What We Feed the Dogs

It seems, more and more people ask us what we feed the dogs.

First off, we show and race our dogs - this gives them an even higher nutritional need than the average house dog. We also have one working dog, that is not a pet but a protector of our goats, she is out there no matter the weather and must be in good shape to fend off any crazy creatures that would like to snack on the little goats in our herd. She needs to be in peak shape and health all of the time. So, with those things in mind, people always wonder how we manage to not only feed them - but feed them well.

I will admit that we started to feed a combination of raw and kibble to help not only cut down on the cost of kibble, but to also add the extra calories and nutrients they need to compete (or do their job) well.

I really should add pictures to this post - so I will try to get some.

Here is what we feed them:

1. Taste of the Wild Kibble - I buy two bags of different types (usually fish and a heartier meat like bison) and mix them together. Each bag runs about $50.
2. Potatoes - I buy in bulk 10 pounds for $2; sometimes I find better deals and jump on them as we go through about 5 pounds a week
3. Yogurt - I buy Nancy's with live cultures in the biggest tub they have.
4. Wheat Germ (this is only ok if your pooch is not allergic to wheat - which a lot are) - I buy it in the bulk food section for $0.90 pound
5. Coconut Oil - This is expensive and I use it sparingly about $7 for a little more than a pint sized jar.
6. Peanut Butter - I buy in the big tub and look for the cheapest available (usually about $6)
7. Eggs -  We get ours right out of our hen house
8. Goat Milk (this is different than cow milk as cow milk will cause lactose intolerance issues in dogs) - This is what started our love of goats. Their milk is amazing and the dogs love it.
9. Pineapple - either chunks or juice (we have one pooch that likes to sample "yuckies" in the yard - this is to stop that behavior and is working quite well). Juice is cheaper, but I buy chunks for at least once a week feeding. Also, with juice - make sure you are buying real juice and not a human juice substitute with a lot of sugar. 
10. Pumpkin (we make this ourselves and freeze it in ice cube trays for ease of using) - This is super easy to make and very cheap when you do. Cut the pumpkin up into chunks, bake until soft, put the pieces in a blender and puree it. Viola! Freeze until ready to use
11. Healthy leftovers (ie baked or steamed veggies, steak, and things of this nature) - This is a hard one for us as we divide up healthy leftovers between the dogs, goats, and chickens. So, this is not an often occurrence.

After working it out, our mix works out to average about $0.75 a feeding per a dog per day, but I will admit it takes a lot more time than just dishing up kibble and you need to do your own research about calorie needs and how many are in each food item for your dog - to make sure you are reaching proper nutrition.

Now, let me explain how we feed it out.

Each meal (we only feed once a day out of a bowl - I'll explain in a minute) I give everyone an appropriate amount of Kibble - I have calculated out how many calories our dogs need to be fit and I give everyone between a half and three cups of dog food and subtracted it out of their calorie needs.

Then I microwave the potatoes and chunk them up into their bowls, everyone gets between a whole potatoe and half a potatoe - again depending on their calorie needs.

I then add a spoonful of Yogurt, Peanut Butter, and half a spoonful of Coconut Oil. I sprinkle wheat germ on top about a tablespoon per a bowl. I add one raw egg to everyones dish, either a splash of pineapple juice or three chunks, two tablespoons of pumpkin, and any left overs they are going to get. Then, I add enough Goat Milk to the mix that it is soupy.

The peanut butter has a lot of calories, so either add more or less depending on dogs needs, but I never give more than two tablespoons as it is not what I want my dogs filling up on.

As I mentioned before, the above is what they get once a day as the bulk of their diet. Then throughout the day, we do fun training exercises that always involve food. These training sessions never last more then 10 minutes a dog at a time (but there will be multiple throughout the day), I keep them short and fun - something they get very excited over. During these training exercises I will treat with raw veggies (like carrots or brocolli), kibble pieces, some natural dog treats we buy at the pet store, deli meat, and occasionally gold fish (the cracker). I go over whatever training needs to happen - in our house it tends to be "Show Dog" training. Our dogs love to show, because "Who Wants to Be A Show Dog?" is their favorite game. I fully admit to even letting them on the table/counter to be stacked during this game - which is the best canine pleaser of them all.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Dry, Itchy Pet Skin

Alright, it is time to talk about this Idaho weather! Being in the Treasure Valley, we have been lucky - really mild winter. Mostly dry with very few rain/snow bursts that make it seem lovely (except the mud that is left in its wake), but it is causing all of the farm-ily to become crazy itchy, dry, flaky skinned beasts!

