Welcome Deborah Niemann author of Raising Goats Naturally

Photo Source: Chicago Farm & Table

This week Deborah Niemann will be joining us to talk about all sorts of different kinds of subjects regarding raising goats naturally.

There are four copies of her book, Raising Goats Naturally up for grabs.

Deborah will be stopping by on the forum over the next few days answering questions and joining in discussions.

From now through this Friday, any posts in this forum, ie the goats, sheep, and llamas forum, could be selected to win.

To win, you must use a name that follows our naming policy and you must have your email set up in Paul's Daily-ish email.

The winner will be notified by email and must respond within 24 hours.

Posts in this thread won't count, but please feel free to say hi to Deborah and make her feel welcome!

Hello Deborah!

We love goats & use them strategically in our garden & forest systems, for meat & for milk.

We have two nubian/kinder crossed does right now, but we've had angoras too.

Thank you for sharing your work with the Permies community!!

MP

hello deborah.
just found this place. nice to see you here.

Hi Deborah!
Thanks for stopping by. I am looking forward to learning a bit more about those bouncy critters.

Hi Deborah, I've been contemplating goats on my 17 acre property for a while so I'm looking forward to learning from you. Thanks for dropping by.

Welcome, Deborah! I've seen you speak at the Mother Earth New Fair (a few years back), have a couple of your books, have attended your online seminars, and also hang out every once in a while on the Ning group (does that make me a groupie?)

Look forward to hearing more!

Welcome Deborah; I look forward to reading your posts!

Hi everyone!
It's great to be here and even been to see some familiar "faces!" I'm looking forward to spending the week with you!
Deborah

Welcome Deborah! Thank you for sharing so much with all of us. I have already bought the book and devoured it and will keep it as a reference. I am a newbie in the goat world but jumped in with far more enthusiasm than I had first imagined. I wanted 2 nigerian dwarf does for milk, cheese, soap etc....in two weeks that has blown up to those two does plus a Nigerian/LaMancha cross doe and picking up my nigerian buck tomorrow. Did you write about it being addicting?? Did I miss that part?? LOL So very glad to have you here sharing your wealth of knowledge, I sure need it!

Thanks so much for stopping in and passing along your wisdom and knowledge! I am excited to read all of the posts and am SO happy to know of a book on raising goats naturally!!

Cyndi, I may have accidentally left out the fact that goats are addicting! LOL! But they sure are! Thirteen years ago I just wanted a couple of goats so I could make goat cheese. Now we're milking 19! But that's down from 21 last year, and I've sold five milkers this year, but I'm keeping four doelings, so I'm not cutting back very fast.

Janet Dowell wrote:Welcome, Deborah! I've seen you speak at the Mother Earth New Fair (a few years back), have a couple of your books, have attended your online seminars, and also hang out every once in a while on the Ning group (does that make me a groupie?)

Look forward to hearing more!

Please tell more about the Ning group! Thank you!

Livia Blaszak wrote:

Janet Dowell wrote:Welcome, Deborah! I've seen you speak at the Mother Earth New Fair (a few years back), have a couple of your books, have attended your online seminars, and also hang out every once in a while on the Ning group (does that make me a groupie?)

Look forward to hearing more!

Please tell more about the Ning group! Thank you!

It's at http://nigeriandwarfgoats.ning.com

We've got a friendly group of little goat lovers!

Welcome Deborah great having you here on permies.com !!! hope we all pass a great inspiring week together

Hi: new to the site and very excited. I realize that taking on goats and chickens means taking on a life style. Has anyone have any thoughts on forming relationships w/ other like minded local folks who can form a system of regularly helping each other out so each homestead can go on holiday or alternate so different families can go out of state to visit distant family for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving?

Re: Sheep. I have noticed that it seems that all blanket at dept stores are cotton or that synthetic micro-fiber which--although warm, does NOT breath at all. I went LOOKING for wool blankets in stores and could not find any. Other than for meat, and wool, and/or companionship (that last one sounds weird) what are people using sheep for? I saw a BBC episode where the man sheered a sheep and people wove him a sweater the old fashioned way. As I don't live in England and have those connections how practical/economical is it to raise sheep just because I want a wool blanket? HOw large a flock does one need to raise--which also translates into grazing pasture needed in order to become profitable?

Hi Alan and welcome! You'll probably get a lot more responses to your questions if you start a new thread. Click on "New Topic" on the right side of the screen and post your whole question in there. We have Shetland sheep and do exactly what you're suggesting, so it's not crazy at all. There are even fiber festivals all over the US for people doing this!

So I ran the winner picker app in the forum software and we have 2 winners.

Thekla McDaniels
and
Kurt Stailey

Congratulations Thekla and Kurt!

I sent you an email to ask for the email address of the person that first referred you to Permies.com. That person (if qualified) will also get a copy of the book and a permies care package.

Yay!! Congrats, Kurt and Thekla!!

Deborah - Thanks so much for hanging out and answering questions. I really appreciated hearing your thoughts on these topics!

Thanks! Can't wait to read it. And thank you Deborah for being willing to share your knowledge with everyone! And thank you to everyone else who was willing to share their experiences, it's only through the open exchange of ideas that we can make change happen. Lots of brains are WAY better than one

--Kurt

Congratulations!

Cassie Langstraat wrote:So I ran the winner picker app in the forum software and we have 2 winners.

Thekla McDaniels
and
Kurt Stailey

Congratulations Thekla and Kurt!

I sent you an email to ask for the email address of the person that first referred you to Permies.com. That person (if qualified) will also get a copy of the book and a permies care package.

Congratulations to Kurt and Thekla! Y'all had some great questions and made some great contributions to all of the discussions!