I cannot believe how fast time is passing here, We are already well into October and the autumn rains have arrived, as have the buckets, mops, goats and chickens.. Yes goats and chickens.
I have had a yearning for the goats for a while now, but have been patiently waiting for the living quarters and fencing to be finished, and now, finished it is.
We decided to fence off a section of the finca purely for livestock. We do not have a great deal of land roughly 3 acres, but it enough for us to be self sufficient and keep busy, without being overwhelming.
The goats are Nigerian Dwarf Goats, I have found that any unusual breeds of any animal are hard to find here in Extremadura, but the well known on line free ads paper milanuncios is full of goodies including Goats and luckily for me Nigerian Dwarf goats. Why Nigerian well first of all they are small, so less opportunity to escape over the fence. Secondly they are excellent pets and thirdly you can milk them, but for the moment these are an indulgence on my part and are pets, In time I hope to breed one and have babies and then milk but that is for the future. I was lucky that the guy that owned them was happy to bring them here to me, as you need a licence to carry livestock and we do not have one of those, he was utterly charming and was impressed with the girls new accommodation. He is also at the end of the phone should we need help. He did drop the hint that one of them (Matilda) could be pregnant, so we wait and see.
They have names
Matilda
Martha
Billy Jean
They are such fun, and so friendly and no they do not eat everything in site,in fact they are quite selective. They love the vine trimmings and they hate carrots they love the Peppers and foliage but not too keen on weeds
In addition we have chickens 9 of them. The plan was to buy pure breeds, In the UK I had pure breed chickens, and my plan here was to carry on, with a wide and varied flock, but fate took a hand and the other day we popped into the local feed store, where stuck in tiny cages and with chopped off beaks there was about thirty chickens, I am afraid heart ruled head and home 9 of them came, 4 grey 2 white and 3 brown.
They are very nervous and almost agoraphobic, which is after all understandable, they were born and raised in wire cages, feet never touched the soil, never scratched or dust bathed. So now they have the opportunity to do just that.
In a few weeks we will be getting three ducks.
That's it for us at the moment,
I'll leave you with some pictures
I have had a yearning for the goats for a while now, but have been patiently waiting for the living quarters and fencing to be finished, and now, finished it is.
We decided to fence off a section of the finca purely for livestock. We do not have a great deal of land roughly 3 acres, but it enough for us to be self sufficient and keep busy, without being overwhelming.
The goats are Nigerian Dwarf Goats, I have found that any unusual breeds of any animal are hard to find here in Extremadura, but the well known on line free ads paper milanuncios is full of goodies including Goats and luckily for me Nigerian Dwarf goats. Why Nigerian well first of all they are small, so less opportunity to escape over the fence. Secondly they are excellent pets and thirdly you can milk them, but for the moment these are an indulgence on my part and are pets, In time I hope to breed one and have babies and then milk but that is for the future. I was lucky that the guy that owned them was happy to bring them here to me, as you need a licence to carry livestock and we do not have one of those, he was utterly charming and was impressed with the girls new accommodation. He is also at the end of the phone should we need help. He did drop the hint that one of them (Matilda) could be pregnant, so we wait and see.
They have names
Matilda
Martha
Billy Jean
They are such fun, and so friendly and no they do not eat everything in site,in fact they are quite selective. They love the vine trimmings and they hate carrots they love the Peppers and foliage but not too keen on weeds
In addition we have chickens 9 of them. The plan was to buy pure breeds, In the UK I had pure breed chickens, and my plan here was to carry on, with a wide and varied flock, but fate took a hand and the other day we popped into the local feed store, where stuck in tiny cages and with chopped off beaks there was about thirty chickens, I am afraid heart ruled head and home 9 of them came, 4 grey 2 white and 3 brown.
They are very nervous and almost agoraphobic, which is after all understandable, they were born and raised in wire cages, feet never touched the soil, never scratched or dust bathed. So now they have the opportunity to do just that.
In a few weeks we will be getting three ducks.
That's it for us at the moment,
I'll leave you with some pictures
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