Disbudding: Nobody likes to do this chore, for me it is right up there with hoof trimming and cleaning out all the shavings in the spring after the winter! When I have extra cash hanging around I even pay someone else to do all 3 of these things
We are lucky that in our area a retired LaMancha showgal does herd management, pay her gas then about 5$ a head and she disbuds, trims feet, and even will fit (shave) you goats for showing.
You really need the first time to learn how to disbud from someone who does it. Taking them to the vet to be done will most of the time be as bad as you doing it yourself unless your vet does alot of them, my vet sends folks to me. I or Kenny, the gal who does disbudding around here, do your doe kids while we watch you do your buck kids, bring your disbudder, so you can learn on it, and also we retrofit the top of the disbudders with a 3/4 inch copper water fitting, most tips on disbudders do not have a large enough inside diameter to do a good job of disbudding without scurs.
Dehorning: If you find old posts of mine on Countryside you will here me tell you I think that unless under vet anesthetic, that taking off full grown animals horns is cruel. Well now that I have done it, seen it done with the wonderful site on the internet, and talked to those who have done it herdwide, with no blood, no gorry stories to tell, I do know that I was passing on information that wasn't true. Using the elasatator bands correctly works really well. IF you goats use their horns against each other, than no you do not want a horned goat in with disbudded ones.
Hay: I have also moved away from the tons of hay I used to feed yearly. I feed alfalfa pellets, they also have grass hay pellets in most places. The best hay feeder I have is made out of a utility panel (a cattle panel that has little 4x4 squares. The goats can only get their mussle into the holes, so no pulling out mouth fulls of hay onto the ground to lay on. It is mounted to a trainagle peices that mounts onto the wall, narrow at the bottom and a little wider than a normal flake of hay at the top, I fill it from my side of the barn, the goats eat from it on theirs, the hay naturally goes to the bottom since it is in this funnel setup.
Milking: Is all supply and demand. Once a doe kids, she will produce milk as long as you take the milk out of her udder daily, every 12 hours and she produces even more milk. Let one baby nurse one side and noone relieve the milk from the other and that side will dry up. You could milk her for the rest of her life if you milked her every 12 hours after that first kidding. I take kids away at birth and raise them myself, they drink considerably more milk than they need to grow out well, if left to nurse. I milk the doe for 10 months, at which time she is about 100 days bred, so I dry her up.
Cheese: You can make cheese, soap, lotion, and raw for drinking, out of any milk, from any mammal, and from any goat you want to milk. I have milked all breeds but Obies, there isn't a nickles difference in all the milk. Yes Saanens milk is distingishable because it contains little fat, this can be felt on the tongue and seen in the glass. But there are trade offs in all breeds. Nubians and other really meat animals of course have higher butterfat, but they also have lower milk volumes, all the swiss breeds milk circles around most Nubians. One thing being in Tx I can tell you is that LaMancha's and the crosses of LaMancha's with the other breeds milk more every day of the year, day in and day out, than any other breed. Being a USA bred animal they take better to our hot heat and humidity.
Breeding: There isn't anything inhumane or humane about breeding livestock. Why goats work out in any situation and make a really good homestead goat is that they easily live in any situation. From down the road from me to the guy who tethers his goats out in the right away all day, rain or shine, to the gal in the next town where each goat has her own seperate stall, a ceiling fan, a automatic waterer, rubbermats with shavings that are replaced daily, and fresh fruit every morning, and granola bars on the milkstand if they behave. I breed once a year and kid out all my goats in March. Back years ago I bred my brood does (does who where kept only to produce saleable or showable kids) and they had 3 sets of kids in 2 years. All are heatlhy and happy. Goats thrive on consistancy, no matter what the managment is.
Worming: Mangement is a total package. Lots of reasons for the high worm burdens you will here folks in the south talk about all the time. It's the number one question asked all the time. We get little freeze, which means parasites overwinter in our pastures. We get lots of rain, so as a pasture floods, the worm eggs and worm larve simply float up (they can't crawl) to the top of the grass, the goat eat them the next time they graze. Reinfestation. Most folks don't understand just how poor the soil is. We have a huge problem with copper defficiency and selenium problems down here. If you do not address these with adequate loose minerals fed daily in covered containers that don't get wet, you will have other problems caused by these defficiencies. A goat who is stressed, moved to a new home, having kids, bothered by dogs, picked on by other goats or children, or nutritionally stressed will get ill faster, and will have huge worm and cocci burdens.
Worming monthly, worming with the wrong drug, worming with too little product, is the fastest way to worm resistance. If you aren't going to fecal sample your goats poop, either yourself of with a vet who uses a chambered slide, than mirror what you do in your herd after someone who has animals that you admire.
Guardians: Your goal here isn't to have the meanest dog, llama or donkey on the block. Your goal is to make the critters that will eat or harass your stock, think twice about coming to your place for a quick meal, and go down the road. Our coyotes, bobcats, and local roaming dogs, choose the folks down the road for their quick dinners, because I keep dogs. I have also had donkeys that worked wonderfully. I have alwaysed used Rhodesian ridgebacks and crosses of them, because I do not want a stock dog in the way I raise my goats. I want a farm dog. A dog who stays with me during chores, goes out with the goats when needed, cleans up icky butts on kids, licks off kids when I have too many coming to fast during kidding season, tells me when the grandson is doing something he isn't supposed to, greet visitors, sort of telling me who belongs and who doesn't. Patrols the porch and the barn. Using these dogs, even though I am just 10 acres of hundreds of acres of national forest, I have never had any of my lovestock killed from predators. Yes my dogs have had a few fights with them over the years, but them being here keeps predators away, both 4 and 2 legged. I disbatch most predators I see with my 22.
Livestock as pets: If you can afford to have goats, horses, cows, pigs, chickens etc...as pets, thats fine. As long as you understand the amount of money these things cost for that gallon of milk or dozen eggs. But there are decisions that come with breeding pets that you will have to deal with eventually. Those that don't deal with it are out of the goat business or off the homestead very quickly.
You will have 50% male livestock out of your pets over the lifetime of the animal. With so many folks they simply can't eat or butcher their own pets they raise. They also will not sell the males to anyone who they even think may eat them. In a case like this you should not breed the animals then, because if not now than later, all male livestock eventually find their way to someones dinner table. As with everything you do on the farm, you have to have a plan.
Vicki
Stupid Goat Questions
