OK Im new here...

I have Alpines, and I really like them.
I have only had one that I considered too "aggressive".......and she went to the auction. They will have their pecking order, and there are occasional head butting seesions when one wants to change the order.
A person that I knew several years ago started a commercial goat cheese factory (sold to up-scale restaurants in new York City). He started out with mainly Nubians, but switched to Alpines because they were more profitable. He said that the increased volume more than made up for the lower butterfat......and, according to him, the butterfat was not the most accurate measure of how much cheese one would get......I think that he thought that Protein was a better indicator (it was many years ago).

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"When you are having dinner with someone and they are nice to you, but rude to the waiter, then this is not a nice person.".....Dave Barry

This really depends on what you are feeding them and the size of the goat.

On no additional feed:

5 full-sized goats per acre OR

5 mini-breeds per half acre OR

5 Nigerian Dwarfs per quarter acre.

IF you are feeding hay and grain, the standard rule of thumb is:

Full size- 100 sq. ft. per goat
Mini- 50 sq. ft. per goat
Dwarf- 25 sq. ft. per goat.

If you are going to pen them and feed them hay and grain, you might consider portable fencing...that way you can cut feed costs down by making little mini-rotating-pastures. Move the fences when you see the goats lying down a lot.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

Hmmm. Yeah its going to be grain and hay for a while until I get it together. The back half of my property which is the 4 acres or so is covered in baby oak trees. There is no grass back there. Plenty of undergrowth though, small, very small trees coming up.

The area where I was going to house ALL of the animals at this time is down to the dirt because we have had to clear small trees to make room for housing the animals and fencing areas so yes, they would have to be on grain and hay until I get it all cleared. This is of course if I have 2 does and a buck and fence maybe an acre to keep them while I work on the rest.

However, I have started cutting the fence line for the full 4 acres and I was going to let the goats have at it, letting them eat what they want out there and yet still give them hay and grain. We want to give them a good life no matter how short it may be.

We are going to check on some goats this weekend. Just looking though. These are Boer (how do you pronounce that?) and Boer Kiko cross.

I understand the Boers are mainly for meat eh? Yeah I gotta have goats that are dual purpose. Milk and Meat.

Boers (and I have heard it pronounced "Bo-ears", "Bow-weers", and "Boh-years") are meat goats. You won't get much milk from them.

Nearly all of the dairy breeds will produce bucklings that give good carcass weights. If you are harvesting them at around 4 months, it really will matter more what you are feeding them rather than what breed they are.

If you *don't want those little saplings growing into trees, you might consider making that area your goat run. I promise you that after a few weeks, you won't have small trees anymore. :laugh:

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

LOL I gotcha there... They will reach up and eat the limbs off the smaller trees too Im sure hehe. Yeah I found another farm thats pretty close to me... like 40 minutes that I could visit. Boers there too. Seems a popular breed around here.

Gotta keep looking around. I do believe that 1.5" poly tape on a solar charger would keep the girls in and I could have Mr Buckaroo in a pen while they move around and then move him out while they are in.

Now to see some of those shelters.

All great advice and asking for our favorite breed is really asking to start WWII

I agree most with the comments about researching diseases (especially CL and CAE), researching which breeders in the area test and show proof, making SURE that you have adequate shelter and fencing and checking to be sure that there are bucks available locally of the breed that you're choosing.

That said, I love my Oberhaslis and Nubians and am really happy with the mix of the two. If you're not planning to show, you can get great mix breed dairy goats.

And WELCOME!

Yes, these are all reasons the animals are not on the property yet. I want to make sure Ive got them a good home to be at. Am I correct in assuming that an 8 x 8 or 8 x 10 shelter that is say 5' tall sloping down to say 4' would be adequate for 2-3 does? You know the 3 sided kind of cover for them.

Im still a bit uneducated as to how I will breed them. So if I have 2-3 does and a buck who is in his own pen/shelter, once he has mated with the 3 does and they have kids will I then need a different buck to breed those kids? Sorry, I know that I sound ignorant here which is because I am.

I want to make sure Im doing it correctly.... Guess I need to reread this book I just bought on Raising Dairy Goats heh.



Thank you very much. Great place. Seems to be filled with fine, friendly, and helpful folks. I like it!

Hello and welcome. I recently sold my Nubians in favor of LaManchas. We have limited room so we can't have two breeds. I used to think I would never have anything but Nubians until I met LaManchas. To me they are the perfect goat. Each person has their own personal perfect goat. For some its Nubians, others its Saanens,others it Alpines or Nigies. For some its purebreds only, for others its grades. Visit a show and any dairy goat farms you can and try to find your perfect goat.

CL is a nasty disease and CAE is heart breaking. Make sure you buy from clean tested herds. It is worth the extra expense. Make sure you have a goat medicine box and stock it. Anytime you desperately need a med for a very sick goat, it will be on a Sunday afternoon on a holiday weekend.

