A pattern and a confession

Last week I mentioned how I was going to sign up for the goat hypothermia class with Kathy at HMFF?

The class was up and rolling as of Monday. Today we received an e-mail detailing the pattern for Kathy's ever so cute little lamb/kid coats.
Which I promptly forwarded to my MIL

*Gasp*

Why?

This is the confession part...

I can't knit

*double GASP*

Yeah, I know. I have all these great plans that may or may not include getting animals like sheep, alpacas, and angora rabbits. Maybe even some angora goats.
All fiber animals.
And yet I myself can't knit.

Growing up I can remember my mother knitting me exactly one sweater. I also remember getting yelled at if you talked while she was doing this. "BE QUIET I NEED TO COUNT!!!"- My super crafty mother got right stressed out by knitting. In fact after she finished the sweater, I don't recall seeing her ever knit anything else.
This is probably why I have no idea how to knit.

I was absolutely in love with a Patons pattern  called Sally Secretary Monkey. I bought it and begged my MIL to knit me one. Which she did and I got got for Christmas. Awesome gift!

My favorite part is her little high heels.

Anyways, I can't knit. I've made my confession I feel better.
Okay not really.
One of my goals for 2011 is to learn, at least be able to knit a scarf by the end of the year? We'll see.
I don't suppose you could just raise fiber animals for the fun of raising the animals and barter/sell/trade all of the fleece/fur/wool???
Yeah, probably not really the point.

But right now I've talked my MIL into making me a couple of little goat coats. Because I've learned 2 very interesting facts from the workshop so far.

1) Kids can get hypothermia at any point in the year. They go from being inside Mom at a comfy 103 degree F. temp. to being dropped on a barn floor at whatever the temperature outside is sitting at.

and number 2 has nothing to do with why she needs to knit them for me, but it was an interesting fact about goat coats I thought I'd share.
2) They need to be made from Acrylic yarn. -because you can't use real wool. A baby animal can't smell even slightly like another animal to a new mom.
Something I totally wouldn't have thought of, pretty interesting huh?

drive by egging

It sounds worse than it was...
actually we were out for a drive on Sunday afternoon, and I noticed a place a little up the highway had a few alpacas, Lamas and on closer inspection goats out in pastures around the front yard. Plus they had a sign that read

"Eggs 3 dollars a doz.

Bunnies 15 dollars

Kittens 10 dollars"

After we we're done our little tour around, I convinced Chris that we needed to pull into their driveway. "we'll just stop to buy some eggs, and that'll get us in the door to ask a few questions!"

There was a kid (and by that I mean a boy probably around 14- because I'm old now and everyone who's under 25 is a kid to me) who was coming out of one of the gates when we pulled in. I asked him for some eggs. and as He ran to the house to retrieve them I made a big deal of Nathan wanted to get out and see the goats. As I paid for the eggs and watched Nathan receive goat kisses through the fence (yuck). I pepper the kid with questions. About how much they ate? If they were always in this pen or rotated around?

I was surprised when he said the goats (4 of them) would probably go through an entire bale of hay in a month. - those huge round bales! At least in the winter. I'm still trying to work out the math on that. But if those bales are about 100 dollars, and there is probably 5 months a year minimum that they need to be fed from a bale...adding this up...I'm not seeing how raising goats or sheep is really economically feasible. There's really no room for a profit, if you pay for hay and feed...but a baler is huge money too!

I'm no math whiz, and I am taking this on the estimate of a 14 year old...but I'm getting a little worried these animals may just be more pets or really expensive lawn mowers.

oh... and the bunnies they had for sale?

Soooooo cute. I was hard for me to put it down.

and Chris is no help "as long as you look after it" was his only comment.

but I had to be practical. We have no cages and were really not set up for rabbits yet.

and after taking to the kid a little longer I was also very concerned about their breeding "program" if you could call it anything of the sort.

He informed me that there should be more bunnies from 2 different rabbits before the end of the month. "yep, we have new bunnies about every 30 days"

ummm...that's not exactly reassuring. Especially when I said we wouldn't be taking a bunny today he started to try and sell me on a kitten. ( I think the kids probably get their spending money from these animals because he was sure convinced I should take some animal). He told me that they were keeping a few of the newest kittens, but he'd bring out the ones that were for sale and again there would be more kittens in a few weeks.

And all I could think was, your keeping kittens from this batch? are you getting rid of the male that fathered the kittens?

And I started to have serious concerns about inbreeding from this operation, that the kids were probably in charge of.

But it was interesting to see. And I think I'll probably do drive ins like that again.

So be forewarned if your in our area and don't want to see me pulling into your driveway with a million questions don't bait me by putting out a sign that your selling anything. Because I've decided that's like putting out a welcome mat. Especially if you have sheep, or goats or even alpacas. Your just asking to have me roll up one of these days!

ohhh I'm so smart

or at least I like to think I'm smart.
But I think I've come up with a plan!

You see more than one person was concerned about me becoming a "farmer' that I don't have the heart to part with animals and I would end up with dozens and dozens of pets. everything from chickens to cattle.

but I think I may have just stumbled upon the solution to this.

ALPACA,

SHEEP

and ANGORA RABBITS

all three can be raised for fibre, which is harvested from the animal, and you still get to keep your "pet"
The alpacas and the sheep will need the PID numbers that I was talking about in an earlier post. but the rabbits (I think- unless they are being raised for meat) don't require the PID. just rabbit hutches...oh and smart me, I even have a book on how to build rabbit cages ~ can you guess what Chris new job is going to be on his next 4 off?

I have a couple e-mails out to the English Angora breeders I could find in web searches...so we'll see where this new train of thought goes.

A new animal obsession

We've been discussing SHEEP -for quite sometime. Other than I think the pastures need some work and we don't actually have a trailer or a trailer hitch for that matter, to start transporting animals yet.
But then I was on Kijiji this morning looking for another dog, and came across these guys...

Aren't they the cutest?

2 young male alpacas-best part? FREE
so I did some quick research
apparently ALPACAS are raised for their hair- which contains no lanolin- so is hypoallergenic.
They also only cost about the equivalent of a dog to feed.
They do well when mixed with sheep or goats, and you can comfortable have between 5 to 10 per acre- making them a perfect acreage pet/animal.
but the awesome news for us, is that they are supposedly really easy to transport....

"They are stress resistant, load and travel calmly and can be transported in the family mini van, station wagon, utility vehicle, or horse trailer. Some breeders have been known to transport their alpacas in small planes. Once enroute, the alpaca lies down and enjoys the ride."

COOL- another use for a Minivan!

anyways, I guess the owner already has someone coming out to look on Sunday, so we we're asked to call back Sunday and see if they'd been "adopted" or not. So we probably won't end up with these cuties, but the research was worth the time and kind of interesting anyways