We have goats and the hoof trimming all depends on what they walk on. Ours are in a pasture so we have to trim hooves twice a month. It doesnt take long and we use EMT Sissors(dont know what they are called but they will cut thru a penny very good sissors)and a hoof hook to get out all of the mud and poo. Their hoofs grow just like our fingernails do. As to fencing we have two types of fencing. The 2 acres they graze in is enclosed with cattlefencing and then we had to run a hot wire along the inside about their height to keep them in. If I had it all to do over again I would use a different type of fencing because the goats can still get their head thru the cattle fencing and get caught. We lost one nanny that way she strangled her self in the fence and we have had to remove our other nanny 3 times. We keep a close eye on her. Our billy is too big to get his head thru. We also have chickens and they do need their own areas although we do let our chickens free range daily to keep them out of the coop. One of our coops (We have 3 separate ones)that my husband built has a window in it so we keep that open to circulate air inside the hen house, they each have their own totally enclosed chicken yard. But if that gets muddy we let them out into the pasture. They learn to go in every night at dusk and we have a trap door system as they go in we lower the door from the outside and they are safely in their houses at night. Right now we have 25 young birds that are still learing to go in at night and we still have to on occasion herd them up their little ramp into the chicken house while someone on the outside lowers the door as the last one go's in. We have ducks (they are messsy)but all animals are confined to 2 1/2 acre fencend in area. They are lots of fun......but takes a commitment especially in the winter whey you have no running water at the barn and you have to carry HOT water up to the barn twice a day in the winter so that they have running water.......Josette

Laurier, I think I can explain what you are missing. Northwest Florida is very similar to my climate and not at all like Central or South Florida which rarely has frosts or freezes. The difference is that you have your seedlings in a more controlled (warmer temperature) environment. The person producing the video is obviously letting them grow outside in pots all year around with minimal protection from the cold. This means that they will definitely go into dormancy from around Thanksgiving (or perhaps before) until March each year. In pots, they will be dormant even longer than they would in the ground. Certainly, seeedlings will bloom in less time if kept in a warmer environment with more light than our winters tend to provide. The tradeoff is in the numbers of seedlings that you can grow outside, in pots, as opposed to inside or in a temperature controlled greenhouse under lights. I hope that helps you to understand the difference in growth rates. Larger numbers with slower growth outside vs. smaller numbers inside, under lights... They appear to be giving the pod parent name with no indication of pollen parents. In my opinion, that is better than giving a pod parent name and saying it is crossed with the pollen of an unlikely cross due to insufficient controls and documention. We all have a lot to learn. I started learning hybridizing daylilies. That made it easier to understand hippeastrum. BTW, daylilies are the same in regards to dormancy in seedling years. If you can manage to keep them warm and under lights during that first year or two, they will bloom much quicker. Hope that helps... Ann

Did you ever find homes for your babies? Just curious.

I heard a discussion of this on NPR last night, and if I recall correctly it's gonna make all the antibiotics Rx only. Right now you can walk in to the store and buy antibiotics for your herd without much hassle; if this goes through, you'll need the vet to okay it. Now, even though you won't be able to administer the drugs for the purpose of increasing weight gain, you can still give them for the purposes of 'preventing disease'--which seems to be a pretty big loophole. The success of this program might well depend on how strict or lax the local vets were about handing out prescriptions.