Learn about minerals. A lot of health issues can be avoided if you keep the mineral levels up.

We use cattle panels to fence with and have never had a goat escape. An 8x10 shelyer will be fine for two or three does. But keep in mind that you are already planning on keeping kids to breed the following fall so your shelter needs to big enough to house the max amount of goats you plan to have in the future.

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The only ignorant question is the one left unasked.

You CAN breed a buck back to his daughter, or a doe to her son, buy it is generally not a good idea. If you do so for several generations, you are GOING to end up with problems.

This is why people tend to only keep a buck for a single season, and then get another buck from different lines, or breed to someone else's buck.

It would seem that A.I. would be the answer to this problem, but it is not. Getting a vet experienced in doing A.I. can be expensive. Keeping a cryogenics tank around is expensive in the electric it sucks up. Etc., etc. (loosing all of your stored semen because of a power outage is a pain also)

So it basically comes down to buying a buck to service your does, then selling him, and next season buying another buck, etc. On down the line.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

More great info. Thanks folks. Keep it coming. hehe I gotta get to work on some clearing around here but Im having some coffee and enjoying reading your replies.

I have a small herd and am no expert.

My buck advice is unless you KNOW you'll have access to a nice boy when you need him, BUY your own.. and now. This time of year they are easier to find.

It's so much of a headache when it comes October/November, and you know you need your girls bred, but you can't seem to find a boy you want to use.

Be picky about your buck. I don't even mean the bloodlines, really, although other people definitely find that extremely important (and rightfully so). Make sure he is very healthy. Make sure he is easy to handle. Make sure you LIKE him to start, because he's going to do some pretty disgusting things and it's easier to take if you can find it funny.

I'm not against line/in breeding, but what happens if the result is a really nice doe you just love, or a nice buck you want to keep/use? You'll be forced to inbreed/linebreed AGAIN. And then.. same question. Goats are like dogs, to be honest, in that you can't NOT get attached. You'll undoubtedly want to keep a baby or two (I hear you saying no, but you WILL.. or your wife will.. or your children or grandchildren will.. or one baby goat will pick you out as her FAVORITE person EVER!).

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Silence is not Agreement

http://www.chickenchatter.org/

Hi AllAmerican & Welcome.
My family and I live on a very small hobby farm. Everything we own farm animal wise is headed towards dual purpose only. Our chickens are the slower to mature standard size Brahma. We have 7 laying hens and get 5-7 eggs a day. The roosters we butcher are about 11 pounds each on average, the hens, about 9.
We decided to buy 1 Nubian doe, 1 Saanen doe and 1 1/2 Saanen, 1/4 Nubian,1/4 Togg buck. His bloodline has produced wonderful milking does. We are having a buck swap with a Kiko buck to breed the Snubian doe kids to so we can attempt to get a nice dual purpose goat for the homesteading family.
We are a family of 4. It varies of course, but the Saanen always gives us 3.8-4.2 pounds twice a day. The Nubian between 2.11 - 3.9 pounds twice a day. We freeze about 1 gallon of milk a day for when the does dry off so we will have our yummy milk almost year round. Both does are first time freshners.
Between what our chickens give us and what the goats give us we have plenty to spare. I can't imagine us milking 4-5 does at this time. I don't know what on earth I would do with that much milk right now!
Our plan is to keep our Saanen cross buck, buy a Nubian buck and continue to get Snubian kids and breed them to a meat goat. Our choice is the Kiko instead of the Boer.
Where we live, which is out of the way and on our own, and our goals as homesteaders, keeping two bucks is our best option. We have a friend that raises the Kiko, and so we have a buck swap option. She wants to cross in dairy and we want to cross in meat goats.
We always butcher in the fall right before the husband and daughter head off to moose camp for our yearly supply of moose meat. It's cooler then so we can age the meat, and butchering the farm animals gets us back into the swing of things for when that huge moose arrives for us to cut,wrap and freeze.
I think I read where you are in South Carolina so the extreme winter weather we endure won't be an issue for you. We found that the Nubain required a bit more care and tending to when it gets near 40 below for a couple of months. The Saanens took this weather better.
It has been near 80 degrees so far this summer. Most times we get those temps in July not May and the Nubian is less of a worry in these temps for us than our poor Saanens who look for a shady spot and stay there almost all day.
Things work a lot different in my part of Alaska than many parts of the world and other parts of Alaska too. I just thought I'd give you what our experience has been so far in this new world of goats and homesteading.

Great advice... Yes, my wife has already told me she will get attached and Im sure I will too. She has already told me she doesnt want to be around when they are butchered LOL. She is far more the animal lover than I am though I dig the farm animals moreso than dogs and cats and even the horses.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Im clearing fence line today (well for the next week I think. Just dropping in on a break from the tractor.

Thanks again to all of you for your experiences.