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Good grief. I know people who have gotten hurt driving, skiing, bicycling, hiking, and taking a shower. Life is full of risks, yet, most of us keep trying to live. Having a couple pet goats for fun does not equal having a large aggressive billy goat during rut.
It's not all that hard to keep a couple animals for fun and hobby, and keep them safe, and keep them without going broke or being inundated with flies.
Knock on wood, I've never lost an adult animal to a predator (we did lose a baby chick once to a little tiny Sharpshin Hawk) and I don't keep them cooped up or stand watch all the time with a shotgun. We take reasonable measures that have worked.
And sure... not all vets make farm calls. Most large animal vets do. Find one that does. No biggie.
Glad you smiled because I did when I read your response. The OP was interested in what it takes to have some livestock. She mentioned a horse. Someone else mentioned that cows are herd animals and so are horses among other species. It is not unusual for an animal(s) to become pets. I happen to work at a stable part time and as a volunteer. Horses. I have a close acquaintance who has multiple species some of which provide meat and eggs and milk for cheese etc. All of these require full time care and attention.
If a horse colics which is common, then a vet is called ASAP. The animal is in awful pain. If the colic cannot be relieved on site then decisions must be made quickly. Evacuate to an animal hospital or euthanize. If euthanize then disposal of the carcass is required. This is not a nine pound dog but a 1300 pound horse. That ain’t cheap. If taken to a hospital for surgery then you are talking 10,000 plus in US dollars. Give or take. Now suppose that happens when you have a wonderful teenager caring for your menagerie? You get to have some dramatic phone conversations.
I have seen a horse bitten by a rattlesnake. The numbers run big on that one too. Weeks of medical attention and rehab.
Yeah, people get hurt doing other things and there are risks. But caring for animals is another level of responsibility and risk and expense. Animals can bring much enjoyment but they are demanding, often helpless and require absolute commitment. I have seen starving horses because crappy people bought one for their kids like a trampoline. I hope the OP will make an informed decision rather than a “wouldn’t it be nice” to have some livestock. It appears she is getting off to a good start in that direction. I wish her well.
If you are retired, or otherwise home all of the time, you can keep an eye on things closely, but if you are working a job away from home, and things go wrong, an animal may die before you can get to it to intervene. So, if you have cattle, horses, goats, etc. you may have some losses over time. Calving is another high risk deal if you are not there to intervene. It is not a show stopper though if you really want to do it.
We have cows and do get away for vacations in the summer. It is just part of the risk. Everything must be in order before leaving and when they are grazing grass and have a water source, they should be fine. Before leaving, all of the fences are checked closely and repaired. The hardest part, as I get older, my knees don't like the additional activity, which makes it more difficult.
many of the concerns mentioned on this thread about having livestock are very dependent upon where the responder is located, how much land they have, and the local soils/climate and such environmental issues.
For example, what predators are in the area?
What other insects, worms, and diseases present in the area?
What is the climate? ie, extreme cold or hot weather during a year
I get a laugh out of folk who claim that manure and wastes aren't a problem for their livestock. Maybe that's OK for them, but in my area of the country to not clean up behind your cows, sheep, horses, goats, pigs, and poultry in their respective corrals and barns is to invite in all the diseases, insects, and parasites that will affect them all.
A neighbor of ours had a "goat powered weed control company" that rented out her goats for weed control around the area. She'd set up camp, install temporary fencing, and live on-site for the time it took for the goats to clear the weeds on the property. She rarely had worm or parasite problems because our cold and dry climate keeps them at a minimum. But then she moved to western TN because of family needs. There, her goat herd encountered huge losses due to "barber pole" worms which were virtually impossible to control. It's effectively wiped out her goat herd.
Similarly, her flock of fiber sheep got infested with various parasites and they were brought under control only with aggressive and expensive veterinary intervention. She watched her fiber quality diminish to a point where the sheep were sickly pets, not worth the cost of keeping or shearing them. As a handspinner, she's heartbroken over seeing her prize winning fiber producers fail. At this point, they're pets for her and she'll keep them until they pass on from natural causes, but it's not much fun for her. She still has to apply ivermectin to keep the keds under control on their skin.
Her horses require seasonal maintenance vet shots … I'm not sure what they're addressing … but she mentioned her vet bill for 4 horses was over $1,000 for routine well-care every 6 months. And she transports the horses to their vet, no call-out fee there. They only needed routine well care shots once a year here, to include WNVirus protection, and tetanus. Once a year, they got health certificates/vet checks for prevention and for allowing their regional transport. Coggins certificates every 90 days if they were traveling over state lines, which was frequent since we live within a few miles of three adjacent states to our border.
