Rusted Gates Farm

Today I'm talking with Connie at Rusted Gates Farm.

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00:00
listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Connie at Rusted Gates,  uh, farm? Farm? think it's farm.  Yeah. Pennsylvania. Good afternoon, Connie. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. Good. How's the weather there? Rainy, but we need it. I think almost everybody in the United States needs some rain right now.

00:30
Yep, they sure do. Other than us, we've had we had half an inch two days ago and it's been cloudy for the last three days. And I'm like, you know, sunshine, you could come back out any time now. There's baby plants in the garden that need you.  Yes, there are.  It's so cute. look out my living room window and there's a big old garden right out the window across the driveway and it's all good, rich, black dirt.

01:00
And then there's these little green baby plants in there and I'm like, oh man, this is my favorite part. Watching everything just in finally after a long winter. Yep. When you finally, everything starts finally waking up.  Trees have their leaves and all the plants are flowering. It's a pretty time of year.  I freaking love spring. I love fall more than I love spring because fall  is the, uh

01:28
the reaping of what we planted in the spring. So I like fall because we're eating squashes and the last of the tomatoes  and um pumpkin pie and all those good things that we associate with fall.  Okay. So your last name is Gates. So is that why it's rusted Gates farm? Yes,  it is. And why rusted Gates?  Well, ah

01:56
We had a daughter and her nickname was Rusty. Cute. I love that. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's why we name it Rusty. Sweet. Very sweet. Okay. So your main thing that you do at Rusty Gates Farm is fainting goats. And I want to hear all about that. Yeah, about 15 years ago, I got started in it.

02:20
Yeah, but what else is there anything else that you do on the farm as well as the goats?  We have an assortment of animals. To run down the list, we started with silky chickens. We got a couple of ceramas, chickens, couple of Polish chickens, a couple of golden phoenixes. We got ducks. We got bunnies.  We got a  we got a sepastra bull goose  and  a hubby.

02:50
Sterling, we named him Sterling and uh and Hope is the other one and Hope's a little famous.  She  is used in this uh photographers  as a prop  and a lot of the kids put up pictures. So she's been a prop in a couple of uh the photo shoots. Hope is a goose? Yep, Hope is a goose. Okay.

03:18
And she's almost 13 years old. So I'm not sure how long she's going to be around, but she's 13 now. So she's getting up there in age. That sounds like a very long life for poultry. Yeah, it is.  We have a couple of turkeys.  We have a zebu cow that originated over in Africa. How did you get that?

03:41
Um, there was a breeder in Bedford County that we did. I wanted Highlands and I couldn't afford a Highland. I really wanted a miniature Highland, but like I said, that, was a no go for the price tag.  So  we settled on the Zeeboot because it was a much more reasonable price range for someone that's on social security.  Yeah. The Zeeboos are the ones with the hump.

04:06
in their backs. Yes. They look like almost like the Brahmans, except they don't have the long ears and their hump's not quite as big and their miniature size.  Nice. All right.  And his name is Seb. We have two ponies, Louie  and Chunky Charlie.  And Louie I use for pony rides for his birthday parties. And we have a little donkey and he's kind of famous in our community too, because

04:34
He goes to church with us quite a bit.  His name is Festus. um Festus has been in a couple Christmas plays at Celebration Community Church.  And then at Easter time, went and he was in,  they had a special program for the kids about, and they took each day of Jesus' life in the last week of him being on earth.  And they had a different station for that.

05:02
Festus was of course the first one because Jesus rode on in on the back of a donkey into Jerusalem and kids lay pumped down and  pumps down in front of him and he walked over him.  Have fun.  Yeah, and an interesting fact about donkeys while we're on donkeys  is  Festus has a cross on his back. He has a dark stripe down his back and a dark stripe over his shoulders.  So it makes a

05:32
cross. So that was kind of a blessing from Jesus for carrying him  on Palm Sunday. And pretty much all Mediterranean donkeys have that cross.  I was gonna say not all donkey breeds have that, but that specific breed does. the Mediterranean donkey stew. Funny.  So yes, so that's his claim to fame. And then we have all kinds of pigeons, all different breeds. um

06:00
And I think that's about it. So why do you have pigeons?  That's my husband's hobby. OK. That's something that he's always been fascinated with. And  so that's what we have. We have homers and we have some that are called Birmingham rollers.  They're really cool because when they catch an airdrift that goes up, they roll in the sky.

06:26
and then they catch another drift and they go way high and then they roll. It's really fun to watch them. Yeah, birds are so interesting. Like, I don't want one in my house. I never want a pet bird. And we have chickens and I really don't enjoy touching the chickens, but I absolutely enjoy having the eggs from the chickens. Of course, they're good and fresh that way.

