Hello and welcome back to the Gubba podcast! I’m Gubba, a first time homesteader following in the footsteps of my homesteading forbears. In this podcast I discuss prepping, homesteading, and everything in between.
Today I am going to be diving into a much needed homestead update. The seasons are changing, and I thought it could be educational and informative to discuss the ins-and-outs of my homestead this past summer.
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And let’s dive in!
What is homesteading?
So this past summer was my third summer on the homestead. Each summer brings a different flavor, and the more seasons I get under my belt here, the more confident I become in different aspects of homesteading.
My first summer was full of chaos with a milk cow, two rescued feral dogs I was training, and a garden that did not have a deer fence, so you can only imagine how that went.
My second summer I was much more grounded in my homestead, I got Nigerian dwarf goats and although I dealt with a few escapes they were much easier to manage in my opinion than a milk cow. If you are curious about caring for goats, I have a podcast episode that dives into it.
I finally got my deer fencing up last summer, so I was able to plant an orchard of a variety of fruit trees. Now this past summer, I’m not quite sure what I will shape it as in a year or two from now like these other summers, but we will discuss and maybe come to a conclusion together at the end.
How to care for baby goats and pregnant goats?
The end of spring brought in new life to the homestead. My three Nigerian dwarf goats all had three babies, so I had 9 new little goats on the homestead. I gave away seven and kept two.
I realized doing that, that I don’t love having people come to my homestead to see animals and decide if they want them or not. I’m a private person, so I’m not sure how ill manage this next year. Maybe a crate and a meetup location. I think I still might give away two of the little bucklings I kept. I thought it would be fun to keep two of the cool looking bucklings, but bucks are a lot of work and they smell so bad.
The babies have been fun to have around as they run around and jump in the air, plus they help me milk out their moms. Goat deliveries went well except one goat, Annie, almost died from milk fever. Her calcium levels dropped and she wouldn’t eat anything. I acted fast with b12 injections, electrolyte drinks, and nutria-drenches and she lived. Besides that, everything went well this spring with my first time with baby goats and pregnancies.
How do you raise chickens?
This summer season also began with raising baby chicks. I bought seven from a local homesteader, and I was given four from a friend. Here on the homestead, I put the chicks in the coop when they are big enough then they become free range chickens and fight to survive.
It is kind of interesting because I have a friend who has backyard city chickens and her chickens are so calm, they don’t fly, and they follow her around. My chickens are flying all over the yard, only my originals from 2022 come to me, and they are just feral.
I understand though because it is survival out here with owls, hawks, and not to mention my worst predator….one of my dogs. Yes, one of my dogs has been the culprit of so many of my chicken flock deaths, sadly. The call has been coming from inside the house on my homestead, and I have been struggling with it.
How to protect my chickens from predators?
This dog was a rescue beginning of 2023, and I have not been able to train the chicken-killing out of him which has been incredibly frustrating. I started with 11 new chickens this season, and I am down to 2 or 3 of those originals surviving. He didn’t kill all of them as some just simply disappeared, but I witnessed many attacks and saved as many chickens as I could.
No, I am not letting my dog just willy-nilly take out my chickens. I have 5 dogs, and the other 4 all killed 2 chickens before they understood no more and have no killed anymore on a whim. It’s been years since their last chicken kill, but this latest rescue has not learned like they have. I am afraid he is incapable of it.
I thought I had success because I went a few months with no attack then one day he got the zoomies and ran through the chickens and them running set him into instinct. Both of my parents on different occasions witnessed him attacking a chicken and me having to get the chicken from him. It has been a nightmare in that realm.
How to train a dog to not kill chickens?
He has a collar on him for tracking that has shock as well. When he goes instinct mode, he doesn’t respond or care about shock. All of my other dogs immediately stopped—he doesn’t.
One of my dogs responded being told she was a “mean girl” and she felt so bad she has never touched a chicken again. This craigslist rescue didn’t grow up around chickens, but neither did my two other rescues and they learned not to kill chickens rather quickly.
So needless to say, this summer has been brutal when it comes to chickens and this particular dog. When the chickens go into his kennel area, depending on the day, they may make it out. If he gets excited and runs through chickens, a chicken may not make it out.
Two out of the four chickens I recently pulled from him have survived. My new grey rooster that I got earlier this season did not, sadly. My grey blue egg layer didn’t survive either. I don’t want to rehome this dog, as I am aware my homestead is his home and my other dogs are his family, so I’m just trying to be as vigilant as possible. It’s frustrating though because I love these chickens and watching these ruthless attacks is so upsetting.
