Preparations

When you do get around to building a barn and pen here are some things to keep in mind.

The barn should be big enough to house the goats and also provide a covered shelter for your hay. You sure don't want the hay getting rained on. It's also good to make is so you can feed the goats thru an opening in the wall or fence from inside the hay storage area instead of needing to carry hay into the goat pen. That way you don't get mobbed by goats when you feed them. Also if you want to leave for a few days and have a friend or neighbor take care of your critters it's much easier for them. Make the pen big enough that you can put some wooden cable spools inside. That's for the goats to climb on and get some exercise, and so they can get up out of the mud in wet weather.

Make the goat pen out of livestock panels. They are a bit expensive but they are easy to make a fence out of using T posts, and the goats won't break them down like they will a woven wire fence when they stand up on the fence with their front feet. If your goats have horns don't use the livestock panels with big openings at the top. The goats can get their heads caught in those panels. The best panels have 4" squares top to bottom. Mine are 5 feet high and 20 feet long.

The fence should be high enough and hard to dig under so that dogs can't get in. Neighborhood dogs are the worst predators of goats.

Frosted: I'll have to look around, but the area we live in is pretty well populated and there aren't too many independent stores.

My Goat: It was not unimilk that I was referring to, I believe the brand was save a kid or dumor, but I can't remember. Unfortunately, by your estimates, feeding whole milk would be about $14 per day for all four kids where as the milk replacer I found would be about $10, which isn't a small difference at the end of a few months. Like I said, we're still looking for a cheaper doe, but it doesn't seem whole milk will be an option a majority of the time.

Gila dog: Thank you for the advice! We already have a sturdy fence up, as one of the neighbors has LaManchas, so I'm not too concerned about the goats breaking down the fence as it's standing very sturdy right now under their weight.

For four kids, you will probably need at least 2 does, especially if they are just mediocre milkers. Have you checked the ADGA directory? You may find something there, someone with goats near you. Perhaps you could lease milkers from the breeder you are getting your kids from??

__________________
Nancy Boling
Frosted Mini Goats
Alpine and Nigerian Dwarf goats
2 Jersey heifers
1 guard llama
And whatever else shows up...
http://www.swfarm.net/

We housed our goats in the garage for a few yearz. Bedded pack inside a wooden pen that took up one whole stall of a four car. Had a smaller pen in the next stall for the kids and milked in that stall as well.
Got out of goats a couple. of years ago and we had no smell in the concrete.
For hay storage I put pallets outside along the end of the garage and bought a 16x24 tarp. Screwed it to the garage using 2x4's and pulled it over the bales I stacked on the pallets.
Back into goats this year and they have a shelter in their pasture. I will be keeping the kids in a new pen in the garage.

__________________
Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

Here is some good information on raising kids on milk and replacer. Langston's goat kid raising study. It is an older study so take that into account. The animals of today are not the same necessarily. I personally do not believe that feeding 9% of body weight per day is adequate intake to meet my fast growing, first fall maturing requ

http://ac.els-cdn.com/09214488889002...f320171464f837

I personally don't put much credibility to Sav-a-Kid replacer because of their feeding and weaning recommendations (they state at one point that 30 days is old enough to wean and I do not believe that. They also suggest 30lbs, which is not similar at all to 30 days, lol). I don't know if I've looked at the Dumor recommendations.

Another suggestion is to look into the step-down bottle raising method. This is feeding more milk at a young age (when their ONLY intake is milk), but feeding less when they begin taking in solid food - encouraging dry food and regular water intake sooner which is likely less expensive and should be adequate for their requirements. But, it doesn't lead to bare minimum meagre rations to very young animals.

__________________


Dona Barski

"Breed the best, eat the rest"

Caprice Acres

French and American Alpines. CAE, Johnes neg herd. Abscess free. LA, DHIR.

Frosted: We have not checked the ADGA registry, but that's something worth looking at! Unfortunately, the breeder whom I am getting the kids from biggest business is selling the milk and cheese, so I doubt that she would lease me a milker at an affordable price.

sammyd: That's good to know about the concrete, but we want to be safer than sorry. Our house is newer (built in 2005), so we don't want to ruin anything in it because it is not our "forever" home.

My Goat: That is true, but just because the recommendations are bad doesn't mean the product is. A lot of pet foods recommend overfeeding, but it doesn't make the kibble bad.

We will likely try to step down the milk intake as soon as we can, and encourage hay and alfalfa intake. If we can persuade the breeder to keep the kids until they are 6-8 weeks old, we could afford to do milk for what smaller amount they will be consuming at that point until they are fully weaned. But, I don't think that's likely as it's an added cost for her.

Welcome Meaghan! What part of FL are you in? Tallabred & I are in Tallahassee and we both have Nubians. The most important thing is to track down a goat vet. Ask any goat people you know and see who they use & if they are happy. That can be a real eye opener. Make sure you do the initial worming before you bring them to the property. If you start out with no or few worms on the property you will be better off when the warm wet weather hits this Spring & we have our normal "worm bloom". Please do alot of research on grass fed dairy goats. In my experience you can't keep weight on a milking Nubian without grain - even if you are not going for high production.

Welcome to the wonderful world of being owned by Nubians. Buckle up and get some earplugs.

Kitty

Oh and be sure to check the selenium level in your area. FL is notoriously low & that can cause all kinds of problems, especially with birthing & retained placentas.

AuntKitty: We are in the Gainesville area, so I'm a few hours south of you two. I was going to ask the breeder which vet she uses, and in the mean time our vet clinic for our cats/dogs/small animals can see the goats while they're young and still easily transported. They have two vets who regularly see all sorts of animals, livestock when small included.

Thanks for the worming tip, I'll have to check with the breeder on doing that before we pick them up.

As far as grass fed goes, we weren't planning on just grass feeding them, we are likely going to be relying on alfalfa or another legume heavily. We will also use grain, but we'd like to minimize it and not just for the cost of grain. We want to be able to use the raw milk for ourselves and for the animals without too big of a risk of acid resistant E. coli and other bacteria.

Of course, we will still be using hygienic techniques including washing the udder before milking and using a safe disinfectant like betadine (or something equivalent) . But (as I'm sure you already know) grain changes the rumen's pH, and allows the bacteria in their stomach to adapt to more acidic conditions, similar to our stomachs. And bacteria that are adapted to acidic environments are more likely to cause problems.