The Problem with Homestead Advice
One of the things we have to deal with here in Missouri, that we didn’t have in Utah are ticks. I really hate ticks! They are the number one thing we are NOT looking forward to! I’ve heard that chickens will eat ticks, but that ducks actually eat more. We were not exactly looking for more animals since we are in a temporary living situation but I saw some Muscovy ducks for sale near us and decided that we could use the eggs and they’ll be good for tick control.
When I went to pick them up, I chatted for a bit with the lady selling them. She didn’t know much about that breed and was downsizing her homestead. She asked me a few questions about our homestead situation and I told her a little bit. She was pretty eager to give me homestead advice. I like it. I like to hear what other people are doing and why. I know I have a lot to learn. However, sometimes usually you’ll get conflicting advice from people on homesteading. That was the case here.
She told me to make sure to feed animals in the evening. That way you train them to all come back to home base at night and they can be safe from predators. That was interesting to me because although I do have experience with chickens and goats, we lived on a half acre in a small town. We didn’t have land for our animals to roam and forage. It was one of the reasons we wanted to move!
On the other hand, I’ve heard that you shouldn’t put any food in a chicken coop at night because it attracts rodents and other critters. At home we kept our chicken food in a 5 gallon bucket with holes and special attachments so you can fill the bucket and the chickens can eat when they want to you only have to feed them once every few weeks. We set that up here and found out quickly that other animals got into the coop and ate that food really quickly! We also want to encourage our animals to forage as much as possible since there is room to do that here.
So what is the solution? How do you deal with conflicting information and advice? I think the key here is to always find out why. What is the purpose? As long as you understand the underlying principles then you can listen to advice and apply what you need to apply to your own unique situation. At the moment, we’re giving all our animals a little feed at night and then some more in the morning. That way the animals are hungry enough at night that they eat all the food they are given and there isn’t leftovers to attract rodents. It encourages them to come back to home base so that we can lock them in and keep them safe from predators during the night time. In the morning the chickens don’t need encouragement to come out but our goats do. The barn setup here is not what I would have chosen and I’d make some pasture changes if I were going to be here more long term, but as it is, the goats are staying in a pasture that is not directly connected to the barn. The pasture gate is about 100 feet from the barn and we have to put them in every night to keep them safe, then after milking in the morning, I take them back out to the pasture. They go in pretty well but in the morning they seem to want to go everywhere but in the paddock where I want them. They get super distracted by everything! So I have trained them that they get some alfalfa pellets in the evening when they go to the barn, and some more in the morning when they go back out to pasture. This is working well and making my life a LOT easier! So, I’ve taken the advice to feed at night, AND during the day. I’ve made it work for our situation right now. This isn’t a difficult process, it’s just a matter of asking why and getting to the root of the issue. When I give homestead advice, I will try to always give reasons why and allow people to apply my experience and mistakes to their own unique situation.
