I guess I'm looking for goat resources for someone on 2 acres (or less) to make it work. Basically a "I did it this way. You can too!" kind of thing. Something to help me figure out what the most efficient ways of doing things THIS small. I watch Geoff Lawton's videos and he's working on hundreds of acres...I'm working in hundreds of feet, and I have a hard time converting it down to my scale.
Right now, there is nothing here but fill dirt/gravel with our house and a garden shack that I'm hoping to fix into a chicken coop. February marks the first calendar year in the new home. We promised ourselves to not make any BIG changes (I'm really itching to knock a certain wall down lol) until we had lived in it "As Is" for one full year. We have a definite direction we want to go, and what the goal sorta looks like. Everything gets murky in between Idea A and Final Project Z. We have the drive, but feel like we're going in circles all the time.
Chickens were the first step, and Goats were the second.
We need help clearing the land - heavy machinery is out of the question, our property has no real safe access for even a small tractor. My husband works from home, I work at a grocery store, so man power is limited for it too. So we decided walking weed wackers would help.
We need help healing the soil - GOAT POOP
and Chicken tractors and compost.
I am a knitter - the thought of creating an item from yarn that I had raised, processed, spun, and dyed myself is truely appealing.
Money is not limitless, which is why we ruled out Dairy Goats (too high of an initial investment of equipment/space) and Meat Goats (No processor nearby to make it worthwhile and NYS laws are against us doing it ourselves). Fiber Goats seemed like a "set it and forget it" kind of idea - get a pair of whethers, run our fencing, and go. Alpacas and llamas also crossed our minds but are out of our budget just yet. Heritage breeds appeal to me, but are uncommon in my area which makes breeding them interesting. I really do not want to keep a buck and some does just yet, as well. Down the road, I would love that, and maybe I can find someone to split the cost of a beautiful buck to be able to do just that.
(Colin - what I meant by petting zoo-esque was exactly what you described - I don't want to be a prisoner to a dozen goats...some of the pictures I saw of (what the authors were calling) "small scale farming" reminded me of puppy mills! It was just bad. Too many animals on not enough space...poor things.)