A few months back, I wrote an article about raising chickens. It was timely, as it coincided with a surge in chicken raising while egg prices were high. It was one of the more fun articles I have had the pleasure of writing, as I was able to take a break from dramatic essays and instead reflect on a dear hobby that my family has enjoyed for several years now.
Chicken raising is only one of the specialties of our little farm. Through much trial and error, hard work, and a lot of “character building” episodes, we have enjoyed hobby farming and would recommend it to anyone willing to embrace both the fruits and the labor.
The purpose of the present article is to give a more complete account of our experience. To resist a tyrannical age, people must be willing to participate in a parallel community and they must frequently share levity. While I am neither a highly experienced farmer nor a comedian, I would like to share the experience we have had so as to meet some obligation toward fostering that parallel community and spreading a little joy.
Our Start: A Wonderful Opportunity Born in Chaos
So there we were, just two weeks into the “National Emergency” of Covid, when I was instantly overtaken with the farming bug. My wife, who grew up on a 40 acre cattle ranch, had already coerced this reluctant “city-slicker” into getting “those dumb chickens” several years before, but until March of 2020, I was convinced that I would always keep my foot down at chickens and never let any other animals onto our property.
But once I started connecting dots about Covid, and I considered the potential failures of food supply lines, either by “natural” fall-out from a pandemic or by more machinated means, I had a change of heart. All of a sudden, I loved “stinky” farm animals and couldn’t wait to get them on our property. I knew it would be hard work, but as the social engineers were saying that the future of “meat” would include animal cell cloning in a lab, I became determined to raise and slaughter the real thing. Same with any produce. I did not yet know about the bug meals planned for human consumption, but I knew that even a steady diet of milk, eggs, citrus fruits, and occasional pork would trump whatever “re-imagined” human diets were coming.
My wife and I brainstormed on what kinds of livestock and produce we could actually raise on our acre and a quarter of land in the Phoenix area. Our initial instinct was to multiply our chicken flock and to plant citrus trees. This made sense considering the amount of land we have and desert climate conditions. There’s a saying out there among Moral Theologians that goes something like this: “Simple farmers understand Natural Law Theory better than most academics.” Considering that the Natural Law is man’s participation in the Eternal Law (The comprehensive order of the universe as God designed it), by circumlocution, that makes sense. (See ST, Prima Secundae Partis, Q. 93) Act against your nature, and you will be miserable. Farm against nature, and your yield will be miserable.
If you live in an environment with plenty of rain and have dozens of acres, planting Red Delicious Apples and raising cattle is a viable option. Here in the desert, and on limited land, that’s a terrible idea. Alfalfa prices are around $20-25 a bail, with little grass (outside of irrigated lots) for cattle to graze on in the valley. If you are rich enough to own cows or horses at this time, good for you. I’m quite jealous! But for a hobbyist looking to simply knock down the grocery bill and put the kids to work on some character building chores, that’s not economically sound.
That considered, after introducing more chickens to our flock, we turned to our next livestock investment. These are by far my favorite animals on our farm (barring my Livestock Guardian Dog) and it’s not even close. Considering their generous yield, gentle nature, and the numerous qualities of their milk, I am, of course, talking about my goats.
Goats: the Criminally Underrated Farm Animal
I had a conversation with our family vet recently about goats. For context, our vet is an accomplished animal doctor from Mexico who raises livestock himself. He shared a little secret with me recently about a Mexican candy called “cajeta”. It’s kind of like dulche de leche (which uses cow’s milk), but better.
It’s better because goat milk is just a tad better than cow’s milk in practically every measure. Granted, if you need to produce A LOT of milk, then cows have the advantage. Because Americans are raised on cow’s milk (well, after they graduate from mother’s milk), the concept of drinking goat’s milk is just plain foreign to them. This is probably why people initially wince and brace themselves the first time they have it. It’s like they anticipate that the milk will taste like goat. I can assure you, it doesn’t. Surprise, goat milk tastes like milk. Only goat milk naturally homogenizes, so, unlike cow’s milk, all the cream is naturally blended in. After enjoying goat’s milk for the last three years, our family will only drink cow’s milk if by force. Goat milk, cheese, butter, soap, cajeta, you name it, we’ve tried it and liked it all better than comparative dairy products from cows.
