I just wanted to introduce myself and say how very glad I am I found this site. I was sitting on the back porch one day and told my husband, its such a shame to have land and no animals, I would love to have some goats. He replied what kind do you want? I said , little ones. LOL. So I did a little research and told him I wanted Nigerian Dwarf goats. Sooo, last month I received 2 wonderful little goats for my birthday ( early present) . After watching them for a little while , they are appropriately named Bonnie & Clyde. Needless to say, I LOVE my goats. They are both now 7 months old and growing like crazy. I read somewhere they don't like to get wet so after a recent thunderstorm my husband found me in their "house" towel drying them. OF course he said "honey they're goats." To which I replied yeah but they don't like to be wet. LOL . Growing up we had a large working farm so I had really hoped someday to have a small farm myself. My "someday" has finally arrived and I couldn't be happier. Since I am not very familiar with goats, I am sure there will be lots of questions to follow.
Thanks for allowing me to join.
Replies
You can't really train a dog to be a LGD; they have to be born for the job. There are only a few breeds that are happy to be with livestock 24/7. We've had Great Pyrenees and an Anatolian Shepherd. Someone told me a very tragic story about how they tried to get a dog from the pound (a German shepherd mix) and left it with their goats. They wound up with goats with chewed up ears, and when they took the dog out of the goat pasture, a kid somehow got into the pen with the dog, and the dog killed and ate most of it. Although pets can be trained to tolerate livestock and respect when you are there with them, you can't expect to put any dog with them and expect it to work. It's not a matter of intelligence or trainability. It's a matter of their innate personality. I can totally see the difference between how my English shepherd responds to predators vs the way that my LGDs respond, and it's very different. Unfortunately some people claim ES are LGDs, but they are not. They are good all-around farm dogs, but they really shine when it comes to herding.
Faith Foster said:
We have a llewellin setter who is smart and trainable but not sure how well he would guard the goats.
I noticed a comment about concern for wild dogs. From experience I learned neighbors dogs are the biggest threat, or at least I feel they are. When I lived in Colorado many years ago a neighbor's lovely little golden retriever got in my pen and killed several goats, maimed several and killed all my hens. We have had several dog incidents here in Oregon over the years and I have a hard attitude about it. Never lost any more animals to them though. If a dog will come on our place (as they have to work at it) they will be a target. We have a few neighbors that don't like us because of that attitude but our babies are the most important thing to me. I have heard the comment -"they only want to play with them" . People don't seem to understand that all dogs can be predators - our babies are prey. Also heard it said -we have no wild dogs here. Talking about this problem reminds me to remind my husband to do a little target shooting. It is my hope that hearing shots might keep the wild guys a little further from the area.
About your fencing. We used Red Top sheep and goat fence because of the size of the holes. It's good fence. Also did a hot wire above the fence and on the outside at about what I think of as sniffing height for predators. We also put out several little solar boxes that emit a flashing red light all night -they are aimed towards the woods and the river. We don't have coyotes but have cougar, bobcat and my biggest worry is dogs.. We also have some lights on as fish and game told us they think that helps. So far so good. We had a cougar kill quite a few years ago with our sheep but have stayed safe now for quite awhile.
On the hay issue, they don't exactly need horse hay, but they do love that! Although goats cannot have moldy hay, they are usually fine with weedy hay. It is more about what happens to the hay during harvesting than it is about the plants in the field. They really do not like brown hay. But I have found that they are less picky in the middle of January than they are in October. One year I could only get this horribly brown alfalfa, and my poor goats were all so skinny by the end of winter, I just wanted to cry every time I looked at them. Bucks do great on a good green grassy hay, and your doe will be fine with grass hay until the end of pregnancy when alfalfa is a better idea, and for heavy milkers, alfalfa is essential.
As for the information on pneumonia, thank you for the link. I am now really concerned about Bonnie. She had an occasional cough the day she came home and still has it. I had contacted the vet for a "well check" but I will now see if I can get him here sooner. I am beginning to think this breeder may just be breeding like a "puppy mill" so I am not sure how healthy they are . I contacted the ag agent about potential diseases in this are and he said parasites were the concern but the posts I have read on here indicate there are other necessary tests. CAE and Johne's Disease? I know they were not "handled" much. Bonnie will now stand still long enough for you to scratch her sides and rub her. Clyde is slowly coming around. So anyway thank you for your tolerance and responses.
.
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next