
I tend to do sugaring every other year.
That way we look forwards to it, but it’s nice to take a winter off and say-not this year!
So happy ❤ that y'all aren't quitting RUclips Nora homesteading (: what a shock it would be to all of you.
Fantastic episode. Thank you for this thought provoking, and well thought out content.
Great points!.. What works for some doesnt work for others and how each farm does it varies on how it works for you... So glad to see you back and that baby bump! We are going to quit pheasants this year. Been raising them for a few years but they just don't have the turn around nor interest to sell.
My dad's beef, the best ever. My love of lamb is not from eating lambs at grandmas because the never ate lamb but raised them. I love jersey milk and the amazing ice-cream. I am the farmer/rancher daughter. That said, my kids have a sanctuary and would never eat any of the home raised food. I am failure. remembering the camel 🍳🍔
Great message! I got accepted to my dream physician’s assistant school, but I recently turned it down to start our homestead and raise a family. It was really difficult for me to let go of the mainstream idea of “success”, but I discovered that it really didn’t matter to me as much as it did my parents. I really only wanted to make them proud because only then I could be proud of myself. I was very very hard on myself, and it put me into a really bad depression and I became very bitter. I had this idea in my head that this was the way things had to go for over 10 years, so it was hard to think I could be anything else when this is what I was “destined” to be. It’s what I was good at! But I figured out that I didn’t want to spend the next 10 years paying off school debt just to have a high stress job when it just made me a mean, miserable person. My husband and I have a different dream now, and I know I will be “wealthier” than I could ever be as a PA. I “quit”, but the knowledge and other skills I have gained are not a waste. It’s all in God’s plan, and we don’t have to know what it’s for yet. 😊
Ducks: never again lol. Geese too for that matter.
My buck keeps destroying fences and anything else he can get to 😂 todays auction day. Don’t be talking me into this now 🤣🤣
Also: fencing 😂
This was such a good video! Thank you for sharing all of this. It was very validating. We felt like failures when hawks ate our free range chickens, we didn’t like rabbit meat, and we needed to get rid of the animals on our homestead to take care of my mother-in-law when she was dying along with homeschooling our kids. I felt like we failed a little bit, but we also made room in our schedules for a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in our family, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Homesteading is important but it isn’t the #1 priority! You guys choose to care for your MIL, you’ll never regret that.
A dome structure would probably a great idea for your top of the mountain land and high winds. Think about it.
I gave up growing tomatoes & pablano peppers. I buy tomatoes at the farmers' market maybe once/year.
I'm thinking of getting chickens.
Rabbit is our favorite but only after since learning to make the meat drier by cooking on the pit longer.
Kunekune take longer to grow out but eat less daily and meat is exquisite. Meat, bacon and lard. It also helps that they can eat the acorns during the fall which makes the meat even sweeter.
Goat milk from mini LaManacha is very good. Sweet and fattier than regular lamancha because of the Nigerian side of them. We make ice cream, cheese and drink the milk and make kefir. We milk once per day and most of our goats have been long milkers without drying up. Around 3 plus years on most unless we rebreed them sooner which can help them to produce more volume over time.
The ones we don’t keep are cabrito and the fat is tallow.
We had like 5 ducks but family overall were not fans of the meat and eggs as a whole. Didn’t keep those but hadn’t set up a big area for them thank goodness since we were only dabbling in the idea of keeping them. That area ended up more garden space.
Learning to grow high producing and some winter storable food over the last 5 years is now allowing us to make large impacts on the feed bill.
Be very careful about what you quit and never trust the store to have your needs especially these days. “Quitting”, unless extenuating circumstances doesn’t necessarily mean longevity. We’ve had issues but worked around them. 11 years in and have kept 5 of our 6 animal investments and it’s paid us back immensely. Plus the store food is no where near the quality you can produce from a homestead.