Goat’s milk also has slightly more protein per cup than cow’s milk, it is a little more friendly to the lactose intolerant, and is supposedly the closest in overall nutritive content to human breast milk. Then why is it an obscure commodity in the U.S.?
My vet suggested that it has to do with American culture. We are beef people. We eat cows and we drink their milk. This is the market that American farmers have historically invested in and there is little that can be done now to change the market or the American perception of goat milk. Here in America, farmers have traditionally had an abundance of arable land to raise many cows, coinciding with the dependability of market demand that matches a great economy of scale. If you wanted to take a market share of milk in the U.S., you would need a dairy that produces thousands of gallons of milk to be distributed to many big grocery stores at the low price that consumers are used to. Cow’s milk allows farmers to do that, goat milk does not.
But for the average hobby farmer, you don’t need the 6 gallons a day that a Jersey cow can give you, but rather the 1 gallon a day that a Nubian goat of fantastic breeding lines can provide. And for a much lower price on feed! A lactating Nubian goat eats roughly 4% of her weight in hay, per day. For a 150 pound goat, that’s six pounds of hay per day. A lactating Jersey cow eats close to 6% of her body weight in hay per day. For a 1,000 pound cow, that’s 60 pounds a day. Added bonus for us in the desert, goats have been bred to handle heat. They originally came from Africa and the Middle East, where people have relied upon goat milk for thousands of years.
If you have the land, the money for alfalfa, and customers ready to buy a few gallons of milk every day, then by all means, go with a cow. But if you are a hobby farmer simply looking to provide your family with better quality dairy than the stuff from the store, goats are the answer.
Adjusting Expectations and Evolving
Now I would be lying to you if I said it has all been “peaches and cream” on the farm since we started. Speaking quite literally, we tried planting peach trees, and had no luck. As for the cream, it has taken us exactly the last three years to turn the goats into a turn key operation. And even then, it has not been without difficulty. The story of our farm is one of constant twists, turns, lessons, and steady incremental growth.
Our first experience buying goats was made when we foolishly assumed that buying a goat “in milk” meant that we were buying a milk goat. Just as there are beef cows and milk cows, there are goats for eating and goats for milking. When we bought our first goat, at least we get credit for knowing that goats need company. Let me emphasize that: if you plan on buying a goat for milking, you CANNOT have just one goat by herself. The lonely goat will bleat all day long and anger your neighbors. You must at least throw in a small wether (castrated goat) who will eat minimally and serve as a companion to the milk goat.
We bought a random cheap goat off of Craigslist that was “in milk”, along with her three kids. Our thought was to sell two of the kids and milk the momma. I made a “stanchion” for “Lady” (no point in changing a solid livestock name) and we proceeded to milk about a half a cup of milk from her. Womp womp. Turns out Lady was half Pygmy (meat goat).
So we immediately sold Lady and her remaining kid to a man who said that he loved goats. He told me that he loved them so much that he had a couple home in the freezer that he would soon be turning into steaks. Fine by me. As he casually grabbed Lady by a horn with one hand and a hind leg with the other, authoritatively loading her into an enclosed trailer, I realized just how green I was.
Since then, we have gone through several different milk goats, mostly mini-Lamancha, getting superb results. At one point, six lactating mini-lamanchas were giving us around 2.5 gallons per day. I built a separate fence for the goats, strategically distanced away from the house, (they do attract flies and the male has an odor) installed an automatic waterer, welded on feeders to prevent tipping, and made sturdy shade structures to protect them during the summer.
Factor in the feed hack we implemented by giving them alfalfa pellets marketed for horses, and we finally have a “well worth it” operation that saves us money on better quality milk and has grown character and essential skills for us all. As soon as our second Nubian doe kids this August (the other one just kidded and is producing strong), we hope to finally call the goat branch of our farm complete, as we downsize to just two Nubian does on an extended milking program.
