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Couple to give away their $350,000 Alabama goat cheese farm
Daily Mail ^ | April 30, 2015 | Lydia Warren

Posted on 04/30/2015 6:35:56 PM PDT by Roos_Girl

If you've ever dreamed of owning your own patch of land and a successful home-grown business then a 200-word essay and $150 is all is could take for it to become a reality.

Paul and Leslie Spell, of Humble Heart Farms in Elkmont, Alabama, are giving away their goat cheese farm - complete with their house, 20 acres of land, 56 goats, cheese-making equipment, recipes and even a dog - to the person who writes the best essay about why they should run it.

It will cost entrants just $150 to apply and, with an expected 2,500 applications, the couple say the fees will pay off the rest of their mortgage and leave $20,000 in operating funds for the new owner.

'It's for real,' Paul Spell told AL.com. 'We've had a pretty successful run here and I thought it was time for us to go help so

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Agriculture; Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: alabama
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To: Salamander

To anyone considering this.

Goat nutrition is not as simple as cows or sheep:

http://www.tennesseemeatgoats.com/articles2/feedinggoatsproperly.html


41 posted on 04/30/2015 8:56:51 PM PDT by Salamander (Like acid and oil on a madman's face, reason tends to fly away.)
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To: Rio

lol I know goats but don’t know cheese.Wonder what the taxes are?


42 posted on 04/30/2015 9:29:00 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: blackdog

Started out with 18 angora goats, 5 years later had 80. You feed goats more than pasture, once a day they get grained, and always have hay in the barn for munchies. All on a 10 1/0 acres, but that was about the limit...put up a couple thousand bales of hay in the spring and summer. Mostly for winter. It was fun.....but they were not milking goats, only had milk for their kids and were weaned at about 3-4 months and mama dried up...


43 posted on 04/30/2015 9:36:37 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: JRandomFreeper

well J. goats aren’t as much trouble or worry...:O) and they grow their own clothes...


44 posted on 04/30/2015 9:38:36 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: Salamander
We had one acre of alfalfa and they loved it...the best part of it was they would eat it down, we'd lock them out and the alfalfa would continue to grow...could get 2 good feedings and the 3rd one would only be 1/2 as high, had a little timothy with it. But the rest of the pastures were wild grown, It use to be a dairy farm years before we bought it so most of the graze was good....good feed gives good mohair at shearing time. The elevator was given my receipt for grain and they and our one cow got grained once a day. Maybe it depends on the breed of goat.... Weird was when the timothy would get seed, they quit eating it...
45 posted on 04/30/2015 9:50:33 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: blackdog

You are right about the feed. For best production and health they need second cutting hay with as much alfalfa as you can get. We had dairy goats, Saanens for over 20 years. We had and raised registered goats. A small herd but we gave them the best we could in health care and feed which included trace minerals like copper and selenium. Copper is one difference, goats need it and sheep do not. You really have to do things right if you want to run a dairy and I would think that is one purpose of the essay, to find someone who knows what they are doing already.


46 posted on 04/30/2015 10:02:43 PM PDT by MomwithHope (Please support efforts in your state for an Article 5 convention.)
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To: Roos_Girl

some muslim group will probably end up with it- or some gay group


47 posted on 04/30/2015 10:14:19 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past

[[I cannot see myself running a goat farm.]]

Just hire some illegals dirt cheap-


48 posted on 04/30/2015 10:15:37 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: BwanaNdege

Will goats eat kudzu?


49 posted on 04/30/2015 10:16:11 PM PDT by 5th MEB (Progressives in the open; --- FIRE FOR EFFECT!!)
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To: Roos_Girl

**They were inspired by a woman in Maine who is giving away her inn through an essay-writing contest**

That’s how a Maine woman got her inn, by writing an essay.

http://curbed.com/archives/2015/03/11/write-an-essay-win-the-center-lovell-inn-in-maine.php


50 posted on 04/30/2015 10:24:21 PM PDT by Daffynition ("We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men")
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To: goat granny
Whoever wins the goat farm, could open an inn

I stayed at a Holiday Inn once. ;)

51 posted on 04/30/2015 10:28:14 PM PDT by Daffynition ("We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men")
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To: Elsie

pssst! Over here...


52 posted on 04/30/2015 10:29:41 PM PDT by roamer_1 (Globalism is just socialism in a business suit.)
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To: Daffynition

lol come and get breakfast, pancakes today....love that horse...


53 posted on 04/30/2015 10:43:28 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: goat granny

Apparently Pygmies and Nigerian Dwarves can’t take it.

It’ll founder them, same as too much grain.

They’re built to live on nearly nothing, I reckon.

The only time I’ve bought them alfalfa was when one was very sick and rundown.

He got one tiny slab of it, every other day, to build him up fast.

He was really old.

He just passed away on the 20th.

:-\

Had to hustle and get Spike a new little friend before she grieved to death.


54 posted on 04/30/2015 11:03:39 PM PDT by Salamander (Like acid and oil on a madman's face, reason tends to fly away.)
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To: 5th MEB

Like mad.

I dearly wish I had some, here.

The closest I have is Honeysuckle, Multiflora and blackberry, which grow rampant.

They love them.

And all my ornamental trees, when they manage to get loose in the yard.


55 posted on 04/30/2015 11:05:58 PM PDT by Salamander (Like acid and oil on a madman's face, reason tends to fly away.)
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To: Roos_Girl

Hmmm. Something about a gift horse comes to mind.


56 posted on 04/30/2015 11:22:01 PM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: goat granny
Goats are silly. Just plain silly.


57 posted on 04/30/2015 11:43:23 PM PDT by Daffynition ("We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men")
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To: Salamander
sorry you lost one of your 4 legged friends.some times no matter how we try to save one of our critters it doesn't seem to help...

I live in Michigan and it has no selenium in the ground and if Angora's don't get it, they get a wasting disease and will die. Our baby kids got a shot of Bose before a week old,(injectable selenium) it was part of my receipt for their grain and they had it free will in each room in the barn. It is a salt that without it in the earth, plants don't have it...a lot like iodine is put in salt because many area's of the country iodine is absent in the earth....One of our friends had a kid born with wasting disease, couldn't stand on his back legs, not enough muscle. Other parts of the US don't have to have it added to feed...her kid was the only one I knew of that was born with wasting disease. Many years ago and I don't remember the outcome of the kid...

My flock didn't have a steady diet of alfalfa, but when we opened that one field, they all seem to find it quick. We also had to clear the fields of Burdock, that poisoned them. I was told that and took the person at their word. I sure do miss my farm...

58 posted on 04/30/2015 11:50:31 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: Daffynition

yep they are silly, thats a good one, just needed 2 pair of ice skates


59 posted on 04/30/2015 11:59:00 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: Salamander

One of the pastures had a long row of pine tree’s...the goats ate all the needles and then stripped the bark and killed all the tree’s....I never though they loved pine needles. I could always know who was eating them, their muzzles would be black with pine tar...


60 posted on 05/01/2015 12:05:35 AM PDT by goat granny
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