Hi Everyone!
I'm new to goats, so pardon any naivety here :). I've just purchased Homegrown & Handmade, and can't wait to get it!
I've had a great time browsing this forum for info on Nigerian Dwarf Goats! I've decided to expand my urban backyard homestead and get two of them to provide dairy, as well as joy and entertainment apparently! I'm probably going to get a pregnant doe- on her second freshening, and a 2 month old doeling. They are registered and from a breeder who shows her small herd. I wish I could offer my goats a lush pasture, but I'm going to be raising them in my two side yards which each have about 500-600 square feet. The area they will live in is already fully enclosed by a 6-8 foot fence and wall. We are going to build extra support into the fence doors so they can't escape. I'm in Southern California, so I'm assuming hay prices are going to be outrageous, but I currently spend $14 per gallon on raw cow milk, and we go through about 2 1/2 per week! This will definitely be financially worth it if I get good milkers and can sell the kids.
I plan to (obviously) keep them well fed and with clean water with lots of toys and things to climb on. I will also be getting all the necessary supplies for milking. I've milked a regular sized goat before, and a few cows, so I'm hopeful that I'll pick it up quickly. (I'm also a lactating mommy myself, so I understand quite a bit about that whole process in mammals- haha!) I'm comfortable with the idea of the births. I'm a doula and had two natural births. I wanted to be a midwife, so now I can be a goat midwife :).
Okay, so my questions for you are what I need to be ready for when they come home. I'm getting more nervous now since we might bring them home Sunday. Do you have a sort of check list of things to be ready for, and things to be sure about before buying them from the breeder? I'm assuming does don't milk while they are pregnant, right? So if our doe is pregnant, than we will start milking in 5 months, right? How soon do you start milking after the kids are born?
I really want to keep soy out of their diet, and keep them as healthy as possible holistically. Since I'm drinking their milk, I don't want to be consuming drugs and chemicals, etc. I'll check out the forum more on this, but is anyone out there really into holistic care for the goats?
I just checked out a post from a long time ago on using horse slow feeders for the goats. The hanging ones look like a good idea. I'm needing to buy all my feeding supplies, so advice is welcomed here!!
I'm also concerned about toxic plant for goats. Is there a good list somewhere that I can reference?
Wow, seems like a lot of questions from me, and I probably have more. I'm also not afraid of just jumping right into this. Thank you all so much for any responses!!!!!!!
-Roz Mignogna
Replies
Thanks for the compliment on the book. I'm glad you're enjoying it!
Okay. I keep thinking that's what it is. I'm probably a little extra paranoid about everything right now. We've decided to create a sort of gate in front of the sliding doors. It may even be cute. They seem to be perfectly happy and content, so I need to chill a little :). Thank you for your responses, Deborah! I LOVE your book, by the way! It is beautiful, and it really motivates me strive toward having such a homegrown and handmade lifestyle!
If you see her chewing when she coughs, it just means something went down the wrong way -- or came back up the wrong way. Coughing twice in two or three days is nothing.
If it's hot in your area, that would be why they're laying on the concrete -- it's cooler.
We're going to look into some sort of protection in front of the doors. I hadn't thought of that concern. It's only happened once and I sort of provoked it because I wanted to see how strongly they'd actually respond to eachother. Ummm...I learned that. It's probably best to figure out a protective door of some sort so the door is protected as well as the dogs.
I was planning on putting the straw on the concrete, and I have it there for the bedding area, but it seems to be cleaner to have the concrete as is (there's kind of a patio area, then a covered bedding area.) If it's all covered in straw, then I won't clean it nearly as often so I'd imagine it would get dirtier because urine and poop will build up in it. The thing is they are preferring to sleep on the concrete instead of the area with straw.
I'm running into a possible issue that I'm going to contact the breeder about. I've caught my little one coughing twice now. It's a little hushed cough. I'm a little worried. I'm going to search the forum now for what this could be. :(
I would not let the goats anywhere near the sliding glass door! They could definitely shatter it. And yes, they will try to butt the dogs because they're afraid of them. Goats are prey animals, and they don't really care how small the dog is, they fight back if they can. I don't let my little bichon near them because they'll try to beat her up, especially if they have babies to protect. They'll also beat up cats when they have babies. The rest of the time, they ignore cats -- at least mine do.
I wouldn't say that a goat's back teeth are as dangerous as a garbage disposal, but they can break the skin. Normally it's one crunch, and the human screams and yanks the hand away, and there is only one small cut.
If you don't have straw on the concrete, you should add it for bedding in the covered area to keep the goats cleaner. Hay is for food; straw is for bedding. You could also use shavings, but they're not as soft or warm.
Sounds like people out west don't have as much trouble with worms as those of us with lots of green grass and wet weather, so you might be okay.
My goats are home! We're on a one-week trial period that the breeder let us do while she held our check, but things are looking pretty good. I do have some questions and concerns, though, that I could use some expert advice with.
My daughter named them Sugar-cup and Buttercup (or Rainbow, depending on the day). I have a (hopefully pregnant) 1 1/2 yr. old doe, and a (also possibly pregnant) 8 month old doe. The younger one is being seriously dominated by the older one who was at the bottom of the totem pole at the farm. This is working out really well because she is an extremely sweet and mellow doe. The younger one was a little more wild at the breeder's, so I'm assuming that being dominated by such a calm doe is great.
