Why We're Homesteaders
We moved from Colorado to Texas in January of 2019. We got a lot of land and wanted to be more self-sufficient. We knew we wanted to raise our own animals for food and companionship. Both of our daughters love animals and our eldest helped research different types of animals. We wanted to start with goats because our property is mostly wooded and was overgrown and goats are good at clearing foliage. We discovered the Myotonic goat breed while looking for parasite resistant meat goats that will do well in the heat of Texas summers. We loved the idea of goats that did not need extra tall fencing because they can't jump fencing like other goats. We also did not want to start with dairy goats because that is a big commitment when you are just starting out and don't know if you even like having farm animals. With a little looking we found six Myotonic goats for sale and brought them to our farm. Surprisingly, all three adults were pregnant and gave birth to four more goats. Luckily all of our does have had an easy time birthing, and Myotonics are good mothers, so we didn't have to bottle feed or anything like that, but suddenly our herd was larger. Soon after we bought our buck and a registered doe and added them to our farm. We specifically looked for a polled buck because we had heard that bucks can be aggressive and figured if the buck didn't have horns, it would be less likely to hurt someone on accident. Bucky Barnes is, however, a very gentle and friendly buck, so we did not need to worry about aggression, even when does are in heat.
After deciding that we did like animals and we were ready to add chickens, we looked for dual purpose breeds. We also wanted to get a breed that was friendly, but hardy enough to be able to free-range. We stumbled upon Buff Orpington chickens. They are part of the Orpington breed and hens lay an egg almost seven days a week. They are also good for meat. We love having farm fresh eggs and being able to tell which hen laid what egg, because some hens just have very smooth eggs or oddly oblong eggs. We also found that hatching chicks with an incubator is easy and we love having the tiny balls of fluff around.
We did not intend to get pigs as early as we did, but our daughters insisted we had to get pigs. Our eldest daughter again researched different breeds and leanered about KuneKune pigs. Our daughters love pigs and wanted pigs they could treat as pets. KuneKune pigs are friendly pigs and come in many different colors. Even the boars are friendly, which is very important to us. We don't want to be scared of overly aggressive animals, or breed aggressive animals. After much badgering from our two daughters, and our eldest sending us people who breed and sell KuneKune pigs near where we live, we decided to get a breeding pair. We are very happy we did. They are wonderful. They are intelligent, know their names, and clean up what the goats won't eat and any kitchen scraps that we don't eat. They are not aggressive at all and get along great with the goats and chickens. In fact, the goats can be more aggressive than our pigs!
