Several readers have asked how much it costs to care for the animals.

All 5 goats hang out in the pasture (with the cows in the background)

I did not keep very close track of the specific recurring expenses for just the animals since we moved in so I do not currently have a very good estimate.  However, starting from January 1, 2016 I am going to keep close track of all of the normal recurring expenses for the animals and post the total costs periodically for those interested.

For those who are interested in such details, these costs won’t include any allocation of the cost of the land, property taxes, electricity to run the well pumps, costs of the farm sitter during trips or our time, but rather just straight out of pocket expenses of a recurring nature that are easily identifiable as connected to the animals. This also won’t include one-time infrastructure spending like the materials needed to build a feeding station or pen.

Click through for the current total and an update on the fiber processing.

So far in 2016, the running total is $32.36 for one bag of goat sweet feed and one goat mineral block. I’ll keep you updated periodically on the running total as the year progresses.

Socks Update:

Those of you wanting socks will need to wait a bit longer!

We were planning to send our mohair from the fall 2015 shearing to a mill to be processed into finished goods (in our case, socks). When we weighed the 3 bags of mohair, we had approximately 26 pounds total.  The minimum order size at the mill we were planning to use is 30 pounds of unwashed fiber.

One of the 3 bags of mohair after shearing.

As we were a little short, we weren’t able to send in our mohair for processing yet so we are just saving it up and will send it all in for processing after combining it with the spring 2016 shearing. We hope to have socks available by sometime in the summer 2016.