06:53
Yeah, I think that birds belong outside. I really enjoy watching them. I don't want to be up close. are kind of messy and dirty. Yeah, I don't want to be up close But not as dirty as ducks. Ducks are the worst.  So I hear. I don't have ducks. My friend does. And she's actually selling her duck eggs in our farm stand again this year for the second year. Oh, well, they're very good for you. Yeah. And I just, I'm like, I don't want ducks. I'm good. Chickens is more than enough.

07:23
Well, you get more chickens for eggs.  Chickens lay eggs for a longer period of time than ducks do. Ducks have a very short laying cycle. They do.  And it was funny because her ducks stopped back last fall and we had a few people asking where the duck eggs were. And I was like, you clearly don't know anything about ducks. And I didn't say that because that would be rude.  And I was like, they don't lay past.

07:50
Yeah, end of September 1st of October when the daylight gets short, they don't hmm. So and now they're back and everybody's like, yay, duck eggs are back. I'm like, yeah, because the sunlight is now back. Yeah, because all of agriculture is influenced by weather and daylight. That's right. We need to get people back into this. I swear, it's part of the reason I do this podcast and my other one, because people need to know.

08:19
how the cycles work and how nature works and that eggs don't come from the store, they come from chicken butt.  Yes, yes,  it's interesting.  We're so far removed and it's so sad and it  took such a short amount of time.  One generation, it's all it took. Yeah, it's nuts.  I refuse to be removed.  I  will not be removed from where my food comes from.

08:48
because I was raised by, well, I wasn't raised by grandparents, but I had grandparents who had gardens  and my parents had a big garden and my parents hunted. They heated their house with wood, with a wood stove. So I know a lot about gardening and I know a lot about hauling wood. And I refuse to let people remain in their little bubbles of the grocery store is where food originates and that's where we get it.

09:15
Or you turn on the switch and you have heat.  That too. Yeah. Yeah. So what's still is a little bit more work.  Yes. If you do it right, your wood should warm you four times.  The saying is three, but it's actually four because you got to cut the tree when you sweat, when you cut a tree, you have to cut up the fallen tree.  You have to. You have to split the wood and then you have to move the wood to wherever it's going to be stored. So that's four times.

09:45
Yep. then it heats you when you need it in your wood stove in the winter. Correct. So I guess it's five times. It might even be more than that. Who knows?  All right. So let's get down to fainting goats because I have not talked with anybody about fainting goats.  Why do they faint? It actually started out as a genetic mutation. So and of course, things that are interesting.

10:15
man perpetuates.  So they started with the,  they're called MGRs or short hair  goats in Tennessee.  And  the

10:30
they have a fading gene. And what happens with that is their muscles lock and it's from their neck down  and it's only about 15 seconds, but  the goat is fully awake, fully aware and is aware of its surroundings. It just can't move. It's just been  startled or scared and it just freezes.

11:00
Sometimes they fall over and our goats, once they get about four weeks old, the babies start fainting, which is, and they completely fall over. But as they get older, around six months or so, they start to learn how to control that faint so that they just freeze in place for 10, 15 seconds.

11:27
And then as they get older, it's just their back legs  that they can't move. So they can still move their front legs,  which is, they kind of look like the walking zombie at that point.  And that's pretty much what they do. But they took the  Tennessee uh fainting goat and mixed it with  a Nigerian dwarf. And that's how they came up with the mini silky.

11:53
And the idea is that the  silky goats are to be looked like a miniature silky doll.  And  it took about 20 years, but  we're there.  Awesome. Okay. So  I was under the mistaken impression that when fainting goats faint, that it's a seizure, but it's not a seizure. It's just their muscles lock up. The muscles lock up. Yep.

12:21
In a seizure, they're not aware what's going on, but these goats still know exactly what's going on. The thing I find most interesting about this is that most animals, when they're startled,  they run. They flee. But no, the fainting goats just stop. They can't move. Yeah. Well, the other part of the story about the Tennessee fainters is that they free ranged them on the side of a mountain.

12:50
When a predator came, ah they would wipe out the whole herd because they get into a killing frenzy. But when you put one of these feinters  into a herd of goats, uh the rest of the herd can get away because it draws the attention of the predators  to that one that is freezing in place.  And since it only lasts about 10, 15 seconds, it does have a chance to get away.

