We have goats on the family farm outside the city. We find ourselves there less and less though.
We are down to every other weekend right now as work and nearby community pressure has increased. I can still get another family member to deliver milk to me (we work together once a week so he can bring it), but we are missing our goaties! We've long thought about getting goats in the city. I'm thinking we will take the plunge soon. Here's my first pass at a plan, pick it apart please!
Because of city codes, we have to have miniatures. I've pressed the issue of mini-nubian or mini-something but they are sticking to nigies or pygmys. So currently, I'm thinking 3 Nigerian does. We have 1.3 acres of land and would try to do several paddocks for rotation. It mostly crappy grass though so we'd be bringing in most of the feed.
They are aseasonal, right? So we could breed them in succession, one every 4 months (I'm just sure they cooperate with this perfectly...). Leave the kids on mom unless we need milk and then separate for the night and milk in the morning. We could do this as often or as infrequently as we want...right? About 4 months later, production will obviously be dropping as the kid is starting to wean. By the time the first doe is dry, the next one will be fresh.
I wouldn't mind, in fact would like, to milk every day. My husband is terrified that we just won't be able to do it - we do spend the weekend at the farm once a month and we do go on vacations (egads!). We had enough trouble finding someone to feed our chickens last time so we can't possibly imagine someone coming to milk. We are friends with another family in the neighborhood with wethers and they would love to trade goat sitting services with us, just not milking.
So I could milk each morning until we know we will be gone. Then I would probably not milk for a few days prior to make sure the kid(s) were taking care of the production. I realize this is not ideal for maximizing milk production, but it's just me that drinks it and we use it in cooking. So we don't need *that* much.
Crazy? Expecting way too much as far as scheduling breeding? Bad for the does? I'm just trying to brainstorm and make sure dairy goats make sense for us! Otherwise, we can have some kegs on legs as pets, but I'd like USEFUL pets right now!