Thanks for all the content as of late. 🙂
I'd just like to share a thought on all the jokes about camels, because a lot of people (not talking about you, but people in general) seem to think camels are "exotics" just because they're rare in the west. Same with water buffalo, yak, llamas, and sometimes even donkeys and others, are considered "exotic". But in reality, they've been domesticated for just as long as "normal" animals like horses and cattle, and they all come from far-off lands (horses from the Central Asian steppe, chickens from India, turkeys from America aren't considered exotic in Europe, cats from North Africa, sheep and goats from the Middle East, and so on).
So camels, llamas and alpacas from Arabia/North Africa, China/Mongolia and Peru/Chile, and domesticated for 4000-6000 years really aren't "exotic" at all, just rare outside of their countries of origin. 🙃 I'm a big fan of camelids and I think if the vikings had got to Peru and found llamas, they would have thrived here in Scandinavia and been a very popular animal in Europe. And donkeys are also seriously underrated as pets and work animals in the west.
I needed to hear this! People are so judgemental when getting, selling and trying new things that fit better. We had goats (weathers) for pets and land clearing and then a few years we sold them to travel w our family. Now we’re back but looking at dairy goats and the comments are so annoying!
Yeah. We have had our fair share of annoying comments about the changes. It’s ok, way to go trying again! (But can I interest you in a mini jersey instead? 😂)
Thanks for telling people it’s okay to quit ❤
Thank you. I m going through some life changes and I needed to hear this. I m the seed
I have Kiko, meat goats. I'm not ready to quit them yet, mostly because my fence problems are because i moved them into the areas that were built to keep the turkeys in, so the fences are tall, but thin wire. Easy for a rutting buck to break through. I haven't yet managed to get my does on a scheduled breeding/kidding, but it's been an experience. Taking my first two bucklings in for processing next week, so whether they stay or go is really going to come down to your #1 - and how much I like or don't like goat meat.
Chickens/Eggs have been my goto for the last 14 years. Have 100+ now and egg sales completely pay for all their feed and the cartons. I'm hoping to do meat birds in the next year. I'm a solo homesteader, so every thing I do has to fit in to a one person operation.
Stick with the basics, a cow for milk, beef cows for butcher, pig for butcher, chickens for eggs and meat chickens. And if really good, set up a garden, and long term food storing. Final note, stay with in your means that includes the size of your family.
Raised rabbits as a kid, side business and all. 4H ribbons and loved the taste. Lots of recipes when I raised them.. Definitely not for everybody, but I grew up on it and love it. I spend a fortune for rabbit meat these days. I can understand the issue with Kune Kune pigs. Same with not a specific goat breed but some have their own issues. I understand both why you started with camels and he decision to quit camels.
Horses. I love them. They drove me crazy. They jumped 5 foot fences. Ate and ate a ton. Cost of shoes. Veterinary, worming, fence repairs, etc, etc, etc. very expensive. I had horses for 50 years. Sold nine horses in 2021. I miss the beauty of horses I don’t miss all the other things. Selling them was a good quit
I have a lowline angus bull who likes to fight my saplings and water spiggots. Also tried to rub on my AC unit. Had to fence off all those things and run electric to keep him away. He and his steer son are soon to be freezer bait. Keep my 2 cows and find them another bull later.
I wouldn't say that you actually quit things, it looks like that you're just trying to find better ways to do them. For example, you quit one type of cow but you didn't give up on other types. You're just trying to find the type that work for you. From what I understand, this happens a lot on many farms. Farmers try new crops or animals all of the time.
While I have not quit yet, I'm unhappy with bantam chickens. They slip out of my fencing and spend daytime over at the neighbor's property, then return at nighttime to the coop with the standard-sized hens. I thought we would eat the bantam eggs while selling the medium brown eggs from our standard-sized hens, but we are having trouble finding the secret nests in the neighbor's woodland. I'm not keeping the bantams forever. The funny sideline to this is that the bantam roosters don't like to bend down to get through the fence, so they don't leave daily (they sometimes fly over the fence to check on the bantam hens).
Goats and especially horses! If you can afford the pet, great. But I think people underestimate the time and cost of a horse.
