I'm 30 with no skills and no money. All I want is to own a Goat Farm with a shack. I live in California so I'll probably have to steal some land in the middle of nowhere and fake it til I make it and pretend my family has always lived there. Any goat enthusiasts out here? I believe this is my calling.
If you are going the criminal route get some unregistered vicuna too. Their wool is gold.
Nothing I do will be criminal as I'm not a criminal. And if I did do something that seemed criminal it is not because I have no bad intent.
I am not an Arab but I am part Scotsman will that be a future hurdle?
You have to be 18 or older to use this website, OP
He's an adult. This is just how fricking moronic anyone still living in California is.
You're going to catch goatfricker pox, bruh.
probably have some innate immunity then
i think you need to get some goats first
It's doable. Learn everything you can about goats. You want to know things like what they can safely eat, what plants in your area will poison them, how to keep them safe from predators like mountain lions, what vaccinations and medications they need, how to deal with minor injuries, when to call a vet, when to put them down, how to put them down humanely, what diseases they can get, how to manage diseased animals, and everything about breeding and assisting them with pregnancy. And if you succeed, you'll need to know how to butcher them and package/store the meat, and how to dispose of waste parts without attracting predators or creating a maggot farm. It's a lot to learn but goats are easier to deal with than cows for example because you can move them much more easily without heavy equipment.
You can buy a small property and rent land until you can afford more of your own.
You need to know what you want of goats
Do you want meat
Do you want milk. You have to milk twice a day for this.
Im an outist and deciding to switch jobs with a ten year plan go afford a couple hundred acres where it rains often.
You need to wait for a recession, which this one may be the one that puts boomers to the grave freeing up tons of land. The average age of a farmer is old af and I don't think many kids will take over. However with starlink and antiwork there may be a big push for people to go rural in next decade too.
If you don't have a degree look at railroad conductor, truck driver, tug boats, trades, contracting, to find something to pay well.
Then start a family so you can teach next generation oto take over.
Funny you just made this thread because I just bought my goat farm for only $600k for 3 acres. West coast land is super expensive, didn’t think I would have to spend this much just for land with a house, barn, well, and septic already on the property. I work in tech so I can afford it but jesus dude, you might have to look at rural Oregon desert to be able to afford anything
>$600k for 3 acres
bro what in the frick please set the economy on fire already god
Its fairly premium property. I’m only 10 minutes from town, and all my neighbors are wealthy. I could have gotten land for way cheaper but this is the price with all the bells and whistles already there. Eventually I’ll buy some real acreage much farther from town but this is a good starter property.
>3 acres
>600 THOUSAND DOLLARS
>only 10 minutes away from town
>still thinks this is somehow premium land
Holy hell anon you got screwed over big time, how stupid can someone be?
Comparable properties go for 1.6 million USD. This one is low because it needs work.
Which is still insane. No land anywhere even close to a town or city is worth that much with so little acreage. You got played dude.
Thats just what properties cost here in the Seattle metro area.
>willingly living anywhere near Seattle
NGMI
>the israelite fears the unregistered neet goat farmer
its not that hard if you have some general sense of country living. just get goats and have them protected and fed. in case of a problem you always have internet to answer your questions(or stock on books if you will be off grid). vaccinating goats? lmao. learning to put them down? you just kill them. dont over complicate.
I would just keep them on a chain through the day, till they get comfortable and let them sleep in a shack. move the chain every day. later invest on electric fence if the conditions allow. have a scythe and cut, dry and store excess grass in another shack. that is unless you plan on 30+ goats. condition them to once a day milking. for breeding nature will take its course (unless you have some special breed of goats). yes they will get injured, lost or stuck and any other problem, but its all right. all of this assuming i lived in a suitable location
time to shatter your dreams anon-
your goats will tear your fence and climb trees. have fun chasing them
This. You need decent height electrified fences, if you run Boers then the bottom wire needs to be touching the ground and humming tight. But being able to walk outside, call "hey frickheads" and they all trot down to you, it's pretty mint.
t. goat farmer with 120 acres, can advise on most goat thinga
I have a similar dream and have come from a similar place anon-- best thing I can say is, take the first step and figure out how to move to a rural area first. This is what I did, admittedly I leveraged the pandemic freakout and the government shitting gibs for a period of time to do it, but I would have eventually got here regardless.
