What do I need

[christie]

I am interested in getting a dairy goat and have so many ?'s.
My Brain aches from all the research I have been doing on goats.
I currently have 2 acres with a horse. I currently have 3 strand electric tape fencing, with a pulse charger. Is that good or should I add a couple more strands of electric wire?

Tethering? First I don't want to leave a goat tied when I am not around, but I thought If I was home it could be a good way for them to graze in a unfenced area. Promise would never leave goat tied unsupervised!!!

Dogs? Are they really that bad?

Sickness? Reading these threads sounds sooo scary all that could go wrong, I always thought of goats as hardy animals.

Now for the milking questions..

I read online that you can milk 1 a day. By leaving the mom to raise the kids.
Take kids away from mom at nite milk mom in the mourning, kids stays with mom all day. pros/ cons?

How long does raw milk last in the fridge?

When Can't you drink the milk?

Is there a more holistic way of managing your dairy goats? { wormers, feed, vaccines, ect..}

Its May and we want milk... obviously goat novices... What should we get?
A couple kids and wait till next year?
A doe with a baby so we can milk 1 a day?

Now with kids they won't be a good milker for a couple years, right or wrong.
I don't want my husband to get dis apointed the 1st year and give up on the goats!!

So any info would be soo helpful, I am so nervous about this, I want to do everything right, I realize that I will not only be a goat milker but a goat breeder, so I want quality animals!
How do I find quality animals, It seems like its different then the dog world of breeding, but maybe its not, I just have to enter the world!!

[Freeholder]

[QUOTE=christie;3072116]
I currently have 2 acres with a horse. I currently have 3 strand electric tape fencing, with a pulse charger. Is that good or should I add a couple more strands of electric wire?

At the very least, you'll need to add a couple more strands of electic wire, making SURE that it's HOT!! And it has to stay hot ALL the time! Horses are MUCH easier to fence than goats! But you are wise to address this issue first, because it's probably the hardest thing about keeping goats. I keep my goats penned inside cattle panels now, and don't even try to pasture them. However, if you want to use your pasture, what would be better than adding just a couple of strands of electric wire would be adding woven wire and offsetting your existing electric wires so the goats would get shocked before they ever reached the woven wire. Since the horse is already used to the electric, it would stay out of the woven wire, too.

There is an additional issue with keeping horses and goats together. Sometimes horses will injure or even kill goats that are sharing space with them. You would need to keep a close eye on your situation to see how your horse handled it's new pasture-mates.

Tethering?

As long as you NEVER leave the goat unsupervised, you can tether. Just be aware that the minute you turn your back, or decide it's safe to run over to the neighbor's for five minutes, something WILL happen!

Dogs? Are they really that bad?

Yes. Even if the dog has no intention of hurting the goat, they can spook at sight of a strange dog and run right through the fence (had it happen). Or, if tethered, bolt to the end of the tether and break their neck (had that happen, too). And while the dog may just be curious to start with, when the goat spooks and runs, the dog thinks it's a neat game to play chase with the goat, and it just degenerates from there. Even tiny dogs can spook and injure a goat. Stray dogs are the worst, but your own dogs can do damage.

Sickness?
I've had a lot of goats over the last twenty-five years, and have only lost two adult does, both to hypocalcemia. I have lost a couple of kids at birth, which is pretty normal. In addition, I've had a few cuts and scrapes to doctor, a couple of cases of lice when we lived in Alaska (haven't had any trouble with them anywhere else, but that was probably just luck), some stupid goats who got out and gorged on grain (they survived after hours of walking them like a colicy horse), a case of what was probably mites, a couple of kids with coccidiosis (easily treated and prevented), and a kid with mild white-muscle syndrome (selenium deficiency -- treated by giving Vitamin E capsules for a few days). We also had a couple of young does when we first got into goats who probably had CAE, but we hadn't ever heard of it back then and didn't know why they didn't have any milk when they freshened for the first time.

Goats in milk have especially high nutrition requirements, but if they are fed right, they are usually pretty healthy and hardy. Most often, illnesses are nutrition-related as a root cause, so taking very good care to have a good feeding program will prevent many of the ailments we see. Balance is required -- overfeeding can cause as many problems as underfeeding (I have a dry doe out here who didn't conceive last fall, most likely because she was too fat). Any highly productive animal is going to be a little trickier to care for and keep healthy than a low-producing animal. This is one reason why I wouldn't want to own a 'top-ten' doe (one who produces so much milk that she makes the list of the top ten milkers of her breed). When I was looking for the Nubian goats I had in New Hampshire, I was reading every website I could find, and was surprised at how many mentioned such and such a goat as one of their foundation animals, 'but she died of (hypocalcemia, mastitis, etc.). High-producing animals have high nutrient requirements, and if those requirements aren't met, you will lose them, sometimes very quickly. So while it might be tempting to get the best milkers money can buy, IMO it's far better to start with more modest milkers who aren't going to be so fragile. Also, I think there's too much inbreeding in some goats. You may actually be best off with a good-quality cross-bred doe -- you'll get some hybrid vigor that will probably help in the health department. I've got a pretty little doe kid whose father is my reg. Oberhasli buck; her mother is a friend's reg. Alpine doe. I think she's going to do very well for me -- both parents are good-quality animals, and the hybrid vigor should give her a health advantage.

