How long have you been raising goats?

Ridgetop

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Over 20. Was the 4-H leader for dairy and large livestock (only parent who would do it so had to learn EVERYTHING each week to teach the kids! LOL) We did dairy and meat, milked every 12 hours, heat treated colostrum, pasteurized, (3 pasteurizers ran from 9amto 1pm daily), bottle fed all kids (you can make your own bucket feeders easily), drew blood for CAE testing at UW, (popcorn makes an acceptable substitute for plastic peanuts when shipping red top tubes of blood LOL) were on milk test, went to a milking machine after 12 milkers, did linear appraisal, learned AI, collected our bucks, sold buck kids for meat, castrated, gave vaccinations, tatooed, ear tagged meat animals, got a scrapie number, raised calved on the milk after weaning kids, separated milk for cream to make ice cream (Andy's favorite part), etc. You name it we did it. When my younger 2 boys decided at the last minute that they could not run the dairy herd and go to college too, they sold out. Carl had beautiful LaManchas and was competing with the open shows. He had planned to keep his herd but decided the work load was too much. It took 2 large stock trailers to load the dairy animals, (just the LaManchas!) 4 show bucks, 20 milkers, 20 dry yearlings, and about 70 kids! It was a bumper doe year! My husband was counting and lost track after 100. They just kept coming up from the barn - it felt like they were going in one end of the trailer and coming out the other in a circle! LOL the only difference was we knew them all by name, could recite their lineage back to grandparents, andwe loved them. You would think that with so many we wouldn't care but WE CRIED as they left. In spite of the crushing work load and hay bill we have missed them every day since!
 

Ridgetop

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Oh yes, and had no livestock vet in the area so had to set broken legs, stich up cuts (fishing knots make acceptable stiches), replace prolapses and stich into place, doctor rectal prolapses (mostly on sheep), treat mastitis (they hate those tubes), and pull about 500 kids and lambs over 20 years. We had breeds that tripled and quadded. I had to pull ours and my project kids', and friends' animals too. I used to drive 100 miles round trip to the feed mill and buy dairy feed by the truckload. When I got home the kids would have to shovel it into 50 gal drums. My medicine cabinet had more animal meds than human ones. We bought our hay by the truckload and my husband got into the nutritional aspects and would buy a hayfield for the first cut hay - not good for horses but great for milk yields. Looking back, I can't believe it all started with 2 star milkers we bought for household milk! LOL Be warned! LOL
 

SheepGirl

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I got my first goat in January. My goal is her to be a nurse doe for bottle lambs I may have. If not, she can raise her own kids and they will be sold along with the lambs. She's a Saanen X.
 

Ridgetop

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I'm interested in how you will train her. That is something I have never done and it will be interesting to see how to do it. Very interesting.
 

SheepGirl

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Here are some pictures of my doeling. She's still a baby and she's pretty dirty lol...torrential downpours last night plus it was raining today when I took the photos.

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