Similarly, we learned after a several years of buying cheap “barnyard mix” chickens, that White Leghorns are the way to go. If you are raising chickens or are thinking about it, consider this smaller, whiter (again, ideal for the desert), and more prolific breed (up to 300 eggs a year each). We currently have about 16 White Leghorns collectively laying around a dozen eggs a day.
When we initially started the goat herd and expanded the chicken flock, we made an investment in a Livestock Guardian Dog to keep them safe. This was when our farm took an unexpected turn that we are happy to have adapted to. This is when we started raising… dogs??
Dogs
In late 2020, we researched Guardian Livestock dogs and landed on a Great Pyrenees. We got a package deal on a male and a female, and put them in with the goats. Great Pyrenees were originally bred in the Pyrenees mountains by shepherds looking to keep their sheep safe from predators. They are big white dogs who, once they bond with a family or a herd, have been known to give their lives to protect them.
Our female Pyrenees is the sweetest gentle giant a farm could ask for, but we quickly determined that our male Pyrenees was a bit much. Weighing in at around 130 pounds, while he was good around our kids, the goats clearly hadn’t researched the loyalty that he would have to protect them. The does (female goats) literally spent all day cowering around the buck (male goat) who also shied as far away from the male Pyrenees as possible. The goats basically spent their entire day trembling in the corner of the pen, frantically running to the other corner the moment the dog moved within 15 feet of them. That’s not an environment for your livestock to thrive in.
Then, once the female went into heat, he eagerly asserted his dominance in ways that were unsettling. Without going into graphic detail, let me share some 411 on the canine mating ritual. Unlike goats, for whom the mating process is quick and uneventful, dog mating is more complicated and weird. Initially, the female isn’t so interested, and she plays these strange “chase me/catch me” games, which she typically wins. A little later into the cycle, she “warms up” and practically flirts with the male until they start getting regular “ties” (please don’t ask why they are called that).
The male Pyrenees didn’t care for the female's initial standoffishness, and didn’t take the rejection well. Between the hormones, the size, and the breed of the two dogs (they are able to fight!), let’s just say it was not a “dance” we appreciated witnessing. So we opted to part with the more intimidating dog.
Nevertheless, we had puppies two months later! After re-homing the puppies, and with a little inspiration from a helpful dog breeder we knew, we were inspired to try our hand at breeding. When we brought in a Poodle sire, we were relieved to see how much more sane the mating ritual can be. Our female Pyrenees has since had two Pyredoodle litters of some really well tempered dogs who have made some good families happy. When we started this little farm project, we had no idea that breeding dogs would be a third of what we would do on our farm. We now breed Goldendoodles and Aussiedoodles and have made it a worthwhile “side-hustle”. Good business is where you find it.
Meat: Now there's a Challenge
We have not made a strong effort to produce meat on the farm, but we have had some mixed results with what we have tried. There are some Dorper sheep and Pygmy goat farmers out here, but I haven’t been convinced that raising them would be worth our while. For now, the price of feed relative to yield, effort to butcher, and space limitations have put a wet blanket on any interest we have had in raising meat. Cornish hens could be affordable, but since the White Leghorns are already giving so much protein in the form of eggs, it’s hard to buy into raising meat chickens.
Pigs, on the other hand, are do-able. Here’s why: there’s this strange phenomenon in my region where people will accidentally raise pigs for you. If you are specifically looking to raise meat pigs, consider a classic Yorkshire and see if you can fatten a sow to weigh hundreds of pounds. If you just want the experience of butchering pigs and getting some delicious home raised pork on the cheap, keep your eye on Craigslist until some pigs come up for free.
Free pigs? Yes. Here’s what happens: strange as it may sound, some consider “Pot-belly pigs” to make nice pets. Or at least they are willing to give it a try until the pigs lose their cuteness and become a mere messy nuisance that are hard to get rid of. Some pigs are a little easier to coax into a cage, but others are more “suspicious”. If you don’t know how to case a pig into an enclosed trailer, you may have a not so fun and no so humorous episode on your hands. You may also end up with mud or poop all over you.
