Hello NDDG Friends,
It has been awhile since you heard from me. Among other things we are getting our old hay barn ready for the goats we are getting from Deborah over Memorial weekend. We have been blessed in having a lot of used lumber, so the pens have been basically free for the building. They won't be beautiful, but they will be clean and dry. We are getting two adult milking does, 1 buckling, 1 doeling, and one kid wether. My question to you experts, or at least experienced goat raisers, is how many outside pens do we need to accomodate this herd? We plan to milk 2x daily, and since we are newbies, will need to let the kids "finish" for us to keep up the milk production. So I know for most of the time the kids will need to be kept off moms so we have milk. We were planning to run the buckling and wether together for companionship, but the one doeling will be by herself then except when she is "cleaning up" for us after milking. My husband and I have discussed running the doeling with the buckling and wether, but we know those bucks can breed very young, so that probably isn't a good idea. He isn't crazy about building the 3rd pen, and even then she would be in it alone. We do have 3 inside pens built.
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lol
I don't have my goats on a dry lot. I have them in a grassy pen, and they keep the top of the grass eaten, but it's pretty high still. Up past their tummies. lol
I use cattle panels for my goats, and the only issue I had was with the holes being large enough for kids to get through. I use bird netting zip tied to the bottom 1/2 of the panels to keep kids from getting out while they are still small enough. It works fine! Doesn't LOOK totally pretty, but it works and it was cheap. So far, my goats haven't ruined the panels rubbing on them. I think it helps they are smaller, and don't try to use it to "climb" so much.
Re the milk tasting off if they eat the grass, I don't think grass is usually a taste culprit. Things like milking technique, and how it's handled afterward make a difference more often than what they eat. (some things will make taste changes, but I can't think of a time I've read or heard that grass ever did that.)
LOL! Okay, I guess Ning had a hiccup! I really was not trying to stress that comment. I kept hitting "paste" and it wasn't showing up.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
You do NOT want goats on a dry lot if it's been raining. It would take forever to get their udders clean before milking. If you have a grassy area, you can put them in there, and depending upon how big it is, with only two goats, they might be fine, especially when the grass is growing fast. Right now I have two bucks in a 64 X 64 pen (4 cattle panels each side), which is where they'll stay as long as the grass in knee high. It doesn't look like they've touched it, and they've been in there two weeks already. Parasites only go up about 5-6 inches on the grass. You just don't want them on grass that they've eaten down to golf course level.
Sue Dowdy said:
Rachael, even though we are starting out slow, since we are total newbies to goats, there is so much to learn and do! I am so thankful for this site; it helps enormously, and you are all so wonderful to answer questions.
We have everything nearly ready for our Saturday pick up of our goats at Deborah's. Our pens are cattle panels, and we can quickly run an electric fence if needed. We are trying to keep it simple to begin with, as we figure we will see changes we need to make after we get them. Now, I am wondering about our 2 adult milkers; first, we were going to make a nice pen outside next to their baby's pen, but that will have grass in it, and we know they need to be dry lotted. So our next option was the barn lot which they will have a direct opening to, and has no grass. But, it keeps RAINING so you can imagine what that lot looks like, since we have wonderful black dirt (mud) in Iowa. We do have an unused bull pen close by that is smaller than the barn lot, but it is muddy, also. We are thinking about getting wood shavings to put in it. It will take a lot, as we got 2 inches again last night, and still raining. How do you all handle your dry lotting when it is wet out?
Sue Dowdy said:
"I was just trying to start out slow to begin with."
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
lol heh heh
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