I had a solid idea of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, but of course once I found a suitably cheap place to rent in a suitably remote area, I realised I still have all this depression and rage to work through before I can afford property and starf making those sweet goat farming gainz.
Reason I'm recommending doing the moving first is that I unfricked myself somewhat just by being out of the suburbs, and eventually my thoughts turned to how I can achieve my goals. I saw a job advertised as an entry level ag machinery tech (not an apprentice but doing unskilled work as such on tractors,) and made sure I got that frickin job. Offered to do free work experience for a couple of days. I was doing frick all anyway so it didn't bother me.
A year later and they've put me up to $27AUD (breddy gud for a completely unskilled autist,) and I know people who raise livestock and own machinery who are very happy to help me/provide advice/lend me shit as long as the terms are fair.
Dunno what it's like in the US but one if the biggest challenges out here is moving to a rural area. Gaining the trust/respect of the locals as a citygay is something that I don't see mentioned much.
You need land: plain and simple. "Stealing" land, and letting loose a tribe of goats is a good way to never realize your dream in its greatest form. Consider moving somewhere else if legal acquisition of land is not feasible, but not before you save up a few years' worth of minimum wage income.
As for the goats themselves, and livestock in general, it is quite easy in theory: they need food, water, and would do well with space to roam. Goats are hardy animals, but they're also ornery, voracious non-ruminants, so any space you do give them will be stripped clean, and they will devise their various methods of escape. Goats, furthermore, cannot subsist alone on pasture, the way that a cow or a sheep can, so you will have to have a more complex, self-sustained food system to keep them up-and-running, or you will need to supplement their feed, which costs money. I do not like goats for these reasons.
Have you considered sheep, OP? Smaller than a cow - less paddock space needed - and less "free-spirited" than a goat. Easy to train. A common complaint for sheep is they are disease-susceptible, and it may be true to a degree, but it is mismanagement of pasture, and the sheep's exposure to fecal matter, etc., that makes them sick. You can even get hair breeds to avoid shearing, should you not want to mess with that massive pain in the ass. I can provide more information on pasture management as needed.
As an addendum, also, a sick sheep, I would say, is best culled, rather than treated: building a better stock from the beginning, rather than producing a dysgenic herd for the sake of maintaining an extra head or two isn't worth it in the long run. Kill the weak, and let the strong rise to the top: it seems harsh, but it's the reality of keeping animals.
This guy knows what he is talking about.
Everyone wants goats. I wanted them and my wife wants them still. But you have to want to make money and not ranch. Some issues with sheep like their willingness to let predators kill them can be overcome with guardian dogs like the Pyrenees. But goats will test your patience and could easily make you go under. A ranch life a already a lifestyle in itself that you won't get ultra wealthy from. I'd at least start with some of each.
But sheep diseases can be managed with pasture management. If they're only in the space for a day or two they only nip the tops of your pastures. The ground is where the parasites are and after 30 to 60 days the sun will kill those parasites.
Greg Judy on youtube has plenty of examples on this.
I think sheep are the easiest livestock to manage if you know what you are doing. Some of the shit people do with cattle I don't think you need to at all with sheep.
The st Croix sheep is the most parasites resistant sheep too. They tried to study it so they could make anti parasite pills for other livestock but could not find out why. The sheep were left at the isle of st Croix in the 1700s or 1800s and no one is for sure where they came from.
But sheep don't provide me with yummy things
You can eat and milk a sheep you know.
Does sheep milk smell the same as goat milk does? Goat milk is disgusting to me, i've never tried one from the sheep.
Make cheese. Goat cheese is amazing
you probably just had bad goat milk. also sheep teats dont make it worth the trouble
Tell that to Feta and pecorino romano.
Goat milk and sheep milk taste pungent, and almost like salty? Not what you would normally call a refreshing beverage. I don't really like drinking it straight. But i love using it to cook with or make cheeses.
I'd like to farm sheep myself