It's telling me that my response is too long, so I'm cutting this and will make two posts....

Kathleen

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Now for the milking questions..

I read online that you can milk 1 a day.

You can do this. A lot of people do. The possible problems are that the doe may not be willing to let her milk down for you -- she wants to save it for her own kids, which is understandable, but frustrating if you need the milk. Also, she may not want to let you milk her -- rodeos at milking time are really not fun. Then, the kids will grow up much less friendly to humans than if they were bottle-raised. Bottle-kids can be so friendly that they are nuisances, but on the whole I prefer goats that don't have to be roped or cornered when you need to handle them. Bottle-raised goats will usually come right up to you, even as adults. The cross-bred doe kid I mentioned above was dam-raised, and I'm having to work very hard at getting her to trust me. We are making progress, but I would have much preferred to have her from birth, and raise her on a bottle. (One reason I need my goats to be bonded to humans is because I also use them for packing, and when you are out in the woods and mountains, you can't have goats that won't stay with you. This little doe is bonding to my other goats, who ARE bottle-raised, so hopefully she won't get lost when we go camping, but I would never take a whole lot of dam-raised goats out -- they would probably desert and become feral goats very quickly, something BLM and the Forest Service wouldn't look very kindly on!)

How long does raw milk last in the fridge?

If your equipment is scrupulously clean, it will stay good for at least a week. I've had some that was still good for nearly two weeks -- longer than store-bought pasteurized!

When Can't you drink the milk?

For three days after worming if you use horse wormer (there are herbal dairy wormers with no withdrawal requirement). Also after using most medications -- you'd have to check the container or talk to the vet to be sure how long. And, for about four days after kidding. You'll need all the colostrum for the kids for the first day or two anyway, then could freeze some for just-in-case future use.

Is there a more holistic way of managing your dairy goats?

Wormer -- use the herbal wormer I mentioned above. Fiasco Farm sells one; Hoeggers Goat Supply sells one. Caprine Supply may also, but I don't get their catalog.

Feed -- pasture and brush is their natural diet. You'll probably need hay for at least part of the year -- if you can get weedy hay with both grass and a legume in it, that's probably the ideal. For a milker, you will need alfalfa, as it's high in calcium, and obviously they are putting a lot of calcium into the milk.

Vaccines -- this is up to you. They really ought to have the tetanus vaccine, especially since you have a horse (horses are carriers). I give my goats the CD & T vaccine, and have never seen any ill effects from it, while the two kids I mentioned up there that got coccidiosis probably wouldn't have gotten it if I'd already had them vaccinated. I think they are worth doing -- I do give my own shots, which saves money. Not everybody vaccinates; you'll have to figure out what works for you. But if your goats are getting sick with something you can vaccinate for, I'd go ahead and use the vaccines.

Its May and we want milk

Are dairy goats in good supply in your area? If so, this is a good time of year to get a doe in milk. If I was you, I would look for a doe in milk, with or without kid (if she's been fresh for several months, you can go to once-a-day milking even if she doesn't have a kid on her -- that's what I'm doing with the Alpine doe I have on loan from my friend). Along with her, get a doe kid to raise for milk next year. In fact, if you get a doe who is a decent milker, she may milk through the winter and through next year without being re-bred. You could breed the doe kid this fall (if she's big enough, and if she's well-fed, she probably will be), and milk HER through the following winter without re-breeding. Alternate them like that, and you'll never go without milk, and you won't have so many kids to worry about selling or keeping or having to put them in the freezer.

If a doe kid is well-grown and healthy, she can be bred when she weighs about 75-80 pounds, usually by the time she is seven or eight months old. So by the time she's a year old, she could be in milk. How much milk you get, and how easy she will be to milk (first fresheners often have small teats, but not all do -- it's worth asking about this characteristic in the goats you are looking at), depends on her breeding. If she's from good milk lines, she could give a gallon a day even as a yearling -- probably not on once-a-day milking, though. Even so, two or three quarts of milk coming in regularly is plenty for many families.