Even in the old days when every farm had a few cows of their own, a horse was luxury. I'm a Swedish millennial and all my grandparents grew up on farms. They would have the ONE draft horse that was basically a tractor (which not everyone can afford today). Just like today, horses were luxury, but they were luxury that worked. A slim riding horse is a different level of luxury. It's an expensive pet today and it was an expensive pet 150 years ago.
I enjoyed raising rabbits for meat, just didn’t like the butchering part. My hubby didn’t like the taste so we ground up the meat and used it like hamburger. Last spring we sold off the rabbits and now just have laying chickens year round and meat chickens during spring/summer.just right for this 68 year old.
I love trying out new things. I agree with you try things and quit it if it doesn't work out!
I love it! We change all the time!
We have gone through this as well!
Rabbits
Chickens
Now we are selling our ducks and geese
So far the only thing that has really stuck with us is goats and I’m okay with that!
I think it’s important to try out different animals/food sources and I think it’s very responsible to decide that certain things don’t work for you and to let them go! It makes the animals life and your life much easier ❤
Also not saying you should try goats again if you don’t like them but if you liked goats just not the milk, Nubians have really sweet milk! Those Swiss breed like saanen and alpine tend to have very “goaty” milk where a Nubian or Nigerian has a milk that most compare to whole cows milk (Nubians are easier to hand milk though)
Beautiful Highland cattle.
“The best part of waking up…a dead bunny!” Ha ha! I laughed WAY too hard at this! Just happened to us last week
I quite ducks a couple years ago, we didn’t have a water source near the coop and I was done hauling buckets of water down constantly. But not we have a water collection system in place and I’m excited to get them again but this time getting call ducks since I don’t need the extra egg or meat production and just enjoy them instead
The titles in the video should stand longer.. long enough to be able to read, when you don't know there is a text coming..
We try to produce enough from one protein source in 1 year that we have enough for two years. Then we’re essentially managing only half of the protein sources at a time, but still have all the variety. For example, will raise 100 meat chickens one year and then take the next year off since they freeze well and can up well two years. In the chicken “off years” we’ll raise enough pigs to meet 2 years of our pork needs and so on. 😊
That's a great idea. Was kind of thinking the same!
@@soidog4615 great minds think alike! Whooo! Be blessed friend
THIS is the content I've missed! And I will never have goats again unless I no longer am trying to grow a garden or orchard lol.
Its Your homestead, you got to find what fits for You. I hate breeding Pigs, city boy husband's idea and I have to take care of them. Now I have 2 Tamworth cross pigs over 600lbs that need to go in my freezer because they haven't even been breeding in the last year. Hopefully the weather turns cooler here in FL for us to process before one of them just keels over...
Yep, we always need to reevaluate what's working or not and is it worth it to continue or do I want to deal with it anymore.
We changed from chicken to rabbits. We love the taste of rabbits more than chicken but the reason we changed was because we can raise them for free on our property and must buy feed for our chickens. Try everything and see what works for your individual circumstance.
Great video
I kinda feel that way about quail; though they're easy to raise, you do get so little meat off of them.
The only problem is, I live in the suburbs, where we're limited on what kinds of homestead animals we're allowed to have. Gotta admit that quail are a great animal for a small space.
I really think rabbits are super cute but I've got to say I love a good rabbit stew lol ..
I am not homesteading yet but love to draw up plans and plan for the future.
Currently planning for a 1/4 acre homestead. What would that look like?
I've determined that if I try goats on such a small scale, I would have a high probability of selling them. With the way I want to raise animals, I can easily see myself becoming dissatisfied and stressed.
Funny thing about plans though. You never know till you actually do it.
Hostein frisians!/ Fries Holstein.
The black and white cows for the milk! They came from us! That’s cool!
Thank you for reminding me that quail is a great animal to get rid of on out homestead. I don't know why but i do not like them and they aren't working for me and my wife at all.
Meat turkeys are our headache animal. They die too easy and it's heart breaking every year.
Привет из России,смотрю вас уже давно,вы молодцы, счастья вам❤
I've had all those animals except camels. But the pic of the cow, the halter was on wrong.
Yep the fantasy quickly turns to night mares for so many folks who just jump into the lifestyle.
