We recently invested in a working chute for our herd of meat goats. The handling system we chose is a portable chute from Sydell. We chose this working chute because we raise our goats and sheep on pasture with rotational grazing and needed a portable handling system option.

You can see the results of bale grazing with sheep and goats in less than a year. We will see visible difference the following summer.

Four years ago I wasn’t in a good place. I was struggling. I’m not sure if many outside my immediate family sensed anything was off.

Training goats to respect electric fence is often overlooked. With simple training, you should be able to keep your goats in their fence.

When I first learned about rotational grazing, I knew right away that’s how I wanted to raise goats. But no one was really doing it, at least in my region. So I dove in and learned how to raise goats on pasture using rotational grazing and regenerative practices. I should say I’m still working on […]

This Live Q&A covered fly control with goats on pasture and using an auto feeder with bottle baby goats.

This Q&A Replay covers how we got started selling goat meat, including planning from harvest to the type of cuts offered.

Here’s a quick rundown on how our lamb and kid auto feeder works. We have a Lac Tek II from Biotic. We had purchased it when we were originally feeding male dairy buck kids. Since that time we’ve phased out of that part of our farm and have been focusing on our meat breed herd. […]

Kid Goat Feeding Trial MSN174849 DATCP (PDF) Results of a trial conducted by Dr. David L. Thomas (dlthomas@wisc.edu), Department of Animal Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dr. Tera L. Montgomery (montgomeryt@uwplatt.edu), School of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin-Platteville Early Weaning of Dairy Kids – report UW Spooner Research Station Raising lambs and kids artificially, University of […]

Moving to an e-commerce site was a big jump for our farm three years ago, but I knew it was the direction I needed to go with our farm business. This was pre-pandemic. At the time we had a basic website with an online form that operated as our means for placing orders.

Learn more about regenerative agriculture in this recent Blog Series

On our farm, much like many across the region, the trend to pull livestock off the land started to happen about 60 years ago. For our farm, that noted the beginning of our oak savanna grassland no longer seeing livestock.

Getting started with regenerative farming or conservation practices may seem a bit daunting, especially when what you’re doing is already working or even if you’re just getting started with your farm. Where do I start?

If you raise sheep and goats you know how hard it can be to find livestock equipment that works for these smaller four-legged farm animals. Just recently I was trying to find a larger stock tank that was only a foot high. I could only find one manufacture and they were out! How could there be ONLY one option?!

Last summer ​we had the opportunity to have a videographer out to the farm to talk with us and visually capture how we’re marketing our farm and meat.

We were recently featured on the Wisconsin Small Business Development website as a Success Story. Last spring I worked with the University of Wisconsin-River Falls SBDC to help build a business plan and financial projects for a USDA grant application I was working on. I was able to work with a consultant to get this […]

It’s FINALLY here! I’m SO excited to share the Goat Meat Primer ebook officially launches today!

Now that we’re in the in between stages with grazing and the full, on set of winter, we’ve begun to feed hay to our meat goats.

Meet Lauren Manning of White Hoof Acres in Arkansas. I’ve been able to get to know Lauren through Instagram. She’s also raising meat goats, mostly-Kiko, with rotational grazing practices. I admire (and know the challenges) her work to build a low-input, resilient herd of goats. She’s also a talented writer. If you don’t follow her on Instagram, I encourage you do so.

Meet Ben Habig of Habig Livestock in Parker County, Texas. I connected with Ben through Instagram and love seeing him rotationally graze his goats in Texas. And, not to mention he only uses TWO STRANDS OF POLYWIRE with his herd of 100 goats. He also has a growing YouTube channel as well.

Meet Kate Estrade, goat farmer from Rio Louisiana.

You probably know I love listening to podcasts and audiobooks while working on the farm, doing deliveries or running errands. So I was very honored to be asked to join Cal on the Grazing Grass Podcast to talk about our grazing practices with our meat goat herd. Thank you Cal for the invite and including […]

When we purchased the farm four years ago, it hadn’t been in operation for quite some time. Since then we’ve done a lot of work around the farmhouse, on the pole sheds/barns and put up new pasture fence. The fields appeared to have been in some sort of CRP or set aside program at one time and then later let nature take its own course.

One of my recent projects is a science experiment of sorts. I created a chlorine floater for the livestock tanks that are out on pasture. When it gets hot out the water in the tank can start to build up algae. With our recent rains and hot weather, the water in our stock tank was starting to show a little green.