So, I would like input on what everyone is doing to combat this problem?

Let me tell you what I have been doing. I would like to forward this with - Our war against the problem is a losing battle. The itch is winning and I have a lot of casualties to try and heal.

First, we are feeding supplements and minerals - they aren't specifically designed for skin issues, but everyone has free access to them (goats and horses, Ill get to dogs in a minute). Second, I have been free feeding the coats a grass hay mix free choice - this has helped with distraction.

The horses are sprayed down with a coat conditioner (Cowboy Magic or a generic human conditioner mixed with water) when I find an itchy spot, but mostly I have been leaving their blankets on them and fixing any holes as needed (I am becoming an excellent horse blanket fixer!). To up my blanket fixing skills I have been sewing them with my sewing machine, placing patches as needed, and lastly supergluing/hot gluing the seams for water protection and added strength. This method has been working, I haven't had to fix old tears near as much since I started gluing. I am thinking of adding some coat conditioning supplements to their diet, but without more research I have yet to find one that is cost effective.

For goats, they are such mouthy little beasts :) that I hate putting things on their coats that they could ingest. But, I have resolved to finding a, as natural as possible, conditioner to spray them with. I only have one very itchy girl, so I have added oil to her daily grain in hopes it'll help.

Lastly, the dogs... I only have one having hair/itchy problems and nothing seems to be helping her. I have added eggs to her diet, coconut oil to her diet, spray her with doggy conditioner, bathe her with itch-free shampoo/conditioner, and when it got very bad the vet prescribed steroids to get it under control. He thinks her problems are more than just dry skin - she may have allergies. We ruled out diet based allergies, so it must be something in the air or something she is recently coming in contact with that we cannot figure out. Nothing has changed to make her this bad, except the weather. I am hoping we can figure out something for her, but allergies can be very hard.

If anyone has dealt with any of the above skin issues (I realize I have about 3 consistent readers but maybe one of you have some insight to share), I would love your feedback. What has worked for you? Did it work quickly or did it have to build up?

Looks Like Babies Are on Their Way!

As I previously posted, I was trying to establish how to get the goats bred. I finally figured out the best way, bring the buck home! We bought ourselves the nicest (both in looks and personality) buck. Although he is not a Saanen, we have decided this year to breed for "Snubians" or "Saabians" as some people call them. These kids should have great milk production based on both maternal and paternal lines, but they will also have (hopefully) an increase in butterfat from their Nubian heritage. That means, more CHEESE!

We are expecting around eight to ten kids this year. They will all be registerable with ADGA, and we will happy to do that for anyone intersted in purchasing them. If you are interested, please let me know and I will happily send you photos and pedigree lines along with LA scores that we have (or will have in the near future).

As soon as the weather clears up around here, I am planning on taking pictures of everyone to post - but as apparent - you will need to bare with me as my blogging skills are less than desirable.

This is our Nubian buck: Thunder Ridge HN Wasabi. Click here to get to his pedigree and LA scores. He has covered our three registered American Saanens, one recorded NOA Saanen, and a registered second generation Mini-Toggenburg. As we have a mixture of girls to choose from, please don't hesitate to contact us for more details.

It's That Time of Year

Time to start making fall breeding plans (for the goats) and spring breeding plans (for the horses). Interestingly enough, I have a solid spring plan before the fall one.. tssk on me!

So for the spring, I have the two lovely ladies lined up for a breeding to an up and coming star. This year (being as it is our first year to have our own foals and not someone else's), I decided to breed for half Andalusians. I am very excited as there are a number of registries that they qualify for including the Andalusian (IALHA) Registry - where they will receive a half bred number. Also, it is my ultimate goal to get into Andalusians and this is my starting point. As this develops more, I am sure I will have lots to discuss.

