I am a real newbie to the ND world. In fact, at this moment I do not even own a ND. However, within the next few weeks that will be changing. My family and I live in Albuquerque, NM and just today got the go-ahead from the zoning department allowing us to have a ND. I am interested to find out if anyone has had experience working with NDs and special needs kids? That is a pretty big factor for us since my three youngest siblings are special needs. I have heard and read a lot about how wonderful NDs are and my sibs are really good with animals but do need a very special pet that will stay sweet.
Any advice- from building a home for the doe (which will probably start next week) to milking or drying (right now the doe we are interested in is with her kid but the kid is being kept by the family that has the doe right now. The doe has never been milked and we are trying to figure out if we want to milk her or let her dry out and just enjoy her as a companion right now with milking sometime in the future). Again, anything any of you think is relevant would be helpful. I was reading about adding goat minerals and baking soda (do you mix those together or does the baking soda go in the water??? See, real newbie here!)
Thank you for any advice and for having this awesome group!
Brittany
Replies
Wow! 32 acres! I would love to have that much land. Someday I will. I went to your blog and your farm sounds wonderful.
As to the zoning. I think it would be pretty hard. I know several people that have tried and not gotten very far. However, if my dream farm does not come about very soon, I think I will fight to change that law or at least get an exception for NDs and pygmies. They are fairly open on chicken laws and other small (dwarf and pygmy goats are not small enough or are pot bellied pigs) barn yard animals. In the city we can have 15 chickens. Also, I know some parts of the city (the older parts) are allowed to keep goats of any size and any amount. Our city is sure interesting and strange
I wonder how hard it would be to get the zoning changed to allow two goats -- especially if they understand that one could cause problems that would be solved by having two? Some cities are easier than others. There is a huge movement for backyard chickens now.
Brittany Stone said:
Thank you. Yes, it does help. Not exactly the news I was hoping for but its better to be well informed and not cause the human family members or animal family members any future misery. We (all of the family including the children) have met the goat when we were visiting the farm for another reason. Out of all the goats we happened to fall in love with her and, of course, she was one of the few for sale. She came right up to us and was very gentle with the children. Though I have always been interested in having a small dairy herd, I had planned to wait until I got my dreamed of small farm. This was not something we had thought would happen anytime soon...but we all fell in love with this girl and her personality. The doe's kid is 4 months, I think , or a late 3 months old. I would personally want to milk her. I was just curious to what others would suggest. There are a lot of allergies to dairy (goats milk included) in our home but I wanted to make soap. I thought even if people in our house couldn't drink the milk, we would have a lot of soap and could sell it on the side to make a bit more money.
Were you talking about the Dervaes family? I have been following them for years :) I agree our zoning laws are strange. We are allowed to have one sheep or goat if we have 4000 square feet of open space (ie for us our backyard). It has taken me a long time to even get that much information from our city (I finally called the legal department for the city and found a woman who specializes in animal laws for the city) If we want more than one we have to have at least 21,000 sq ft. Everyone I talked to had a different answer for me but I trust the final word of the last woman I talked to in city hall. If it was just me the legal part wouldn't matter so much, since all of our neighbors are ok with us getting some goats, but I have to consider my younger sibs. They couldn't take the trauma of loosing family pets because of a silly law if it was ever enforced.
Thank you again, this gives me a lot to think about.
It's strange that zoning will allow you to have only one goat. If the space in your yard is not big enough for two goats, I'm going to guess that it's not big enough for one -- OR perhaps you're over-estimating how much space a goat needs? There is a family in California that lives on a 1/4 acre city lot in Pasadena and has two or three goats that provide their family's milk needs. There are a lot of options for housing and pens. I've seen some people use the Little Tykes play houses for a couple goats, and you can use four 16 X 16 livestock panels for fencing, which can be moved around your yard.
Baking soda and minerals are provided separately, free choice in mineral feeders. Jeffers Livestock online and Tractor Supply stores have a mineral feeder with two compartments that's less then $5 and works great.
As for how she will be with special needs kids -- like people, every goat has its own personality. Some are absolutely angelic, and others are little brats. Your siblings need to meet the goat and see how they get along.
Milking is something that you're going to have to decide on your own, but if she has a kid that's two months old, and you take her away from the kid, she will be a very unhappy goat if you don't milk her. I have one now that's been in milk since February, and she's only making a pound a day, and I cut her back to once a day milking, and she's throwing a fit.
I'm thinking that maybe this is not the goat for you. If you don't know whether or not you want to milk, do NOT get a goat in milk that would require some milking, even if you're going to dry her up. Also, is her personality right for your family? Unless people are totally excited about milking, I suggest that they get two wethers as their first goats. If you love them and want to start having babies and milking, then get a doe or two. I sold three wethers to a family this year who have several adopted children with special needs, and they've emailed to tell how much they love them and how well they're working for their family. The other thing about a doe is that even if she is normally a happy girl, she may not be happy every 21 days when she is in heat. Some are quiet, but some scream bloody murder all day long, because they're looking for a boyfriend.
Hope this helps!
Also, I know that it is highly recommended to get two as they are herd animals but because of the space of our yard and zoning regulations in our area we can only legally get one. Is this a really horrible idea? I don't want to make the girl miserable. My siblings are home schooled and have plans to train the girl to a lead and walk her at least once a day as well as continue to spend most of the day in the back yard (just as they do now) with her.
Any ideas, suggestions, options? Thanks again!!