Sharing my love for meat goats raised on pasture, using rotational grazing and regenerative farming practices. My farm, Cylon Rolling Acres, is located in Northwestern Wisconsin, 1 hour east of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
I raise Boer-Kiko cross meat goats and Texel sheep in a low-input, forage-based farming system that's designed to mimic nature. We also have a small maple sugar bush.
Our goat meat is sold on our website for nationwide shipping or local pick up. Sign up for our Friends + Family List to learn about restocks, specials and get other recipes and cooking tips (link in banner).
If you're interested in learning more about raising goats with regenerative farming practices and how to market meat goats, my website grazingwithleslie.com is always growing with more educational resources, including my farm blog, ebook: Goat Meat Primer, a resource for farmers raising goats for meat, as well as other materials. Join my raising meat goats community email list (link in banner).
Otherwise known as: Border Collie (most of the time :3) these dogs are amazing! So smart and controlling with the sheep. This makes the work for the farmer much easier :) If you ever see a sheepdog round up some sheep, you'd see it is very impressive.
@@JamesBrown-ei8wc higher rates joules will typically put out more kw of energy, which is the measurement that is most important for keeping a strong fence. But it is also dependent on how much fencing the energizer is supplying as well -- that said most our energizers are at least 4 joules. Our higher rated ones will support more fence (8-15 joules).
@@cylonrollingacres thank you. I have a few goats and lambs. (7 total). I’m trying to keep them without a dog. It works till it doesn’t, I guess. Trying to minimize cost. But I will probably regret it someday.
@@davidpeightal4918 yes very true. Depending on how much wildlife you have in your area you may be ok without a guardian animal - with less risk. While they are important they aren't always necessary for all flocks/herds. If you don't have aerial predators such as eagles or hawks or don't lamb or kid on pasture you might be able to use a donkey or llama. They at least eat the same food as goats/sheep.
Hose clamps! Of course. I just bought some real heavy zip ties for the same reason. I like the hose clamp idea better. I will have to try these since I already bought them. Some one else used screws, but I was worried about the holes letting water in...freeze and break. I’m still a little worried about the extra weight on the gate. I might use the welded wire instead of the cattle panels. Is the weight an issue on the post/hinge? Thank you.
It's working great. We had someone else build it for us - so it came out to about $12k with their build and transportation costs to get it to Wisconsin. I would have done it, but I have too many projects in the hopper lol. The only thing we've done differently/updated is we got a new truck a few years ago with an onboard generator and it's made it even easier to use.
I love goat! But, sausage is not usually made with goat. I don't eat pork or bacon. Any reason you like to make it with goat? I would really like to try this with goat and beef or maybe just goat. Thank you!
Yes sausage is usually made with pork, but we wanted to do it differently! Beef is another great option for blending. We raise goats and sell the meat - it's fun to share different recipes and dishes to inspire others to enjoy goat in different ways.
We use a @gallagheranimalmanagement MBS800 with an add on solar panel. I have more info on my blog grazingwithleslie.com/grazing-meat-goats/electric-fence-charger/
We have a pretty diverse mix in our pastures, including native species. I've found our goats also do better legumes and forbs with higher protein value, such as alfalfa, clover, birdsfoot trefoil - of course you might see what species are best in your region but looking at those factors might help! I have a longer list of our pasture species here: grazingwithleslie.com/grazing-meat-goats/qa-july20/
Did you just tie and burn the ends for the knots? I bought my smart fence and it came with a knot. Didn’t notice until I went to reel it up. Fence has been up for prolly 2 months. So doubt they’d be willing to do anything about it. But I def don’t want to restring it anytime soon. 😅 But can’t get that knot to go through the reel
@@amberwhite6086 I just tied it tight so it was small enough to pull through the reel openings with a little maneuvering. But restringing wasn't as hard as I was thinking it would be- so when you decide to tackle it :)
Children should not be near machinery like that. Have to former neighbours lost young children because they got to comfortable around working farm machinery.
Yes farm safety with equipment is important and always a priority for us. In this case Dad was right by them when it was unloaded, and they were in front of the basket where it is the safest when unloading. We have a rule any moving/running equipment you stay far back while it passes or need to be with an adult.
All children should be made to work on a farm for a couple of summers growing up. It would greatly decrease the number of soft video game addicted purple haired entitled leftie children out there. I say great work to all the farm families that get their children involved with the equipment, livestock and real work that’s required to run a farm.
Note: There was a concern about the mom not accepting the other baby and the baby's safety. I always watch the behavior of the "new mom" if she shows any sign of aggressively pushing away the "adopted babies" or other behavior that might suggest it's not worth trying, we don't keep the babies in that situation.
Thank you for your knowledge and communication of your experience. Have you considered raising chickens on pasture with idea of following your goat herd?
You're welcome! It would be a great combo for parasite management. We have done turkeys. But the goats and sheep, combined with our retail side of the business, we've just stuck to what we know well to not get into more than we can handle. But that said it could be a good option to stack enterprises for the business side and animal health side as well.
It really is about the training process - in a small area, doing it for a short period of time over a few days, increasing time each time. Making sure they know how the fence works. It's a bit of patience with the process but it works. Once we're grazing, I try to always make sure they have enough to eat and the fence is always hot - that way they don't get any other ideas. I do have a training guide if I you didn't see it yet - it should be linked in the caption of this video.
Woahhh if you ever put a goat panel on a gate can you make a video? I have a piece of woven wire on mine with chain link ties but it looks so ghetto and your gate with that goat panel looks so much neater! What did you use to attach it to the gate panel???
She looks like she has some kikko. What a nice momma , good momma. Wow I see you have Boer goats I didn't see them at first but I'm old and looseing my eyesight. That's a really good cross. Ya know it could be she needs selenium it's her hair looks dry and like wormy, but it can also be selenium deficiency it also makes the hair look unthrifty.
