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!
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