13:20
after that, but ah it was sort of like the sacrificial lamb that they would put one of these into the herds of uh goats  that they free range that way they don't lose the whole herd. They might lose the one. Yeah,  but it is like it is a genetic defect that they did. So we perpetuate.  the fainting goats were heroes. Yes, basically. Yeah, nice.  I love that. That is so fun. uh

13:50
So do you keep them  as milkers? you keep them for me? They're just pets. They're just expensive pets.  And that's pretty much what I sell them for and I breed them for. I do go all over  the country and show them. oh my primary purpose is just they're just a fun little goat that's small  and very inquisitive  and smart  and happy-go-lucky and they make you happy.

14:19
So I keep them as pets and like to sell them to other people for pets or breeding. When occasionally they go to show homes. Awesome. So how big does an adult fainting goat get? 23 inches at the shoulders for the boys. And the girls have to be under 22 inches right now. They're lowering the size limits on these guys.

14:49
But so they're about knee-high or you know a little bit Depending on how tall you are. How much do they weigh? Anywhere from 40 to 70 pounds So they're they're about the same height as my Australian Shepherd dog because she's a small one But she's actually less she weighs less. She's 36 to 40 pounds on any given day. Yeah, she's there There's nice small goats

15:17
But they do have the hair that has to be maintained. Yeah. Yep. You have to brush them or she or share them. I brush them. Okay. If you're showing them, you have to brush them because 30 % of the scorecard is on their coat. How long it is, how even it is, how silky soft it is, the texture of it. So that's what they're grading them on. Okay. And what's the temperament on these guys?

15:47
They're extremely social, very  friendly.  A lot of them will come up and kind of nipple on the ends of your shirt if you're not paying attention to them.  What are the babies like? Well, you have some that will crawl up and sit in your lap,  and then you'll have others that will look at you and run the other direction.  So the same as any baby animal.  Yeah, pretty much.

16:17
Are they bouncy  like every other goat? the baby goats? two days they find their little springings in their legs and they just bounce all over and kick their heels and do somersaults and they're bouncy and happy and  love to jump up on the things and  investigate their world. Best videos on YouTube are baby goats bouncing around like crazy children. Yes, that's what  draws people to them.

16:47
But they don't stay that small for very long.  Yeah, I realized about two years ago after many years of thinking that I love goats.  I don't love goats. I love baby goats. I love them until they're about eight weeks old. And I'm like, yeah, you're a goat now. Go be a goat.  Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I've talked about goats a lot on this podcast and my  best friend in high school. Her parents raised goats.

17:16
the Nubians and La Manchas, I think.  And every spring, my friend would call me and she would say,  can your mom drive you over? The goats had babies last night because she knew I would want to hold them before they were 24 hours old. uh I would go over and I'd go in the barn. I would sit down on a hay bale and I would sit there and just hold the baby goat for as long as that baby goat would let me hold it.  Yeah, that's what I...

17:45
I opened the farm for snugg, we call them snuggle sessions. Yes. And people come in and uh sit for, I usually open it for two or three hours and they sit, some sit the whole three hours and some,  you know,  it's a half an hour and then they walk around and see all the other animals and then they leave.  Yeah. For me, it was like holding a baby deer because deer and goat are built kind of the same way. Yeah, they are.

18:13
And baby goats are so soft and they smell so good. Yeah, they do.  And that's how the moms determine whose baby is who to. Yes. I sent. And by the bleat that they do, the bad noise. Yep. Yep. It's amazing. I highly recommend anyone who is stressed out in the months of April and May find somebody who's raising goats and has a bread goats and.

18:41
make sure they call you when they have brand new baby goats because if you can sit with a baby goat for at least an hour,  your stress levels will come down. Yes, they do.

18:52
That used to be when I was working, that was the first thing I did if I had an exceptionally hard day.  When I go right to the field with the goats, spend 15 minutes and then my stress level was down so then I can go in and greet the family and have a good time for the rest of the evening.  Yes, I don't know what it is about these baby goats, but it works. And  I've held a baby sheep before and the magic is just not the same. ah

19:21
I don't know why, but something incredibly... just have such like really cute little sweet faces that you just want to just kiss. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to kiss their snoot. It's like, yeah, it's just calling you. You just got to give them a kiss. Yeah, there is just something incredibly magical about baby goats. And if you have never been around them, no, you won't understand it. You have to be around them to get it.

19:53
Yeah, I just, have a lifelong friend now because that was on her bucket list was to see a baby goat be born. And I had to have farm open for a snuggle session and she came to a snuggle session. And it just so happened that one of my goats ended up going into labor during it. So  I'm trying to monitor the mom having goats and also manage my crowd  of people  with.

20:22
snuggling goats on the other side of the  stall wall.  And she said, can I just watch? I said, sure. So I put her up to the stall door and just let her watch.  that was her thing. She said, now I can check that off my list.  And now about once a week, she comes over and just goes to the field and sits on the ground and just lets them.

