New to Goats, New to farms... New to it all! From NC

Welcome from Ohio, and congrats on your soon-to-be-home goats

Welcome , glad you joined us! We started with 1 goat and now have 9 goats just a year later

Everything Southern says. Be especially wary of cocci. Can not stress that enough. Check eyelids, pink is good white is not. By that I mean the internal eyelid. Not just the color of the eye. Those little ones are cute but they can be trouble. You'd be surprised what a kid can fit through.

Goats are a lot like cats. If it fits, it sits. If it can get its head through, it can likely get its body through. ( Kids mostly. Adults are generally to fat. ) Give them lots and lots to climb. Kids are like little energizer bunnies. They bounce, they run, they bounce off of each other, they Run, and most importantly they eat.

Good luck! They're adorable.

You guys are super helpful!

Thank you Southern and OneFineAcre, I also heard back from two other mini farms on fb, who agreed with you all, 6 weeks was going to need a vet and that was extremely stressful for them!

I think that I may have to pass on these sweet babies Perhaps his farm wasn't a good fit after all... but with them being in a small space and around the kids, I'm thinking no horns is best for us.

The farm you are looking at generally has lots of kids year round maybe they could disbud on goat kids that are due soon.

I have always liked horns but after a few incidences and the fact that many that get the dwarf breed have children it was best for us to move to disbudding. Didn't want you to think I am "anti- horns" LOL .
We keep horns on all our Kiko goats.

I was okay with the horns, figured I could sand them down or something LOL but with our children around them and the goats are so much faster than my children I would be too worried that a quick head jerk in the wrong direction could be really ugly.

Shoaf plantations is where we were looking. I am wondering if I go to bottle fed - I can get the goats earlier, so I can have them dis-budded earlier. But then that brings on the whole new level of feeding baby goats around the clock! I was excited about the momma fed babies and we even named them! I am feeling a bit heartbroken over his lack of wanting to dis-bud at a young age.

It is best to do it at a young age and there are a few things to consider. With dwarfs- I know he has pygmy dwarfs and dwarfs- males tend to need to be done sooner than females. Females may not be ready til almost 3 weeks. The hardest part is when you are having to take them to a vet or a vet come out ... one year we were either having farm calls several times a week during kidding season or several times a week to the vets... we were not enthused with the results so we have chosen to do them ourselves.

If you were to pick up goats at 3 days old after they had mom's colostrum you would need to know that the breeder actually TRAINED them to the bottle. This is a big issue. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this one... "bottle babies for sale" but they weren't bottle babies and hadn't learned yet... new owner in despair because the kid won't eat.

Second point is bottle feeding when you have never had goats may not be the best idea. Not saying people don't do it and many people have success but it can be pretty intimidating especially since over feeding can cause FKS, bloat, death.

I have done dam raised, bottle fed, trough fed.... for our dam raised they really are friendlier than most other dam raised because we are with our goats all the time (big family) so they get lots of socialization but even so our BB's are the best! We pretty much have moved to doing all BB's for our dairy goats and our pet dwarf goats. Long term we have seen a difference.... the goats are less "herd" oriented and it is all people oriented with BB's.
We do raise ours with some manners though or BB's can be a pain.

If you get baby goats from a farm that dam raises you will want the goats to have been well handled. If the goats don't come to you after sitting down and allowing them to get use to a stranger- say 10-15 minutes max... that is a sign they are not handled much. Of course there are exceptions but that is usually how it is. Goats that are not handled alot and are shy of people do not always change with time.

Oh my gosh! BLOAT?

I don't know about this bottle feeding either, plus we were getting a lot of goats for a first timer. I am sure it's like having babies... they all want to eat at the same time! I can hear the crying now...

How it all began; My Brain: Let's get goats! Learning about goats: what we need two goats! A herd? okay great - two it is! Two whethers then IF I have to have more than 1. Perfect-o.

And then ... Farmer Shoaf sends the pictures....

"I need them ALL!" Gah lost my dang mind. So after picking 4... nearly 5... we had 3 boys and a girl. All ready to go!

Until, a friend from work says "Aww my friend HAD goats til' she came home to one of them being gutted like a pig - she got rid of them that day" Oh... gutted 0_0 you say? Hmmm yup it's horns!

(Gasp)

Horns? Mine have horns! I can't handle gutted! I can't handle my children gutted!!! NOPE - asked to dis-bud and came back with "it's cruel" you can dull them by sanding them down to keep them shorter... ?

Heck, I am not even sure our pen is big enough now... So MANY questions now!!!

Oh yeah... the vicious circle of goat ownership has begun. OK, ok... deep breath... there ya go... OK, take it slow and steady and you'll be juuuuuuussssttttttt fine

Like southern said you really don't want dairy goats to have horns
Of course it took a couple of years for her to come around to my point of view