We went down the holistic rabbit trail over twenty years ago and haven’t looked back.
When it comes to homestead health, I’ve come to believe it’s a combination of things, not one magical pill. I’ve come up with these holistic home and farm solutions that might surprise you AND change your life.
After years of trying things this is what I know has helped us:
Diffuse, ingest and apply essential oils every single day. And I can’t stress enough the diffusing of essential oils. That made the biggest shift in our overall wellness.
Eliminate harmful chemicals. We only have one cleaner — Thieves Household Cleaner for EVERYTHING. This means also eliminating products that aren’t clean enough to eat — for your wound care. Skin & hair care. Animal care. Everything.
Get outside in the sun and move everyday.
Drink plenty of clean water void of fluoride and chlorine.
Prepare family meals made with ingredients — real food as intended. Avoid meats and vegetables, etc that have chemicals sprayed on them, hormones used, and are genetically modified.
Change your mindset and watch your thoughts. You go in the direction of your strongest thought.
A peek into our Holistic Journey
It sounds very dramatic, but truthfully my initial purchase of Thieves oil some 20 years ago was literally the best purchase I made my entire life. Why?
My son had been sick week after week. I had postpartum depression.
And Thieves (get it here) changed our story. Then we discovered Valor, Peppermint, and Lavender, and now I have a whole arsenal on my shelves (most were free).
Our homestead is holistic — meaning we use essential oils and non-toxic products on ourselves, in our home, in the garage, on the goats & dogs, and even on the chickens! We believe that if you give your body and the earth the right tools and time to heal, that it can.
Your next step
Follow these instructions!
1. Start Shopping! Start filling your cart with all the products you want!
2. Unlock Your Discount Unlock your 24% discount by filling your cart with 100PV or making your first order a Loyalty Rewards Order! Be sure to enter the code Share YL to receive an additional 10% off.
Loyalty Rewardsis EPIC and it it an awesome and affordable way to start kicking the toxins out of your home and replacing them with safe options. Imagine cleaning without headaches. Or your kids grabbing an oil to help them sleep without waking you up in the middle of the night.
You have the ability to earn money back on every order and gifts with purchase! You can adjust this each month, & you are NEVER locked into a thing!
As you check out, make sure you select “Yes, make this my first loyalty order” to earn points on your order and lock in your rewards. And as a bonus, you’ll get a Desert Mist diffuser for FREE with your 2nd Loyalty Order!
3. Check Out + Add Referral ID The number here should be the person’s number who introduced you to Young Living 🙂
Stop!If you were referred here by a friend, you will want to enter their numbers when you click on the above link. Otherwise the default number of 970238 belongs to me, Jodi McKenna!If you accidentally sign up under me, shoot me an email, accidentalcountryfolk@gm
Loyalty Rewards is your very own custom “monthly wellness box” (that’s cool) that you can fill with whatever you need, and it shows up at your doorstep every month with free gifts and perks to you. It is the best EVER because it’s like Christmas once a month!
Loyalty Rewards is flexible – you can change the products you want every month, with no minimum order. Need it sooner? Easy. Need to later? No biggie. You’ll love being able to customize exactly what comes to you each month based on your family’s needs.
The best part, though? You will earn Loyalty Rewards of 10-25% back to spend like store credit on whatever you want, when your order is 50pv or more. (it’s not uncommon for stores or cards to only give you 5% back.)
When you start switching out all your personal care and cleaning products to the non-toxic YL version your body’s toxic load goes down and allows your body systems to begin working optimally to help you live in wellness ! You’ll be getting rewarded double time for keeping your family healthy – EPIC.
It’s the best way to get clean, safe, and effective essential-oil infused products into your home, at the best value possible!
How to get going: hop over to www.youngliving.com, (log in if you have an account), start shopping, and click Create Loyalty Order for each item you want to add! You can manage your monthly box from the Loyalty Order section in your account anytime.
Keeping your home, farm, car & business stocked with your favorite products has never been easier!
NOTE:If you were referred here by a friend, you will want to enter their numbers when you click on the above link. Otherwise the default number of 970238 belongs to me, Jodi McKenna!
If you would have asked me if I’d ever own goats, I would have looked at you like you had horns coming out of your head.
How to take care of Goats
However, I happen to have very persuasive children who met the requirments that I thought would take a miracle:
They got along for a month.
They did their chores for a month without being prompted and didn’t complain.
They researched everything you need to know to raise goats.
So, one Christmas two years ago, goats entered our lives. I’ve since discovered they are a lot like dogs but with perhaps a bit more personality. Goats are easy to take care of and yet . . . not so easy.
Why do I say they aren’t easy? Well, they thrive on routine (of which I avoid like the plague, as a general rule) and it is paramount that you establish a consitent feeding and supplementing routine. Their rumen counts on it.
But once you get your goats settled in, they provide hours of fun, entertainment, and overall improve your emotional wellbeing. I call them medicine pets.
The goat “shack” was made from pallets. Be sure to grab some spools as they are a great source of entertainment and often free from your electric company.
There are many websites, books and mentors that you can learn from. So this post will serve more as a peek into our routine and resources that I think are a must.
The goat “cabana” is where our does and kids live.
I am assuming you are nearly ready to go — meaning you have a shelter, bedding (which is simply straw), reliable source of alfalfa hay, water buckets, and time to snuggle. We had none of these things completed or ready when our herd arrived! So don’t be like us!
If you like the goat cabana, you can grab the plans here.