When I was a child we had a dairy goat. I loved her so much but her milk was horrible because of the weeds she ate. I recently have had goat milk from a local dairy and it was delicious.
Our family have had multiple breeds of goats since then, but only for meat, and they are always escape artists and hard on fencing. Have always had house cows, of various breeds. I loved a nice Jersey.
Camels are never a good idea! Neither are Emus!!!
Does that mean you’re Australian, Brody?? Those are such Australian animals to have on your no go list 😂
I love you!!!!
How much does it cost for the baby cows to be born?
How many little ones/ kids on the farm now?
Our goat is going to camp this winter. Might not make it to the freezer because we are having a party.
😂 I love goat can I come?
@@Homesteadyshow do you have a passport?
I would try the product elsewhere before investing in the infrastructure, feed, and new animals.
Dogs. I want to quit dogs.
I eat lot of time rabbits in Cuba and we like it...
GMO corn to coca-cola. Ha! I love it. Mmmmm…Monsanto flavored carbonated caramel coloring. 😂😂
you should have Bastion camel instead of having a Dromedary
Negative comment. Positive comment. Another positive.
Thank you, I'm going to butcher the rooster. That's funny, having a camel. I'm a seed in the dirt, after divorce. I got to retain some land, starting over. Homesteading is my health.
I found its easier to kill birds for food. We all have our preferences. Couldnt do it to our rabbits. We decided to keep them a long time was for fertilizer makers and pets. There were pros and cons and when we go back to homesteading again next year I plan on getting them again. I liked goats and learned a lot but they werent the right kind of goats for our situation. Horns are a good thing for all the reasons but they werent good for our situations. Next time we are doing nigerian dwarf goats. We started with big horned grown goats.
I miss having chickens we will be getting chickens and some normal ducks. Currently we have a turkey and 3 muscovy ducks. They dont lay much, and they are odd for ducks. Good in many ways but we miss friendlier ducks that lay more eggs. I like to eat chicken more than chicken eggs and can see getting mostly meat chickens. I want quail again but other priorities first and going in with a different setup.
Its good to quit if you need to and its fine to come back to it again with that knowledge to problem solve better the next time around.
Having trouble quitting goats? Try our new goat gum or goat patch.
We need to make this
goats are awesome animals i loved the ones i had but will never have another goat i get why you quit on goats
Dude you need to try duck eggs again. Or maybe an elephant.
I think it’s just a matter of having a negligent amount of money 😂 when money isn’t an issue ppl do whatever
Sure people decide to not raise some Animals. That is your right and privilege. Some animals are just not a good fit for some situations and families. From.whatvwe seen you are winners !! No Doubt !! Blow off the naysayers. Your doing Very Well. Then Braved Alaska !?? You all are Tough. Don't let no one tell you no different. 😁😁
👍
Rabbit meat has an acrid taste to me, and chickens are much easier.
Maybe Guinee pigs? In Peru they breed and eat them. 🤔😊
Animal that came to mind ….. Husband 😂😂
Medbeds are coming!!!
I thought you got goats because you can't do dairy. Why did you get the buffalo. Have you looked into what causes the pandemic that starts with a c. Has changed all our pancreatic differences.
I want to know about the buffalo too. I'm guessing it's a "cow" but an entirely different species, so maybe Aust isn't allergic to the milk?
We all need to focus on the more important things, and keep our lives simple…Matt 6:33
Or.... you run out of ways to milk them for content.
Maybe binge Doug and Stacy.
Thought you guys were actually quitting the full homestead way of life. Relieved to know you're not, but a bit click baity if idare to say. I understand the first point of rabbits well. I raised three liters one year and butchered 21 in one day. Too much. Too much emotion. I wound up giving it all away so at least it wasn't wasted, but I'll never do rabbits again. In future videos it would be nice if your saying you're quitting a certain venture, and not homesteading in general. I found that misleading, amd frankly, a tad bit annoying. Sorry. I do love you guys. You inspire me to do more.
No worries! That’s why we actually put “click bait” in the thumbnail. 😜