Last summer, we took home two free Pot-belly pigs and butchered them right away. Technically, this isn’t farming, but if you have a pen for them, you can feed pigs ANYTHING until you are ready to butcher them at a specific time down the road. We did this with a Kune-kune pig last year and butchered her after a few months of feeding her every scrap from our table. And when the kids had had enough Halloween candy, she got to eat all of that too. Hey, it beats the annual pitching of the Halloween candy into the trash. Maybe all those candy bars turned up in the taste of the meat, because she was delicious.
We didn’t find success with rabbits. Not to say one can’t succeed with rabbits, but the desert heat proved too much for the males. We ran fans on those rabbits at all times, and gave them giant frozen water bottles to keep them cool, but male rabbits are too temperamental. The draw to rabbits is that they reproduce like… well… rabbits. They are ready to butcher by six weeks, and the meat on their hind legs is enough to justify the overhead… in theory.
Once it gets too hot for the males, their sperm, effectively, becomes fried. If you can keep rabbits in a cool and controlled air conditioned environment, maybe you can have some success raising rabbits in the desert. But again, going back to working along with nature and within the means that you personally have to foster an environment your animals can thrive in, we found rabbit raising to be impractical.
But that’s fine. Farming is an experience filled with ups and downs, successes and failures. With each lesson we learn on the farm, we consider the money spent to be “tuition” for an education. As long as we are able to count the consolations along the way, and the family gains enough essential skills and produce to justify the whole operation, then it is worth it.
The Journey is the Reward: The Fruits for our Family Beyond the Produce
I know a man who took the window two years ago to sell his expensive Phoenix home and buy 40 acres in Oklahoma. After recently seeing pictures of the range and hearing about the the cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, dogs, bees, ponds, garden, and zip line, I will admit that I’m quite jealous. Envious? Of course not. I’m very happy for him because it was the right situation for him and his family at that time. It's great to see their success!
For anyone desiring to experience the homesteading lifestyle, we have to make decisions based upon what we are trying to get out of the experience while weighing what is practical for our respective situations. After three years of hobby farming in the desert, I’m happy to have landed on chickens, goats, citrus trees, Doodles, and occasionally keeping pigs until we are ready to butcher them. It gives the most bang for the buck in terms of yield and the education it provides the family.
While it’s nice to make a small dent in the grocery bill, there’s even more consolation found in the lessons and skills that we have gained. When my son researched up on rabbits, he made enough of a convincing argument that we gave it a try. But much more than the books on the subject taught him, he got the hands on experience of successfully treating ear mites, breeding a litter, maintaining their habitat, and butchering rabbits. And he’s privileged to have learned the hard lesson that you have to accept nature and work around your limitations if you want to be successful in life. Hard lesson to learn, but he paid enough in tuition that the lesson will stick.
Last year, when a goat was distressed during labor, he put on his gloves and helped pull a baby goat. Our kids have also learned how to draw and deliver medication to our goats as well as how to de-horn and dis-bud. My daughter has practiced the habit of faithfully milking goats, once every morning and once every evening. Shake her hand, and you can tell she doesn’t miss a milking.
The kids don’t have time for video games, social media, or television. And between holding the occasional adorable puppies and baby goats, making and trying delicious caramel candy, and the adventures of corralling an ornery pig or two, the kids have no desire to trade their experiences for “screen time”.
It’s a small operation, but we make the most of it while maximizing the fruits of the journey where we can. And that journey can be had by anyone, in whatever capacity is right for them. You may live on a quarter acre in the city, but you can raise chickens, grow a backyard garden, and embrace another hobby farming project that’s perfect for your family. If someone I know wants to keep bees, please let me know, because I love raw honey!
And while I’m not in any position or hurry to start a more complete farm on an arable 40 acres in the Midwest, perhaps my kids are gaining enough skills now that they are empowered to take that option themselves someday.
If they don’t, that’s fine too. While we are still quite green, only three years into this experiment, there’s enough consolation to go around already. If you want advice from a real veteran farmer on how to farm, don’t ask me. Do what I do all the time and ask the old hands who are experienced multi-generational farmers. Nevertheless, I’m plenty willing to share my time and humble experience on the basics if you want to get started. You can do this thing too.