Goat Pictures :-)

[Lazy Farmer]

Awwwwww, beautiful! Especially love the picture of the doe and her newly born, still wet, little kids!

I have a ton more on my pc. My tablet content is limited. But I always bring the tablet out to the barn where I usually am all the time. Wifi farm.. Hehe..
Thanks for letting me share!

 

[lomine]

Sadly we lost Schroeder, one of our two Nubian bucklings, last week. He went down unexpectedly with Barber Pole worms, and despite all we did to try and save him, he didn't make it. I am devastated. He was such a sweet little guy.
RIP Schroeder, we will miss you!
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Below are a few other pictures of the goats taken about a week ago.
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'Lil Geoffrey, herd sire in the making!
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Sorry about Schroeder.

Love those floppy Nubian ears.

 

[Zoomie]

That is so cool! My Mom does something similar to that when she is milking the cows. After she is finished with each one, she ties them up in a line (outside of the fence) and they are given whatever food is leftover from their milking session (which they soon devour). After the last one is milked we let them back into their pasture to graze. They have all become halter-trained because of that.

How many goats do you currently have? And if you don't mind my asking, how do you prepare your does/bucks for breeding season? Any special minerals/supplements you give them?

Oh I can just imagine that with cows... that would be awesome! Maybe you can share a pic? Yes, I find that just tying my goats up every day teaches them quite a lot, and at show time they are so easy to handle as a result!

This year I'm milking 4, and I've saved back two doelings from this year's kidding because I used a very nice buck last year and wanted to save at least some of his kids. That gives me 6 does, and I have 3 bucks. I keep the numbers down because I am only one person and can only do so much work, and I want my goats to be pampered.

As far as prepping for breeding: I was always told you want them on a "rising plane of nutrition" so whatever you are feeding, you want to amp up right before breeding. In my case it means I offer more oats, perhaps add some barley to the mix, and add more BOSS (black oil sunflower seed). Normal feeding for me is mostly good hay, alfalfa pellets, and then a bit of oats and BOSS.

Here's a favorite sequence of photos... these are from last year, and these two are now first fresheners, working hard at putting milk in the pail:

 

[Zoomie]

Well darn it... I tried that several times and can't get the pics to go in the right order. They were in the feed bin to start with, I kept trying to sneak a pic of them in there, but as soon as they would see me they would rush over. But FINALLY I caught them in there... not for long, though!!

ETA: There we go, I got it, finally!!!

 

[Farmgirl47]

They are so cute, @Zoomie! I love the tan/white colored Nubians... you don't see them very often.

I would go out right now (my Mom is milking) and snap a picture of the cows all lined up at the fence but today has been very dreary and there's been a lot of rain. Hopefully tomorrow will be sunny and I can take one then!

 

[Farmgirl47]

So, I know this is a goat thread, but I guess I can stretch the rules a little bit.

Here are the three cows who are currently providing us milk. We have two other milk cows, but they were recently dried off because they are due to calve the 1st and 29th of September!

After being milked. Left to right, Sasha, Candy and long-legged Hershey. Sasha got her leg caught up in the rope.

After being milked they are on their way back up front to their pasture! The calves are following them from the other side of the fence.

Here are Belle (right) and Violet (left), the pregnant cows who are due in September. We usually leave them in the front pasture when we bring the other cows back, unless they really want to come.

From left to right, Cinnamon (Hershey's heifer, she only gets to nurse on the weekends when we don't milk the cows), Gertrude (Violet's heifer who was just weaned when we dried her off), Soji (the Brahman heifer I bought last November), Keatha, the tiny calf besid/behind Soji (she was Violet's foster, but now we let her nurse from Candy during the weekends), Tallula (Candy's heifer), and George, Belle's recently weaned steer. He will be heading to the freezer soon.

Lilly gets to nurse off of her mama, Sasha, on the weekdays after we milk as well as on the weekends when we don't. The reasoning behind this is, Sasha has staff A in one quarter of her udder so we don't milk that quarter, we just let Lilly have it. I guess that's why Lilly is the fattest calf we have.

 

[Zoomie]

Oh wow, @Farmgirl47 what beautiful cows! And so well-behaved! Thank you so much for the pictures, that is really cool.