20:51
I'm over to her, nudge her, sit on her lap, run around her.  She says it's the best therapy. It is. It is. I was just thinking the same thing.  I have to say this because I keep meaning to say it to people and I forget.  I commend you on letting people come to your place and see your animals.  And I'm going to tell you why.  Having trust in the general public with animals that you love is a big, big deal. Yeah, it is.

21:20
My husband and I went to our friend's place. have  cattle, have chickens, they have  sheep,  and they are the original breeders of my dog. ah She was from the very first litter that they ever bred. And she had a puppy day three, four years ago. And they actually had  great Pyrenees puppies as well.

21:48
Somebody had let them take their mama dog until she had the babies and  hang out with mom and the puppies until the puppies were ready to be adopted. So she had a foster dog basically when the mama was pregnant. so we went  and  we know them very well. They're great people. We went thinking there'd be maybe five other people there to see the puppies.

22:12
We walked into their shed where they had the pups and there were like 21 puppies between the Pyrenees puppies and  the Australian shepherd puppies.  There were at least 50 people there. Oh yeah. And she's totally fine with all these people holding  these little puppies. know, the great Pyrenees puppies were probably 10, 15 pounds, but the Australian shepherd puppies were under five pounds.

22:42
Oh yeah. They're little.  I was just like, I'm so glad we got Maggie spayed when we did, because letting people hold those puppies would have scared me to death. It does at times.  I recently had an open house back in March and it wasn't a real nice day out, but um I had a chef come  and  offer food and I had an ice cream truck.

23:11
come  as a center for people to come.  And uh we put out  a pen with the chickens and the bunnies for the people to look at  while they're waiting to come in. But I never expected the turnout that we had.  Oh my word. It was hundreds of people.  Yeah. I'm really glad that that's the case.

23:40
Because again, we need people to come and see what this is But that was a one time thing. Usually it's not that big, but it was like, oh my goodness, it was very well attended. Yeah, and we need that. Yes, we do. But the owner of those animals, I can't imagine your stress levels. Oh, it was high. When all those people go home, you're probably like, give me a goat right now. I need snuggles.

24:09
It was very stressful. Let me tell you. Yeah, I'm really shy. And what I didn't know is that our friends at that puppy snuggle party, I didn't know, but she came over to me and she was like, see that lady over there? And she very subtly directed my gaze to the person. And I said, yes. She said, she really wants to adopt the puppy that she has in her hands. And I said, uh-huh. She said,

24:38
She really wants to know what it's like raising one of these. And I said, uh-huh.  She said, would you, if I send her over to you, would you tell her about your experience with Maggie? And I'm, I'm so shy. Like I just have a really hard time talking to people in, in person.  And I was like,  yes,  yes, I can do that.  So this woman comes over and she's got this little red tri puppy in her hands and she's like,

25:06
Are you Maggie's mom?  And I was like, yes. And she said, how old is she now? And I was like, she's two, three, whatever she was. And she said, how was it? How old was she when you got her?  What was the experience like the first six months? When did you get her fixed? da da da da.  Asking me all these questions. The only thing that saved me, Connie, is that I love this dog more than life itself. And I have been with her pretty much every moment of her life.

25:36
and I can speak to what it's like to raise an Australian shepherd. That's the only thing that saved me, because otherwise I would have just been stuttering and saying dumb answers, because I don't know. And afterwards, she went over and talked to my friend, and puppies were too young to adopt yet. They had another two weeks to go. So my friend comes over to me and she says, thank you for talking with her. And I said, you're welcome. And I said, is she going to adopt it? And she's like, yep, she'll be back in exactly two weeks to get this puppy.

26:06
I said, what's she naming it? She said, red. This is a red tri. I said, all right. She said, I don't know why you think you're bad at peopling. She said, you were great. I kind of heard some of the conversation. She said, and you love Maggie so much it's written all over you. And it's like, oh yeah, I dread the day that she is no longer with us. Yeah. Well, that's the-

26:32
Downside to having any kind of animal or farm or anything like that. It's That is the downside. Yes with that with birthers also comes full circle with death Yep, you just love them and take care of them the best you can while they're here.  That was the hardest thing for me to to manage  Was was that the end of it?  Was the end of things?

27:00
Yeah, and you can't prepare for it no matter how much intellectually you know that a dog has a lifespan of anywhere from 8 to 20 years. 20 is way far out. That's probably an exaggeration. 8 to 15 years if you're lucky. If you're lucky.  Even if you intellectually know that, your heart does not accept it. That's true. And it's the same way with my goats.  Same way.

