The goat campaign!

[texaschickmama]

A good milking doe could give you like 2 gallons a day. MissPrissy milk hers you could ask her. I forget how much milk she gets a day. You have to milk twice a day. EVERYDAY!!

 

[NS2A]

My family had 2 minature goats. My kids are young (3 and 5) and they did not like having the goats jump up on them. Kind of remind me of a lab. So, consider this if you have young kids.

Would eat the lawn (which I wanted), but one would seem to get bored and only eat for 20 minutes or so. So, I'd put him back in his pen and he'd eat his bedding at times!! One time I had a bunch of old musty straw with goat and chicken manure in it piled in a corner. Those goats ate it all!!

If you want goats for milk, remember, they are like cows, they need to be attended to everyday, rain, shine, in sickness or health.

We had wethers, so they were fed mostly hay. Luckily I got it for $3.50 a bale and they don't eat much. Grain was a big handful a day.

Get a clippers for their hooves. I've seen too many goats with overgrown hooves and can end up with leg problems.

I ended up selling them a few months back. We are focusing on meat animals and laying hens, so being kind of practical, I am not having animals that don't have a "purpose".

If you want pets, they are fun though!

 

[MRNpoultry]

2 gallons is alot of milk per day. I have a little sister who is real young so that could be a problem. My grandma said her brother got a goat for his birthday, and he was in the house one morning. My dad has still not saw the flags in the yard, he probaly will when he gets home from work. I was asking my mom about getting goats and she said she is ok with having them.

 

[MRNpoultry]

I asked my dad today and he said maybe!

Now I have to win my mom over.
My grandpa friend said he could get me a real good deal on some goats.

Wish me luck.

 

[MRNpoultry]

I called my dad at work and he said he is going to think about getting a goat. When you go on vacation what do you do about milking?

 

[helmstead]

You hire someone to do it.

 

[MRNpoultry]

How much do they charge?

 

[Carolina Chicken Man]

I too have been thinking about goats, and I have a couple questions.

I have about 3/4 acres that is wooded and semi wooded. Lots of briars, volunteer gum and oak saplings, lots of good goat browse. That is the main reason I'd like a goat, I want to keep this stuff cleared out. That and the fact that I have always thought they were cool.

But, I would like to get a little milk out of the deal, but not a gallon or two a day! If you leave the kid with the doe, can't you just milk once a day, and get what is there?

I exchanged emails with a lady on NC Poultry forum, that has some 9 week old mini manchas (nigerian dwarf/la mancha cross) doelings that she wants $100 each for. Does that sound like a reasonable price? She also said that she had a full blooded nigerian dwarf doe that she would sell for $40 to someone who would not breed her again, because she has had a hard time kidding. If I got one of the doelings, would this older doe be a better companion than a wether? Any pros or cons to either?

 

[hazelton farms]

Oh man..I wanted some of those minimanches too! But when we were down that way, she didn't have any that were able to go away from their mothers!!!

I would think it'd depend on what you cared about for the future of your goats as far as what would be the best companion! If you want to eat any future wethers, then an older doe that can't be bred again wouldn't do the trick. How old is the older doe and does she have any other problems or has she in the past? Is she in milk now and is she used to being milked? If so, she might be a good choice as a starter to learn how to milk, etc.

We're milking a couple of our does now. They are not purebred anythings so we don't get a whole lotta milk, but it's turning out to be a fun way to learn how to milk, how to keep our milking stuff clean, etc.

Our goats ate the heck outta our brush and now other people want to 'borrow' them, although we've been looking to sell a few of them off to be honest.

I guess it just depends on what'cha wanna do with 'em in the long run...

Stacy

 

[Coco]

If you do decide to get goats, please be careful on what they eat as I had to learn the hard way and it causes one of my 2 Pygmy goats almost her life. She is recovering still and is still partially blind (so we think). She ate Johnson Grass...which we came to find out is VERY common in pastures in our area (Missouri)...and it had Cyinide in it naturally, which caused our Goat to foam from the mouth, go into bad convulsions, etc. It was the most HORRIBLE experience. Our vet said our 2 goats shouldn't eat ANYTHING but hay and some grain from this day on!! No more grazing on the grass/weeds...which was the main reason why we "adopted" them in the first place. We were told goats could eat about anything and would help with the pasture weeds for the horses and dead leaves from the yard. Come to find out the list of poisionious plants and leaves for goats is VERY lengthy and they are not as sturdy as we had thought.

And our 10 acre pasture is located right in the middle of a busy neighborhood, which means our 2 goats can not waunder as they please, so they have to be kept in a pen. I tried to take them out in the pasture on a collar and lead rope but it that backfired on me...they wanted nothing to do with it. So now they just stay put in a pen and have daily hay and grain, which seems kind of depressing to me but they dont seem to mind. Just be careful what you are getting yourself into...they are not always "easy keepers" as people will tell you!