The Freckled Farm Soap Company

Category: Fun Farm Facts Friday

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… May 29th

    Today is a goat fact that we get asked about often… Disbudding.

    Disbudding is when a baby goat’s horn buds are burned off to prevent them from growing a full set of horns. Kids are generally disbudded within the first week of their life. This may sound cruel, but it is important to the goat’s health, as well as the health of it’s herd mates and caretakers. Goats with horns will run into many problems. They can easily get stuck in fencing, which can strangle them or leave them open to predators. They can also hurt or even kill their herd mates or caretaker. It is quite dangerous to have a goat with horns around (I have heard many stories). Especially on dairy goat farms where goats are handled so much on a daily basis.

    Our farm vet disbuds our kids for us. This was not a procedure that I wanted to do on my own. She does it under anesthesia. The goats wake up about 30 minutes after the procedure acting totally normal. I have never had a problem with the goats acting like they were in pain or even phased by being disbudded.

    So while this isn’t a procedure that we look forward to it’s important to the health of our herd that it is done.

    Fias Co Farm has done an amazing job explaining the importance of disbudding – Check out THIS article.

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… May 22nd

    Today’s Fun Farm Fact is about chicken diets. Contrary to what you may see meat chicken breeders say (I’m not going to call out any companies… but you know who I am talking about) chickens should not be fed an all vegetarian diet! Chickens are omnivores. They love bugs and worms. They also will eat things as large as frogs, mice, and lizards. This protein is very important to their health. They need a balanced diet of greens, grains, and protein.

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… May 15th

    Here’s a fun little fact about llamas… Llama’s have somewhat unique bathroom habits. They pick 2 or 3 locations that they designate as their “bathrooms” and they will only go in those spots. On our farm there are several large piles of poop strategically placed throughout the pasture and one in the barn. The same spots they have been using since we got them 2 years ago. It most definitely makes mucking easier at the end of the day and keeps the pasture cleaner.

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… May 8th

    Last week I talked about goat population statistics. This week we are going to talk chicken population statistics. The numbers are quite staggering… There are 25 billion (that’s billion with a B) chickens in the world. There are more chickens than any other species of bird. In fact, there are more chickens than people on Earth!

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… May 1st

    For today’s Fun Farm Fact we are going to talk goat population statistics. There are 500 million goats in the world! A very large percentage of the world’s goat population is in developing countries. 170 million of them reside in China. 3 million, only a small fraction of the world’s population of goats, live in the United States, with Texas leading production. The largest importer of goats is the US, while the largest exporter is Australia. I’m thinking we need more goat farms in the US!

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… April 24th

    Today our fact is about goat milk!

    Goat milk is naturally homogenized. The cow milk that you buy at the grocery store is homogenized by the producers to keep the milk from separating. Because goat milk has smaller fat particles it is less prone to separating. This makes it much easier on your stomach, breaking down in 20 minutes as compared to the hour it takes for the fat particles of cows milk to break down.

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… April 17th

    It’s time to get back to the goats! Today’s Fun Farm Fact is goat related!

    By nature goats are not grazers. They are foragers. If given a choice they would prefer to be eating their way through bushes, brambles, and trees, instead of eating grass. When goats are strictly grazing on grasses they are also more likely to pick up parasites. Our girls are currently working their way through a half acre of blackberry brambles… and having a wonderful time doing it!

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… April 10th

    It’s time for a fun farm fact from one of our other farm animals… Our llamas!

    Llamas are in the same family with camels, so they share many similarities. One of these similarities is their tendency to spit when irritated. However it is rarely at their caretakers, more often than not it is at the other llamas around them. We have had them spit at us on occasion if we are messing with them, for vaccinations or hoof trimming, and they wanted to be left alone, but it doesn’t happen often. They generally give you plenty of warning before spitting, throwing their head back and making a gurgling sound as they pull up there cud, as if to say “back off!”

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… April 3rd

    It’s time to break up all the goat facts with a chicken fact! Today’s chicken fact was one that I found quite interesting…

    If you have several different roosters around your hens can/will breed with all of them, but they also have the ability to reject the sperm of roosters with whom they do not wish to reproduce. She can physically eject the sperm after they breed. This generally happens when the rooster is lower in the pecking order.

  • Fun Farm Fact Friday… March 27th

    This week we have one last goat kid fact to share with you: Standard goat kids, on average, weigh 6 pounds at birth. While they are tall they are also very lean. This weight can vary due to the size of the litter. In larger litters the kids will likely be smaller, and in single births it is likely that the kid will be larger.