Any other goat folks out there

I am especially interested in hearing from dairy goat folks, and horse lovers. My farm currently consisits of 5 milking does, 9 babies born this year, of only which 1 was a doe, two dry yearlings, a buck and a wether. We live on about 6 or 7 acres of leased land with a very small house, so although there are a lot of improvements I'd like to make to make the farm better, I'm limited in what I can do. At least now we have a barn. Last winter we had to make do with small sheds, which worked for shelter, but were not ideal. The horses didn't have any shelter at all, except for a tarp I hung from some trees which they hated. I blanketed them with waterproofs and they did well, despite at least two of them DETESTING rain and wind.

Our chicken herd has gotten progressively smaller. A few of them were taken out by passing cars, although our road might only see one or two cars an hour. The horses stepped on a couple of them (accidentally of course), and some wild animal got a good share of them. After the wild unknown animal, and a cyote sighting in the field, we got a Great Pyreneese livestock guardian dog named Katana. That dog is the best dog we've ever had. He's big and will bark at people when they come into the yard, but will be quiet and friendly when I let him know the visitors are okay. He ADORES children and will roll over on his back and turn to mush when we have children visiting. He is calm, and lazy, but if there is a problem, he's right there to take care of it. Our other two dogs, a labrador named Onyx and Reba, our border collie mix, got jealous of Katana, and decided to return to our old house. Since then we've had to keep them fenced in the back yard.

Homestead Farm in Va

April 11, 2009. My mother suggested to me the other day, that I should start a blog, and since mothers are always right, I decided to go ahead an do it. Hopefully I won't bore anyone quite to death. The blog will center on trying to manage a small farm of dairy goats and horses with a full time job, and a part time job as a natural hoof care practitioner. Welcome.