Where/How did you get your starter goat?

Thaiblue-- wow! Gorgeous! I wish!

I want to add to my post that everyone I've purchased a goat from I've remained in contact with (except for the one I got 26 years ago), and some have become good friends. Goat people are usually friendly people.

I got my first 4 goats - 3 does and a buck - as a gift from my parents when they decided to get out of goats. Since then, I have sold the buck and purchased a new one with much nicer bloodlines, so am increasing the value of my herd. I have purchased a couple and sold several in the last few years.

My first goats were 2 pygmy kids. One jumped into the water trough and drowned within 2 days. My husband felt bad because he was supposed to be watching them while I worked, so he went and bought me an alpine doe kid from a neighbor. So we had Billy the Kid and Annie Goatley. =)
Started talking to a couple ladies in the Humane Society and they told me about Boer goats. So I traded a used Dell computer for a 2yr old doe, named her Dell. My boer herd was begun. Here I am 7 yrs later known on my road as the "goat lady"!

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Shannon L. Darby
"Nature is cruel, we don't have to be." Temple Grandine

I just found an ad on craigslist the other day. I'll be bringing home a registered Nigerian Dwarf doe and her two young wethers as soon as I can get additional fencing up. Can't wait!

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Christine
Front Porch Indiana Blog
Come on up to the porch and sit a spell. We'll talk about the day's events and maybe even tell a story or two.

Thaiblue, Love the pictures! Especially the one with you LGD sleeping right in the middle of all those goats, how cute!

I got my first goat as a companion for a lone horse we had. The horse hated the goat but we all loved her.
A few more goats later I decided I wanted to milk goats. I knew a lady who milked goats and she had an extra one but I was short on cash. I had bred my border collies and was selling the pups, she wanted a border collie but was short on cash..so we traded.
I have been milking for 3 years but didn't even breed my does this year. My husband would like to do more camping and I have no one to milk for me when we're gone.

Its interesting seeing how everyone got goats.

Here is my getting goats story lol,
We moved onto our property in the dead of summer and was having a hard time transporting milk to the house (1hr from town in AZ). Dh and I talked about getting a goat or cow long before our move so when we saw a family with a goat and kids at the local farmers market we chatted with them. They had a doe they wanted to sell, she milked great but had massive attitude which they didn't have time for. We went to check her out with a friend and our friend thought she was great (friend grew up with goats) so we agreed to get her after breeding season. They called in Dec saying she was bred and that they were also giving us an older bred nanny for company. We got both Molly and Rosie for $75.
Molly is great, still stuborn as hell but I can deal with it as long as she gives me milk lol (milking once a day getting a half gallon) she gave us two girls that year and the year after, hoping for more this year but not sure if she is bred. We then got a few boers for meat (her kids were part nigerian which wasn't enough for our family).

I now have Molly, Moon (mollys), Jersey(molly's), Speckles(due any day) and Dawn as my does-- Speckles and Dawn are my boer girls and Dawn is only 2mths old. We are praying a local friend has a nubian available soon since I am wanting to get rid of Moon and Jersey as they are small.

We also share another boer doe and a boer buck with neighbors-- same neighbors we bought our girls from in the begining

got mine from teacup liz........couldn't be happier.

Well... we started out with some hair sheep and a holstein cow. The sheep were annoying and didn't give us as much meat to balance their never ending stomachs. The cow had to be milked out twice a day, 9 1/2 gallons a day, by hand. I loved my cow but when an accident with the vet left us without our cow I didn't plan on buying another one. Man I missed the milk and cheese.
My mother had suggested we get goats before we had even bought our cow but DH said absolutely not, they were stinky, crazy animals. After Gracie (the cow) died my mom secretly bought me 4 does for my birthday. My husband fell in love with one and named her Missy. He now loves the goats just as much as I do. We sold the sheep. We have since aquired one more sheep, but I would much rather my goats because they give us milk AND meat!! Of the original 4 goats, two had babies last year, both bucklings who were sold for meat. We have only two of the original and have bought, traded and sold a couple of others. I now have Wisdom, Karma (kidded two days ago with a doeling) and Missy (kidded this morning with a doeling.) The other critters we have might come and go but I will never, ever get rid of my goats.

We drove to Ohio to a organic farmer / dairy goat breeder for our Nubians. We bought three there.

I traded a rug for my first two goats about 27 years ago. Purebred Alpines with no papers; one was in milk but had huge teats -- she was a sweet-heart, but I'm convinced that milking her is what started my carpal tunnel! The other was a kid -- we ended up trading her for a foundered pony for our little girls to sit on in the pasture. (By that time we had other goats.)

That was in Oregon, in the Willamette Valley. We moved back to Alaska where I was raised, and got some more goats. When we were getting ready to move up there, my dad talked me into selling my goats, rather than try to haul them up through Canada (and he was right, it would have been a headache to travel through Canada with them). He said it would be really easy to find replacements once we got settled in Alaska. Well, it took me over a year! I found an Alpine doe who'd had part of one ear bitten off by a horse, and then a couple of Toggenburgs with milk we didn't like the taste of. But at least we had fresh milk!

Then I got goats again after we moved to New Hampshire -- spent some time researching and got nice registered Nubians, a couple from Vermont, a couple from New York, and a couple from Pennsylvania, just in time for my marriage to fall apart. My ex gave all of them away.

When DD and I moved here, I got some Kinders from a lady in California to start with, and I liked them, but wanted full-sized goats again, so now I have a couple of Oberhasli does and I'm sticking with them! I like Obers, they have good milk and are relatively quiet, plus they are really pretty (and pretty does matter!).

Kathleen

Take them with you!

Kathleen