For the fall breeding plans, I had a solid plan that is not as solid as I assumed. We have a small herd of dairy goats (Saanens) and were planning on having them covered by a gentleman's buck about 20 minutes away. His buck is very nice with good proven lines and would cross with our lines beautifully. I was very excited. The problem is we keep  driving the girls back and forth and they are never in that perfect moment to allow him to breed. They show every sign of being in heat, but some how it's just not right on timing. We are now a solid month past when I wanted to get them bred and many gas miles into this - so we are trying to come up with a back up plan quickly. Our back up plan include using LH to get a more perfect timing of their heat, but this will cost almost as much as buying a decent buck as our vet won't prescribe it without coming out on a farm call or breaking down and buying a buck to cover our girls.  The other option I have was to buy a cheap buck and use him as more of a tease then take the girls over to the registered buck to get the job done...Of course, we are running out of time and I need to get this worked out yesterday. So, here's to getting this worked out!

If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know! I have a buck rag and I have been watching them for signs of heat (which they are showing) but somehow I am missing the sweet spot where she will let the buck do his job...

I Guess They Read The Blog

I would like to update everyone on the terrible chickens. They obviously were alerted to the blog and their lack of ability to pay rent, as shortly after the post about them we have started receiving four eggs a day (one from each) and even more recently we have received as many as five eggs a day (someone is making up for lost time)!

I am not sure of the change of heart, but I cannot be more happy!

The Chickens at Agrestic Farms

I absolutely fail!

I said I would become a better blogger, and I am trying desperately, but it seems that I cannot commit. I need to write the topics down that I stumble upon. I need to develop an evening ritual that includes writing just a short piece to keep this blog current. I need to have exciting things to discuss!

But, to put this all behind us, and maybe inspire what very few people who have come across this blog to continue to read, I am going to write about the happenings on our farm. Today, I am going to cover our chickens...

To my beloved boyfriend's surprise, at the beginning of the summer I got him five wonderful chickens. They are the sex linked kind and are suppose to be wonderful egg layers.

For weeks we kept them in the laundry room. They were too little for being outside as it was cold and our chicken coop does not inspire confidence in its ability to house babies of any sort, but maybe the stray cat variety. About the time they developed most of their adult plumage, we decided the weather was decent, they were starting to escape their box easily, and it was just plain time for them to go out.

So we put them out in the coop. For the first two weeks, we kept them locked to the inside of the coop. Than we opened their little coop door to the chicken run area and let them explore. To our dismay, they opted to avoid the big world for another week, only looking outside longingly. Than, one day they took to the outside like stars do to the sky! They flocked, they chased bugs, they dug up the ground! They turned into quite the most beautiful brown and black chickens I ever did see (my proximity to the situation should just be over looked...).

Well, now they are at least four months old, if not older. They still haven't graced us with any eggs. We lovingly feed and water them, put a roof over their heads, and talk to them when ever we are outside. Why haven't they bothered to leave us anything in return? I thought chickens laid eggs around 16 weeks. It seems like they are taking advantage of us!

Than, to make matters worse, one of the lovely ladies has developed the most beautiful tail and cone.... That's right! We have a roster in our hen house. I realize that sexing chickens is not exactly the easiest thing to do, but isn't that why they developed sex linked chickens - to take the guess work out of it? I feel absolutely horrible about this situation. He has started to crow in the last week and we never intended to have a boy. I am just not sure what to do. There are hundreds of roosters on craigslist to be given away and I am too much of an animal lover that if it doesn't come in a package (unrecognizable) and surely not doted on by me that I cannot eat it. I just do not know what to do. As of this minute,we are letting him "fatten up," but that is just code for letting us get more attached to the little booger. So what does everyone else do with their unintended boys? If there are too many to give him away, and I can not imagine eating him, what else can I do with him?

One Day At A Time

So, after running a lot of numbers, my original plan is not going to work. It was far to expensive to take that approach and I need to come up with a less straining one.

Currently, because it makes more sense to not jump in over our heads with the farm, we are taking each day as it comes and are waiting for the perfect solution to come around. I know, crossing my fingers here to add a little luck, that our farm-break is going to come. It will turn into something that can support us, but it is going to take time. I am still exploring other alternative ideas we keep coming up with, but until the one comes around, we are just taking it one day at a time.

Here's to our Lucky Farm-Break, someday it will come!