This one goes out to the people who want to be new homesteaders! To the ones that have spent a lot of there time reading post or articles about homesteading, to the ones that watch videos from their favorite homestead Youtuber, and to the ones that have done as much research as they possibly can on the subject.
We have been homesteading for three years now! What does that mean? That means we are still kind of new to homesteading but we have three years of learning what not to do under our belts.
I wanted to take this time to talk to the people who are getting ready to start their dream of being a homesteader but still have no idea on what to do. So this is me talking to you!
So I’m just guessing here but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that one of the first things you have thought about is having animals on your homestead. I bet you have even talked about what kind of animals to have and all the benefits to having the animals you have picked to have on your homestead. Am I right? I can’t lie to you we were the same way! We were so excited to get animals we were going to be real homesteaders!
But… I have to ask you. Have you taken the time to learn every thing you can about all the different animals you want to get? Have you learned about all the things that can go wrong with your animals? I’m not trying to be a buzz kill but I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes we did. We don’t want to see you bring this animal in and it become a part of the family and then something happen because you was not ready. This has happened to us and it almost killed us! Now what do I mean by that well set back and let me tell you a little story.
My wife and I read about all the benefits to having a family cow and how great the raw milk is for you. We even read about them being a great joy to have on the homestead. So it hit us WE NEED A COW IT WILL BE GREAT! We also read that they need hay, oats, and a mineral block to keep them happy and healthy. So we did all of that and even got a cute little head harness for the cow that we called Coco. We loved that cow it was truly apart of our family and Coco really was a joy to have. But it was time to move and we went to a better homestead. We packed up and had Coco in tow but in doing so we took Coco from the grass he was use to eating to a completely different type of grass and the hey was also different. We noticed that CoCo’s little belly was getting bigger and we were like look at you putting on weight way to go! But the sad truth was Coco was not putting on weight. Coco was suffering from early sings of bloat. We had no idea we just thought Coco was finally getting bigger. We had no idea what bloat was, what caused it, or that it was treatable if caught early enough. If only we would have known we would still have Coco with us to this day. But we went out the next morning to check on Coco and to feed and that’s when we seen poor Coco on his side dead and his poor belly was so bloated that it was almost starting to rip.
But none of the books we read said anything about animals like cows, sheep, goat, and many others being Ruminant animals. Ruminant animals are mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally though microbial actions. Now when you take an animal like this and you change their feed really fast it will mess up the microbial actions going on in side of them. This makes it so the animal to not be able to release the gases inside of them causing the animal to bloat up and die if not caught.
But you would think grass is grass right? But as we found out it can be the smallest things that can be the difference between life and death for your animals.
I am asking you new homesteaders just starting out and you may have no idea about animals to please start off slow learn as much as you can about what ever animal you are going to have. Don’t think you can just learn as you go because that is not doing the animals any favors.
We know that about 90% of homesteaders use there animals for food and we are included. But you can still give that animal the best life you can until its time for them to serve their purpose, by just knowing everything you can about your new family member.
RIP LITTLE COCO