They were a little terrified when they came home. In two days they've made 2 discreet bleats. I was SOOO paranoid about them being noisy, so I'm hoping that this means they will most likely stay quiet for the most part. I'm sure as they get comfortable they'll start talking to me when it's feeding or milking time. The younger doe is pretty wild. The goats were dam raised, so this one is pretty skittish around me. She's just following the older one around everywhere. The older one is very sweet with me, though.
The breeder was feeding them 100% alfalfa plus oats/barley/corn mix as a treat for when they are being milked (which mine aren't right now). She also had the salts and mineral mixtures. They were all in dirt pens (here in the desert-like climate of southern CA, pasture land isn't exactly a norm). I am feeding mine the alfalfa because I'm still just feeling this all out. They also have their own 16x22 ft yard (connected to an additional 250 square feet or so of concrete, half of which is covered like a 3-sided barn or something. I think I have an ideal set up for urban goats. I thought they'd sleep in the giant dog crate filled with comfortable hay, but they're just sleeping on the concrete area. (?)
My biggest concerns are the worms that many of you talk about. I can't rotate them on grass. In our super dry climate, should I expect as much of a problem? Jordana, I'm definitely looking into your advice on doing fecal samples. That actually sounds like fun. Also looking into the facebook page- thank you for offering your info!
My two biggest questions at the moment are my kids and my dogs...Tonight we gave them some apple pieces for a treat. These goats are sweet, but they haven't met children before, so they definitely aren't used to my 3 yr. old yet. Once the older one took the apple, she realized how much she liked it and started harassing us for more. How concerned should I be about the safety of the goats with my little ones? I know that their back teeth could slice a hand like a garbage disposal.
As far as the dogs..I have 2 little Italian Greyhounds (about 14 pounds each) and every time she sees them, the older one is grunting, stomping, and once even tried to ram the sliding glass door. How do I handle the dog issue with them?
I appreciate any more advice, especially any comments on what I've talked about here. The first night I was so nervous that I slept with knots in my stomach and woke up 30 minutes before my alarm...which was set for 1 1/2 hours before I normally wake up. I'm doing a lot better now because I've had no problems, but I do pray things continue going this well. I definitely like them more than chickens :).
If your on facebook there is a great group page called Totally Natural Goats, and some very good advice and none of the bickering found on many of the sites. A lot of the people use products from Fir Meadows. Me, I research the be-jeebies out of everything and make my own, but it is time consuming. I found that all goats I get on typical medicine in a bottle care plans have problems. I cannot use those methods on my small acreage without disaster occurring. Herbal methods work very well, but they are more time consuming and require a lot of thought and an expense in preparation.
One thing you should invest in is a microscope and slide to do fecals. That will make management much better, and you should do fecals every week for a while to get a good idea what might be present in your herd. They are easy to do, my kids can do them. Also, unlike many, I don't use the herbal wormers constantly (weekly). I worm intensively just like you would with the chemicals if needed. Seems to work better for me and my goats. I don't know of any liver biopsies where goats were fed herbal wormers weekly over a long period to know the long term affects of the herbs on liver function, but I do know in humans it is advised not to treat with the strong herbs for long periods of time, and I would think the same applies to livestock. That idea is not very popular, but if your general management is good they really are not needed constantly.
If you have good hay and minerals you can get by with a home-mixed feed using grains you get locally available. I use oats, wheat, sunflower seed generally, and sometimes millet or sorghum if I can find it. I don't like corn or soy. When killing my chickens fed on it they have these hard marbles of fat around their organs that do not look healthy at all, very hard and yellow.
Oh great- I'll follow your blog! I just ordered your book, too. I can't wait to get it!
I'm didn't realize you can continue to milk the goat during pregnancy. I assumed you couldn't because you'd be competing with the baby's nutrition, but that makes sense. (Cool- I'll get to milk right away!)
You can continue milking goats until they are three months pregnant, and although I know of at least one goat that milked through until the day she gave birth to her next kids, it is not recommended so that the doe can give all of her energy to growing the babies in those last two months, which is when the babies get about 80% of their final size.
I doubt you would have any toxic plant issues in your yard unless you are already aware of something that is known to be toxic. Sweet pea and lily of the valley are two toxic plants, but I'm not sure how much a goat would have to eat to get sick. There are lists out there on the web, but many of them include trees and plants that are usually harmless such as oaks.
Several of us here are into natural and organic management. The more I learn about goats, the more I believe that if you have good genetics and good nutrition, pretty much everything else takes care of itself. I'm at the annual conference of the American Dairy Goat Association this week, and I just came from a session about diseases in kids, which was done by a vet who totally supports bottle-rearing kids on pasteurized goat milk, and I can't help but think that the reason she sees so many of these diseases is because the kids are being raised on pasteurized milk, which is lacking in a lot of antibodies that are in raw milk. In nine years (knock on wood) the only one of those diseases that I've seen is coccidiosis.
I'm posting short summaries of info from the conference on my blog, and today I just posted a short thing on copper. I'll be doing a post on kid diseases, as well as general nutrition and a few other things in the next few days. http://www.homegrownandhandmadethebook.com