Recently, we noticed one evening that our goats seemed to be acting a bit strangely, like they were skittish. They were staying fairly close together near the barn while looking at a far corner of the pasture. They were very focused on that far corner like they were alert for a predator.
We couldn’t see any animals or anything else of significance in that area, but we turned the electric fence on that evening just in case.
What was it?
Even though we moved in over the summer, I just recently had the chance to walk through our woods all the way to the end of our property on the top of the mountain. The farthest we had been previously up the mountain was to the bottom of the waterfall; we had never made it all the way to the top of the mountain.
A view of Song Lake from half way up the mountain.
How do you integrate goats?
Don’t worry, knowledge of calculus is not required!
So far, we have needed to integrate new goats into our main flock twice. We received a lot of varying information about integrating the goats. The local advice ranged from no isolation period to over two months of isolation in separate pastures. We decided to go with Continue reading
This past weekend, we adopted two additional goats from a rescue group (a separate post will follow with more details about the new goats). We needed a way to transport the goats from the rescue shelter to our farm which is a little over an hour and a half away by car.
Elf on a dog leash as we led him out of the shelter.
The shelter’s transport vehicle was in the shop for repairs and we don’t have an animal trailer, or even a pickup truck. So, how do you transport a goat without a truck or trailer?
Even though it seems like summer is just winding down, the slight chill overnight serves as a good reminder that winter is coming.
As the pastures are usually covered in snow for months at a time (last year, there was still snow on the ground until at least late April), we need to have enough hay on hand to feed the goats throughout the whole winter.
And where do you store all the hay? in the hayloft, of course!
Hay wagon pulls into the driveway.
Our first new animal arrival on the farm – Shaffron, a bull dog mix.
Shaffron flops in the mud at a nearby lake.
This gallery contains 9 photos.
We moved in at the beginning of July 2015. At the start, we had 2 goats, 11 chickens and 1 dog. We also had 3 cows on our pasture which are owned by a neighbor. The neighbor stops by at least once per day … Continue reading
Welcome to Lucky Penny Acres!
After living for a few years in the New York City area, my wife and I had the opportunity to move to the beautiful finger lakes region in central New York state with our dog, Penny.
Penny on an old stone bench.
Everyone said we were crazy – farms are too much work, who wants to live so far out in the country, think of the winters, etc. We went ahead and purchased a small farm and farmhouse in summer 2015.
This site describes our journey and the various animal friends we have made along the way.
Thanks for visiting our site and we hope one day you’ll visit Lucky Penny Acres!