Additionally, where our area doesn't have a heartworm problem for dogs, she now has to treat her 4 LGD's and 2 housepet dogs (Lab's) with heartworm prevention meds every month with prescription "tri-heart blue" pills. Something on the order of $70 per dog for 6 months worth of pills. That's on top of the rabies/distemper vaccinations, but those were needed here, too.
For us, getting into livestock was a lifestyle and control of our food source (beef, pork, poultry, lamb) inputs. It was little additional work to up the numbers to bring in additional income to help offset the expenses. But we're under no illusions that we "save" money over the cost of comparable items from the supermarket. We know that it costs us in time, effort, energy, and hard dollar expense to have these fruits of our labor. These are commitments which we voluntarily made, and this includes the loss of our freedom to be away from the ranch/farm except in rare circumstances. Right now, with lambing going on, being away from the ewes that have big tightened up udders is problematic. So be it, with only 100 ewes you cannot afford to have any unnecessary losses in production.
Predator controls will also vary from locale to locale. We've got a coyote problem here. Other areas of the country may not. Your expenses to deal effectively with them can vary widely. Even with the best of our efforts and LGD's, we have had years with losses of 6-8 per year. That's a huge hit on our bottom line and they're not a business deduction come tax time.
Other animals, such as Llamas and alpaca's … we raised those for awhile. Had a friend with a llama rescue in Longmont Colorado, and she imposed upon us to acquire 30 of them through the years. Lawn ornaments, only a few of them were friendly and could be handled as pets and for shearing. We kept one for 18 years before she passed on. Her intended use as a livestock guardian was never realized … she simply didn't keep predators away from the sheep. We managed to adopt out most of the rest of them. Alpaca's? I laugh every time I see ads for the "alpaca lifestyle" with folk having these cute lit'l buggers around and making grey poupon/rolls Royce money. Yeah, sure … we got into them with our first 6 donated by a lady in Steamboat Springs CO who raised them for her fiber arts biz. She found out we had a place where we might be able to keep them safe and healthy, and begged us to take her "surplus" males off her hands. Supposedly pet quality and good fiber producers … we went up in a December snowstorm to her place where she gratefully loaded up the 6 for free. They soon proved why she was so desperate to get rid of them; nasty temperaments, not "pet" cute. You couldn't handle them and I saw the writing on the wall for the potential to shear them later that year. Even with a steel cage/stand built for shearing them and llama's (Mrs Sun won it as a "best of show" fiber arts winner in Estes Park a few years previously), they were not calm enough to shear them.
A few neighbors saw that we had alpacas. In short order, they asked if we'd like "some more"? Again, we found out why very quickly. They were pasture ornaments and difficult to shear, even for our paid shearers who really know their business. We wound up with another 8 alpacas mysteriously showing up at our place in the dead of night, so getting brand inspections on them was a problem (required for proof of ownership and transport in our state). Our alternative was to vet them, bring them back up to best health, and then "adopt" them out in our area … for free. Vet bills alone ran over $250/head before we could get rid of them. And get rid of them we did, within a year. Happy to see these worthless critters down the road to somebody who appreciates seeing them dining in their pastures from their kitchen windows. Just for grins … there's a lot of good quality alpacas around this region that bring well under $100/head at the sale barns. Sometimes a $20 will buy one. Alpaca get rich quick lifestyles? BS
Bear in mind that if you're raising livestock for meat consumption, you either need a processor or learn how to do it yourself. When we were raising 250 chickens at a time, a processor (and freezer space to keep them between farmer's markets) was essential. Now that our USDA processor closed, we only do 40 bird batches at a time … because that's about all I care to do in a day when we set up a process line to take live birds from flapping wings to sealed in a shrink-wrap bird ready for the freezer.
PS: we brokered 10 4H show pigs from UCO Fort Collins a few years ago. Intending to keep one for us, we sold the rest "live on the hoof at the processor's doorstep". The one that was ours failed a USDA inspection, and we had a necropsy done to show CU that they'd sold us a diseased animal for human consumption. It was full of worms which had almost destroyed the internal organs and rendered it unfit for processing, let alone consumption. The university had gotten that batch of pigs from AR. To their credit, upon receipt of the necropsy report, they refunded our money for the pig. But it was an unsettling experience given that we'd never had a problem in 40 years of buying "local" pigs for slaughter.