27:28
If they live to be 15, that's a long life for a goat. We had this really cool billy goat, which we call bucks. He had horns. we bought him when we knew very little about goats. He was our first silky fainting goat. And he was a real beautiful brown color.

27:57
Anyhow,  he liked to play soccer with the kids.  And when I had kids birthday parties, we would all play soccer with Viking. His name was Viking.  And he just loved the kids. just, his eyes would get real big and wide and he would get excited and he would headbutt the ball to the kids. So whichever one threw it to him, he could actually headbutt it back to that child.

28:25
And it was the coolest thing. And anyhow, he liked to do that all the way up to when he turned 15 and a half and we had to help him euthanize because that was the best thing for him. It was hard for us. It was a real hard decision, but it was the best for him. And that's another thing that most people who don't have animals don't know.

28:55
is that prolonging in their life because you don't want to lose them isn't the best course of action. Yeah. We love that boy. Like I said, he was one of a kind. I haven't been able to teach anybody else how to play soccer like that, but he did and he just loved it. So fun. Yeah. The last thing you want is an animal that you love to suffer. that's just it. there's like, there's a list of 10 things regarding dogs.

29:25
that  as they get older, you want to keep an eye on. And it's something about they don't like any, they go off their food or they go off their water or they don't like to sit in your lap like they used to  or they don't want to run  after their favorite toy or they go for a walk with you and they sit down after 20 feet, know, obvious things that are not right.

29:52
If they are not, if something is wrong on six of the 10 things on the list, it's probably time to consider letting them go. Yeah. That's a, that's a hard thing to let any animal go. It is. It's terrible. They're a part of your life and you know, it's part of your care routine and it's the way it is. Yep. And the thing, the thing that kicks my butt a little bit is we know this about our animals, you know, euthanasia for animals is fine.

30:22
But when our elderly folks are miserable and off their food and not mobile and not having any quality of life, we can't do that for them. And I'm not saying that in a bad way.  just it makes me crazy when older people, you know, who are  have no quality of life. They're in a nursing home. They don't get to do anything. Yeah.

30:49
They can't even read a book anymore, which is the joy of my life. I love reading.  I don't want to live like that. I want somebody to pull the plug on me.  But that's considered murder. And I'm like, why do we do it for our animals? But we won't do it for our loved humans.  Yep.  And that's a big swing. And people don't hate me for that. just...  Yes, it is a big swing.

31:17
My grandpa was in hospice care for a good 10 days. And my parents were with him  every waking moment of those 10 days, basically on death watch. And  he was not coming back. The minute he was in hospice, he was not coming back.  And listening to my father grieve those 10 days and then after was hell.

31:46
So yeah, I think that we need to think about that hard because it's not any better for our humans to suffer than it is for our animals to suffer. but I think we want one more day. One more day. Oh, every day, every time. Yes. And it's hard to say, well, today's the day. know, is God going to take him today? You know, why doesn't he take him? Yeah. You know, so it is.

32:15
It is a tough, but you're right there. Sometimes you would think that, you know, we should be given that, that  if that's what that person wants  and has it in writing,  we should be able to let them go. Yeah. The closest thing to that is the do not resuscitate order that you can have. Right. That's it. That's the closest you can get.

32:40
So sorry, I didn't mean to take such a down road, it just brought back memories. um So I try to keep these to half an hour. I  love what you're doing and you sound so happy with what you're doing. I do. I do thoroughly enjoy. I enjoy the people that come and I really enjoy doing the farm tours and with the grandparents and they have their grandkids and  letting the grandkids touch and feel and hold.

33:09
And I do it at their level. If they're not willing to, then we back up.  But they actually get to see and oh, whatever they like that I have here, which is kind of cool. You know, and I do the same for the kids birthday parties,  but they get to release a pigeon at the end of the party. So most places don't have that or do that. Fun. It is fun for them. I love what you're doing because so many kids don't have an opportunity. That's right.

33:39
to ever pet an animal beyond a guinea pig, a cat, cat or a dog. You're right. Yeah. So, yeah. So if they want to hold a chicken, they get to hold a chicken. If they want to hold a bunny, they get to hold a bunny. Yes. And you're planting seeds so that they know that they could maybe someday have these animals and raise them and love them and show them off to people too. Yeah. They sure can. All right, Connie, where can people find you? I'm in...

34:08
Oh, on Facebook. at Rustic Gates Farms.  On Facebook.  As always, people can find me at tinyhomesteadpodcast.com.  Connie, thank you so much for your time. it's been a pleasure. All right. Have a great day. you so much. Bye.  Bye.