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Ever since I was a little girl I've been fascinated with animals and farming in general. Having a little farm with chickens and goats, my own fruit trees, vegetable gardens and a small piece of land is a dream that came true for me when we moved here a few years ago.
Farming in the desert comes with a lot of challenges, and I am glad I started out small. It's a lot more work than I imagined, and it is a work in progress. Depending on the season, the challenges change. In the winter we deal with short daylight hours, freezing water bowls and making sure all the animals have shelter from the cold and the frequent high wind storms. In the summer, the priority is keeping the drinking water cool and keeping everybody cool by providing shade, misters, wading pools and more.
The goats are perfectly happy in the summer if they have some shade and plenty of fresh water. Our winters here don't seem to be a problem for them, but no matter what the season, goats need protection from the infrequent rain; they definitely hate to get wet. Goats are also rather destructive and little busy-bodies that never miss anything. Any weakness in the fencing, and they will find it.
On two occasions I found my goats outside their pen and the fencing looked totally undisturbed until I put them back into their pen and watched them push through an area where the fasteners that hold the fence to the poles had broken off. My goats are dairy goats, and while I am not milking anybody at this time, it's something I am planning on doing again in the future. I was milking two goats for a while and I loved the fresh milk, homemade yogurt and cream for my coffee.
The chickens, on the other hand, have a much harder time with the heat than the goats. At the time of this writing we have had two summers with the chickens. My first batch has made it through two summers already, the second batch made it through the first summer last year, and my newest additions will be added to the flock soon. While chickens don't fly as well as other birds, they are quite capable of flying up and over a 5 foot fence; mine have even mastered 6 foot fences. Luckily, they usually stay where I want them to be. I also learned quite a bit about getting baby chicks, raising them and then finding out that what I thought were all girls ended up that 2 of them were roosters, so I learned a lot about roosters too. I am pretty sure that my most recent batch of chicks that I am raising has another rooster in it too. I have already found somebody who will take this one if it is really a rooster.
The farming adventure doesn't stop here, like I said, I am glad I only started with currently 5 goats that are a very small breed, and a small flock of chickens and my guardian dogs. This way I can deal with the challenges and work out all the kinks before expanding. I did a lot of research prior to inquiring any of my animals to make sure I could care for them properly, however there is nothing like the hands-on experience to make one aware that each location and situation is unique and requires an approach that works for that particular situation.
Just recently I got my generator hooked up and all set up to run the well pump and power the garage in case we ever have a power failure in the summer. Water is absolutely necessary to survive here in the desert at all times, but in the summer it is more important than anything else to be able to run misters, wet the ground, fill pools and keep out fresh cool water to survive our deadly temperatures. The water is also much needed to keep my shade and fruit trees alive.
My livestock guardian dogs are an important part of farming. Many people in my area who have goats and/or poultry have sadly had attacks on their animals both from domestic stray dogs and wild predators such as hawks and coyotes, bobcats and the occasional cougar. Losing any animal to such an attack is a huge loss, both emotionally and economically. Losing just one chicken means losing at least 200 eggs a year, that is a lot, losing a good dairy goat like the one I had for a while means losing over 250 gallons of milk in a year. That does not even take into account the emotional loss and the efforts one has put into that animal to get it to the point of being productive.
Some of my farming goals are to grow more of my own foods, and possibly have enough to barter with others who do the same for things that I can't produce. I would also like to be able to do all this and do it in an environmentally responsible fashion, using solar energy whenever possible, controlling insects and weeds with poultry and goats (the weeds) instead of harsh chemicals, reducing the amount of edible items that would otherwise go into the landfill by feeding it to my chickens. My livestock guardian dogs are vital for the safety of my goats and chickens. and I plan to continue to be actively involved in preserving these magnificent dogs.
More and more American farmers and ranchers are learning about these dogs and that they minimize livestock losses from predators. This is especially important as we are encroaching on the habitat of the wild animals so we have to find a way to co-exist. In the past, American farmers had to resort to killing predators that harmed their stock; today the use of livestock guardian dogs brought to us from the Old World proves to be a workable solution not to have to kill predators because we can prevent the predators from getting near the stock by using livestock guardian dogs. More info on this type of dog can be found here www.lgd.org.