So any info would be soo helpful, [/QUOTE]

To find quality animals, you will have to do some research. Find out all the breeders in your area, and visit them. (The Ag. Extension agent can help you find breeders; also the ADGA puts out a book of breeders all over the country, and you can do research on their website for info on specific animals.) As I mentioned above, though, you are more likely to see health problems if you start with really high-producing animals. I would suggest starting with a couple of less-expensive grade or cross-bred does. Then in a couple of years, when you feel a little more comfortable with goat-keeping (and are sure it's something to really want to keep on with), you can look for some really good animals -- you'll know more what you want then, too. It is different from keeping dogs -- a mistake I think a lot of people make is to assume that goats are like dogs, because they aren't much bigger than a large dog. But dogs are omnivorous predators; goats are herbivorous prey animals. They really haven't got much in common, other than both are mammals!

It's natural to be a little bit nervous when you start out with a new project, but goats really aren't that hard to keep as long as they are properly cared for (and if you have been keeping a horse in good health for a while, I don't think you'll have too much trouble with a couple of goats).

One thing to remember about goats is not to let them dominate you. Even does will sometimes lower their head at you, or rear up (that's where the horse-world term 'capriole' comes from). If they do this to you, immediately flip them upside down and sit on them -- gently, just hard enough to hold them down -- until they stop struggling. Some goats only need this done once, others (bucks esp.) need a few repetitions before they admit that you are the herd boss! But if you don't do it, some of them can become dangerous, especially the males. It doesn't hurt them, so don't feel sorry for them, LOL!

I think once you get into it, you'll find that goats are a lot of fun to have around. I've had to give mine up and start over several times, due to long-distance moves, and every time I missed them and had to get more when we got settled.

Kathleen

[DQ]

you will get as many different opinions as answers! here is mine.

goats need much better fencing than horses. imo electric is not sutiable as perimeter fencing.

dogs. yes they are really that bad. (if you are talking about predation) they are worse than wild predators because they aren't afraid.

goats are very hardy in the enviroment "nature grew them in". meaning in a sparsly vegetated, dry enviroment where most of their food is weedy brush. in our lush pastures and with our high production expectation and therefore selective breeding and feeding they can and do develop problems. most problems are due (imo) ultimatly to overstocking and overfeeding grains (in an attempt to up production) and not having suitable minerals available.

I milk 1x per day. works great for me! no rodeos and the milk let down is a reflex it is not something the doe voluntarily does or does not. being anxious can prevent the reflex though. the idea that goats can somehow "hold back" milk is bunk I think. I breastfed my daughter and sometimes I wished I could have preventing the letdown reflex!

how long the milk lasts depends on many factors. I've never tested it I always use mine up within a week for something.

don't drink the milk if the doe has an infection or is on medication that has a withdrawel time. (especially antibiotics) or if they are just sickly of course.

Holistic. this is a peeve of mine. most "natural" remedies are not effective enough for any acute affliction. and even if they were the natural chemicals in the plants would be no less dangerous than the artificial ones. if it is strong enough to work it can be strong enough to hurt. natural or not. use what is effective and safe. Natural can be on your list of priorities but "effective" must be first. prime examples are wormers. read this thread for more of my opinion regarding this if you wish Sick goat

I would buy a bred doe and something to keep her company.

[tmfinley]

First, know that there is no right way to raise goats. All the information you get is very overwhelming at first. Take a deep breath and try to relax.

I do have woven wire for the main pen area for my goats, but the pasture area is only 2 strands electric tape. I have Nubians and Spanish and Boer goats. None of them have ever tried or gotten out except one new doeling that figured out how to do ninja moves to get through it. A few weeks, she got bigger and doesn't get out anymore. I have 3 kids now and noone has escaped.

You can have friendly dam raised babies. You just need to spend one on one time with them. A lot depends on the kids personalities too. I have 2 week old twins that are super friendly, not skittish around us at all. Also have a 4 day old that had a neurotic mother, (she's an FF and not a great mother this time around), who is picking up on mom's crazy vibes and is scared of us. I will spend lots of time with him to make him comfortable around us.

Take a look at the Fias Co Farm website for more info on dam raised kids.

Tiffany

[deafgoatlady]

I use woven wires around the pasture for the goats.

You can milk them once a day but what Blue said.

Wormers: I use herbal wormer for my goats. I use them during the milking season. I sell the herbal wormer. But i use chemical wormers 4 weeks before the kidding and the day after they kidded AND also when they are dried up I use the chemical wormer. It works soo well for me. But I love herbal wormer. It is best for us..