Like humans, the best healthcare for goats is proactive / preventative healthcare. This begins with good nutrition and supplementation. A happy goat gut is not only a happy goat but a strong immune system for your furry friend.
The first week of owning goats, we nearly lost our now beloved buck, Mando.
Mando became severly stressed after moving to a new home and being seperated from his mom for the very first time. He ended up testing positive for barber pole and nearly died.
So when you first get your goats, make sure to support their gut health ASAP.
As a general rule, we give our goats a pinch of this Herbal Dewormer daily. Some would say once a week. Our goats live in the woods, which is actually a win, and we don’t have some of the same issues that pasture grazed goats have. However we do have a rainy season — which means our woods turns into a wetland. So there are certain times of the year that we have to be more proactive due to the damp conditions. Hoof care becomes very important during the rainy season for us. We also receive wood chips from a local arborist to control the amount of poop and moisture on the ground.
Using essential oils to calm your goats when they first arrive is very helpful. When goats have high emotional levels, it compromises their gut health. Our goats responded well to Valor, Stress Away, and Lavender. The cheapest way to get these oils is with this kit. You will also benefit from using the diffuser and oils! We actually allow them to choose their oil that we brushed down their backs. They choose it typically by smelling one oil cap more than another. You will place a drop on your hands, rub your hands together, and stroke down their fur. It significantly reduced their feelings of anxiousness that they appeared to be exhibiting.
Learn how to use essential oils on animals in this video.
The First Supplement
When you goat first arrives, I would give the Hoeggar Herbal Dewormer to them 2-3 times a day for 3 days and then back off to once a day or once a week (whatever you decided). I’d also throw in a capsule of Life 9 probiotic into their morning feed plate too. You will want to watch for signs of lethargy, lack of eating or drinking, runny or clumpy poop, and depression. If you are ever concerned, call your goat mentor or a vet. Do not take chances.
Stay tuned and I will have a post on how to make Hoeggar Herbal Dewormer balls. But for now this is a great resource.
FAMACHA Score
While we are at it . . . it’s important that you know what a FAMACHA score is, because your vet or mentor is going to ask you when you express your concern.
The FAMACHA score is a great way to tell how your goat is doing.
Goat Supplement Routine
The best way to demonstrate how we supplement our goats, in addition to free choice Alfalfa hay is to show you our feeding routine. Please watch this video to see our routine.
Chaffhaye (this was not included in the video as we added this into the routine so that the goats were eating fermented food for proper digestion) We add a handful.
free choice Alfalfa Hay — note that your wethers should have waited until they are 12 weeks old before they were castrated. If the procedure was done before they were 12 weeks, I do not recommend feeding them alfalfa. They can have kidney issues develop. Instead, just opt for a good hay. We typically purchase 15 bales of hay at a time because that is what fits in my son’s truck and our garage is currently the barn. We do have a hay field, but it has yet to grow in fully.
Hay feeder (I like the Slow Feeder Extreme). If your goats are seperated, you will need 2-4 of these depending on how easy you want to make feeding.
Water buckets (change their water 2 times a day, especially when it is hot outside). Consider using filtered water, or at the very least an attachment that will lower the iron content if you are on well water.
Essential Oil Kit (these are the main products we use on or with our goats because we opt to not vaccinate and work at prevention rather than being reactive and “treating.”)
sulfur powder that you brush into their fur to help with lice (using MSM or the Young Living Sulfurzyme powder found in the Essential Oil kit will help control the lice population)
Targeted Supplement to have on Hand
I watch our goats FAMACHA scores, poop, hoof health, tail, fur or lack of fur on their nose bridge, and body hair (shouldn’t look like they received a henna treatment and it should be shinny) closely to evaluate their health. If any of these changes then I research to figure out what is amiss.
copper bolus (use when fur looks like henna or goat develops fishtail) We typically supplement every three months due to our high iron content, which inhibits copper uptake
Black Strap Molasses (I will mix copper and herbals in here to make herbal balls that are like a treat to the goats)
This should get you started. The targeted supplements are things to have on hand . . . so that you don’t find yourself running out in the middle of the night, when your goat is showing signs of stress. I don’t use these items regurally, but boy am I glad when I have them when there is a need.
Future Things to Consider
milking stand (it makes trimming hooves easier)
birthing / milking supplies
renting your buck out for stud duties (he won’t mind)
To disbud or not to disbud
Well, having these things on hand are going to set you up for SUCCESS!!!! Having goats is super fun. I love taking ours for walks and sitting a spell with one of them in my lap.
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We got chickens because two ticks showed up on our Ruth, the Rhodesian Ridgeback. Considering Ruth is like our 5th child, it seemed only logical that I would JUMP at protecting her. These vermin can wreck havoc on our health, and I suspect they have, thusI had to make sure they never trespassed onto my children.
Omi is a chicken whisperer.
I’m happy to say we haven’t seen any ticks since getting the chickens.
Best Reason Ever
I’m happy to add that a gentleman at Tractor Supply informed me that our logic for purchasing ten chickens, two more than planned and an accidental rooster to boot, was spot on.
Apparently, this spring many people were bored from being cooped up for various reason that will remain unmentioned, and bought backyard chickens as a fun hobby. This wasn’t a hobby for me. I was engaged in all out war with nature.
However, when the novelty wore out for one family, we acquired two ducks. A hobby gone sour. But my eldest son wanted duck eggs to make gluten free donuts. That’s another story for another day.
