Some People Need Alarm Clocks

Who needs an alarm clock when you have livestock? At 6:15 am, my goats and cows are willing and able to sound off, letting me know that "HAY! The sun is up, where's my FOOD!"

To make things easier, we will be putting all the critter food into it's appropriate bucket the night before. All our feed is in the house, which makes this somewhat easier. But we have 4 different pens of critters, and 1 dog that makes his rounds. That's a LOT of buckets, and a lot of open bags of feed.

All that being said, I love my way of life, and am really going to start working with the animals more. I want milk from my Nubian goat, and Dexter cows. That means I have to be able to milk them. Which means they have to let me touch their udders, and tug on their teats. If we are keeping a boar so we have a ready supply of piglets twice a year, then, that boar needs to be docile enough to be handled. I don't know how big Chester Whites get, but since they come down from Yorkshires, I'm fairly certain that he will get over 1,000 pounds by the time he's threeish.

My critters are all friendly enough. Mean critters say hello to the inside of my big 26 cu. ft. freezer. I'm not shy about letting them know about that either. Our freezer camp pigs from spring, came up to us for back scratching by the time we got ready to take them off to Camp Westinghouse. Just because I intend to eat them, doesn't mean they don't get spoiled. Happy animals just put on weight faster.