I should mention that neither my husband nor I eat meat, nor do we intend to butcher any animals. We would be looking for wool and milk from any goats or sheep and eggs from chickens (though ducks are an interesting idea.) No cattle at the moment though we have talked about a dairy cow. If we do this it will be starting small with smaller animals. I would love a horse but it's probably not something we would do right away. I had horses as a teenager and younger adult and I understand the expenses and time consumption associated with that.
Likewise we wouldn't need this to be a profit driven venture. It would be fantastic if it paid for itself but we aren't figuring that into the equation. This would definitely be a hobby farm as we have other sources of income.
But it is worrisome that you even MENTIONED about what to do if you want to be away for a few days. Geez...I can't even leave my tomatoes for more than a few days, how in the heck would you leave livestock? How hard is it to find a housesitter and multiplied by 10 or 20....
I'm not talking about a major operation. Just a dozen sheep or so, some chickens, a horse, maybe a couple of goats. We have been talking about selling a few of our properties to buy a farm and getting some livestock.
How many hours daily would you estimate it takes to care for the animals listed above?
If you have a farm with livestock, what do you do when you have to leave home for several days?
What do you wish you knew before getting livestock?
It’s a ton of work. At different times we had goats, pigs, chickens, horses etc. I would say minimum of two maybe three hours. There is ALWAYS something that needs to be fed, cleaned, fixed or medicated with animals. My buddy has horses and pretty much spends about 2 hours a day feeding cleaning mending and buying supplies. Animal feed hay oats etc. it all adds up.
If you leave for vacation you usually would have a neighbor or a friend come watch and feed them. Probably twice a day minimum.
I grew up with livestock. We had chickens, pigs, a horse, and a pony. It limits travel flexibility big time. The rare times we went out of town, we had family members (nearby, in their own farms), handle feeding, watering, etc. and general check - in.
I live in the suburbs, now. We have an ordinance allowing for backyard chickens, and we have the upper limit, six hens. It's fun, and the neighbors love fresh eggs. They are the easiest of livestock. My MIL, who is our neighbor, checks for eggs and refills food and water if we are out of town. It is pretty simple, and chickens don't require much tending. If were gone for a couple of weeks, coop cleaning and putting in new straw would fall to whoever is checking on them, but we are never gone that long.
Start small...very small. I knew someone who kept a few hens, collected eggs for himself and a few to sell each week. He had calculated how many he needed, how many he was sure he could sell, how to phase the hens’ ages so that he would have a steady supply, and of course the costs of keeping them. He kept them in good pens within a fenced yard and was home gardening every day.
Contrast that to a former neighbor who was renting (allegedly to buy) a home with a small meadow. He arrived with I don’t know how many goats (a lot), 8 llamas, and a few chickens. He said he wanted to sell llama manure and eggs but had not done the math. Meanwhile, his wife would go on chick-buying sprees when she went to get feed. He said they cost only $3 each. Left to fend for themselves (free range), owls and foxes got many. The cycle repeated. The goats and llamas were not kept securely separate by gender, so there were unexpected pregnancies, occasional loose animals roaming the neighborhood, and all kinds of chaos.
They had other problems, too, unrelated to the animals. The animals were too much for them to manage, let alone just him while his wife was away working.
The inevitable happened.
A major forest fire burned just one ridge over, resulting in our mandatory evacuation for just shy of a week. The guy had gotten help from others (he lacked truck and trailer) to transport many animals to the county shelter. However, he had left three llamas, thinking they could fend for themselves.
Well, wild animals have to flee forest fires, too. The area was all well-known as mtn lion country, and one of them found the llama buffet. Killed one and later returned to get a second llama.
Mtn lions had been around before. We would see tracks near our house, and we saw them “live” twice within a 2-mile radius, during our 15 years of living there. However, they had not attacked any people and rarely approached livestock.
This farmer simply had way too many animals to properly care for. Period.
I cannot agree enough with the person who said goats are more work than worth, omg I hated them. They're IMPOSSIBLE to keep contained, eat literally anything and everything and I had one female who literally would grab chickens and throw them - it was a game to her.
Oh, my! The mental picture. I just burst out laughing at work which is never good because people around here don't laugh.
FYI - Only one of them I'm sure was eaten, but he was a real jerk. We didn't want to eat him, but didn't blame someone else if they did. That's a common sentiment with casual hobby farmers, actually. It works!
Oh, now I understand where this recipe comes from...
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We didn't want to eat him, but didn't blame someone else if they did. That's a common sentiment with casual hobby farmers, actually. It works!