Speaking of this dog, he also escaped one night this summer and went missing. Having a dog go missing here is a nightmare because farmers love to shoot dogs, so you can imagine my panic. His collar had died, and he was nowhere to be seen.
I alerted my neighbors who searched their property, and found nothing. I slept on the couch with the windows open, so I could hear if he returned. Around 3am that night, I hear his whimper across the field and go driving over to find that he was at my neighbors with their feral dogs on a carcass of animal entrails.
My neighbors, for whatever reason, butchered an animal and put the entrails right on the fence line. Which I just don’t understand and isn’t considerate as a neighbor because they know I have dogs, and of course that will attract them.
It’s really disgusting actually.
How to make your homestead safe?
One of the first projects I did the first summer season I was here was I fenced my entire property to make it a safer place for my dogs and fences make good neighbors.
I seriously love having my fence. Obviously, as the ground shifts through the season I have to patch holes or when my neighbors leave piles of guts, they will find their way out. So yes, I found him and wondered like…who just leaves guts out when there are feral animals like bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and more just roaming about.
Building that fence was one of the best investments into my property and sanity. No more dogs getting out or animals getting in, for the most part. So this has been my adventure with that particular dog this summer, still a work in progress as you can tell.
Dr. Phil and Conspiracy Theories
Right at the beginning of this summer, I got invited to go on Dr. Phil to discuss conspiracy theories. I’m not embarrassed or nervous to discuss them on my social media, so I figured why not go on Dr. Phil to chat about them too.
I told Dr. Phil I thought he was a part of the illuminati and that he was a clone to his face which was pretty funny. To be honest, I genuinely believe that and I’m not scared to share it. That entire show experience was wild, and I’m grateful I got to experience it. The episode just launched, and you can find it on Dr. Phil Primetime.
What is faith deconstruction?
This summer also started off with a bang with me going through a faith deconstruction. I entered this phase of my life a few months prior when I experienced systemic abuse in the church I was attending.
You may be wondering what a faith deconstruction is. It is when you start to unravel your beliefs and critically examine what you hold to be true. You are unraveling your identity, and that is a difficult thing to do. I still believe in Jesus Christ, but I no longer hold other beliefs that I had that went along with this particular faith I was a part of. And I’m still processing it, daily.
The systemic abuse I experienced started this journey. At the time, I didn’t understand what I was going through until I started to dive beneath the surface. My local church leader lied to me, didn’t respect me (now I know it’s because I’m a woman) and then he tried to use Jesus to manipulate me.
Genuinely, I’m not a feminist where I’m a man hater or feel like I’m a victim because I’m a woman. That isn’t me at all. But I eventually analyzed this system root and stem and realized truly how mistreated women are, and well, I’m a woman.
Now, I have had months to process these events and see what happened. But going through it earlier this year was bewildering, and I felt isolated. I haven’t discussed this much on socials, maybe in a few tweets on X, but when I tell you this has been rough, it has been really rough. Many nights I have woken up and pondered through it.
God has opened my eyes to truth and continues to do so. It’s interesting because if I told anyone this who I went to church with they would genuinely believe it is Satan leading me astray, that I’m going to hell, and I’m a devil.
While I am in a better spot than I was in the beginning of summer, I’m not out of the woods by any means as I continue to explore my faith and who Jesus is. I might speak on this more in the future because listening to people who have gone through a similar situation has been a saving grace for me going through this. I’m also grateful to my mom who has listened to me through this journey and supported me every step of the way.
How to maintain a fruit orchard?
So along with taking a beating spiritually, I also took a beating in my garden this summer. Because of the wacky weather experienced here with winter cold blasts of -30 then a funky transition out of spring, I had two cherry trees in my orchard die and all three of my peaches came back stressed with their leaves only coming out on a few branches. I was sad because I love my trees, they are full of life and breathe life into the homestead, and I worked so hard to plant them. But I ended up bringing in more fruit trees into the orchard, and I have high hopes for next season.
How to heal a dog Achilles tendon injury?
Mid-season in July I had a freak accident on the homestead that resulted in an injured dog. This accident definitely took out my summer and changed the dynamics on my homestead.
One evening, a goat of mine decided to ram one of my dogs into a building which injured her leg. I didn’t know at first the extend of the damage, I just cleaned the wound the first night, but then the next day I noticed swelling and she couldn’t put her foot down.
