HOMESTEADING GENERAL
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What are your thoughts on escaping the grid? I've been wondering lately if pure animal husbandry rather than agriculture would be more ideal for homesteading. A couple of goats, or even just one cow could produce enough (raw) milk a day to handle a single man's macronutrient requirements. If you were to solve the fruit or vitamin C question, that would provide for all of your micronutrient needs as well.
What do you guys think?
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@Hugh
I'm in WA state US. If you do, think really hard where you are going to do this. Most of the time you have to feed for instance a cow quite a bit extra. Hay and other animal feed is extremely expensive right now. So much so that keeping cows is not in any way profitable for us anymore.
A goat or 2 is different. They eat all kinds of shrubbery. But then they are very prone to sickness.
One cow will still eat a lot.
But if you do it just for health and money is no issue then it's the way to go. There's much enjoyment in enjoying fruitage from your own hard work. -
I love sheep and goats.
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@happyhanneke Jeez. What do them big ol goats get sick with?
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@Hugh
Lots of stuff. They quickly get bloat which they can die from. They are very susceptible for parasites so they need to dewormed a lot. Of course it depends on the breed. There's more hardy breeds like kiko goats. Either way if you go to goat groups, they always complain about goats sometimes falling over dead and they don't even know why.
I don't have goats currently because our shelter is not sufficient and we have lots of cougars and wolves. But I do want to try to have a few for milk. I might try icelandic goats or some other more hardy breed. They also stink, it's no joke. -
@happyhanneke what if we get them to Peat