We've plunged into goat ownershp

[erinszoo]

We've been working at this self-sufficiency thing for a few years now with varying degrees of success. We have chickens, turkeys, ducks, and meat rabbits plus a very large garden. We process our own meat from all of the critters and raise our own new stock each year in our incubator. We've learned many many new recipes to eat what we grow and are feeling pretty confident about our skills.

For the last two years we've been discussing buying goats and the opportunity came up yesterday to buy a 6 month old female Boer so we took the plunge. She won't come home until the weekend so we have a few days to set things up for her but now I'm in a panic. We've all been reading and studying for the day we could get a goat and now that we have one I can't remember anything. My mind just went blank.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Chicks Galore3]

Check out BYC's sister site, Backyardherds.com. I am wanting to get two nigerian dwarf goats this spring, and that site has been very helpful!

 

[erinszoo]

Thanks, I'll check them out.

We ended up buying two Boer goats and they came home today. So far they are doing just fine with the chickens and turkeys. We set them up a pen with a hanging feeder that the birds can't get into and the goats found it pretty quickly. They are already learning to come to us when we go out to the yard but we have a lot of work to do to get them where they are tame.

With the goat purchase, our homestead is only lacking bees and pigs neither of which we can have in city limits. Our entire backyard is given over to garden space and animal space with only a small patio for us where we have a cob oven and fire pit with a rocket stove for outdoor cooking. We already have meat rabbits, chickens, and turkeys. The goats will fill in the non-poultry meat and give us some milk for cheese. We are also building an aquaponics system to raise bluegill.

We're so excited about the goats!!