I took her into the vet, they x-rayed and said no broken bones but were concerned about her tendons. Well, in order to decipher what’s going on with tendons, you need an ultra sound. No vet around me does ultra sounds on tendons. I ended up taking her to a pet rehab where the vet made a guess based on her calculations what she thought was wrong and thought maybe it was a partial achiles tear.
By now, my pup was putting weight on her foot and her foot was bendy. It looked like it would snap. I saw this vet twice and based off of her specific diagnosis, I was able to find a pet specialist six hours away that treated this kind of injury and I made an appointment and went in right away. I told the vet that I didn’t want to do surgery if possible, we discussed all of the options, and they took her in for an ultra sound.
He called me back and showed me in the room and said “I know you didn’t want to do surgery, that’s why I wanted to show you this personally.” And he showed me how one of her tendons was completely severed. He said this does require surgery but the good news was that I took such good care of it the previous two weeks it should be a clean surgery.
Her surgery came and went and I do believe her surgery was a miracle and I couldn’t help but picture Jesus in there with the surgeon because it went so well.
She is now in a cast and limited mobility for 8 weeks with checkups every 2 weeks. The checkups have been great and the vet said he expects a 95% recovery. She ended up getting PRP which are platelet rich plasma injections in her foot to help with tendon recovery. She eats a raw diet and I attribute that to her incredible recovery plus being surrounded by so much love.
To make matters complex on this, I actually share this dog with a friend. She is in her 70s, and we met on a hiking trail. I watch her dog when she travels the world, and we have become great friends.
When I tell people this they always ask “Was she mad when you told her that her dog was hurt?” and the answer is no, she was incredible. She was graceful, and we consulted together on a game plan for healing. She was an example to me in that situation because when I first called her the night of the x-rays saying there may be a bigger issue, I was crying and she said “have you never seen a three-legged dog? They are so happy.” So no, she has been great and we have been sharing her through the recovery process.
Like I said, this was a big chunk of my summer. I cried every day in July, and I’m not exaggerating. I cried because my pup was in pain, finding a specialist was difficult, many nights she couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t help.
I worried about her leg because she is an active dog, and I didn’t know what was in store. It ended up how it ended up because of the wrong diagnosis from the rehab vet I was able to find these specialists. And for that I am grateful and look at as a little mercy from God.
I never would’ve found these amazing vets if I hadn’t received a wrong diagnosis. So the latter half of my summer has been spent in dog rehab. Driving hours away from the homestead to get surgery and do check-ups. So grateful for parents who help me and watch my place while I am gone.
What is it like keeping goats?
With all of this situation being said, it definitely changed the dynamics I have with my goats. I struggled to be around them for a while because I was so upset at what happened.
It’s this one goat in particular who is just a nasty bully. I mean my dogs and goats are out all day together, all day, for the past year. But I do understand that animals are just animals and these are goats. I stopped letting this goat free-range and that changed the dynamics of feeding.
When my pup is here healing, I also don’t have my other goats free range because she has trauma from that event, rightfully so. And I don’t want the goats, who are friendly even, to come be around her and cause stress.
Do male goats smell?
So now, because my goats have been spoiled with being let out to free range beautiful grass and shrubs, they are upset being in their run. They scream, and I mean scream every time I step foot outside.
They have either associated the screaming with me getting them hay or they just scream to scream, and that has affected my peace. I can’t step outside and enjoy the birds or the views without screaming piercing my ear. So I’m figuring out how to mitigate that and I’ll reduce my herd and see where to go from there.
Along with that, this season my buck has smelled horrendous. To the point, I am gagging every time I walk by and smell his scent. The bucks urinate on themselves, and even just talking about it is twisting my stomach because the smell has been so vile this fall. I knew bucks smelled bad, but I didn’t want to deal with AI or renting a buck and last season wasn’t this bad.
I mean one night I was milking my goats and caught a strong whiff and just lost it. Like, my dinner was on the ground of the goat enclosure in about 10 seconds after smelling that. So that is another…goat problem.
My peace is being affected from the screaming and the horrendous stench. Homesteading growing pains I suppose.
My summer season did end on a high note my hives produced a ton of honey. All four survived winter which was incredible with how nasty the winter was. I ended up with about 15 gallons of honey that I will use to eat, cook and bake with, and to give away as gifts. It really was a joyous end to my summer after going through everything.
My pup is healing, I am learning how to move forward in my life, and the homestead continues to grow along with me, so I think this season has been about learning my limits and allowing myself to grow like the trees in my orchard.
I’m grateful for all of the seasons in my life, and even more grateful for those who are there for me. I hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you spending your time with me.
