Southern by choice
Herd Master
These are some of the things we do...
We first find out what the person is looking for and their goals.
We tell people about our goats.
We have registered and unregistered.
We provide pedigrees on our registered goats and lineage on our unregistered goats.
We provide our most current CAE, CL, Johnes test results (whole herd)
We explain limitations, strengths, weaknesses of individual goats
Example – we have a great doe with great pedigree with heavy milklines as is apparent on her pedigree yet her weaknesses – she doesn't have the best confirmation. Beautiful udder and teats but her front and shoulders are a bit “wonky” if you will. As far as a milker awesome, but as a FF she did go down in production earlier than she should have. Unregistered doe has been in milk for 16 months and has no indication she will be dropping off anytime soon. I have one unregistered Nigie that only gives 1 qt a day (next freshening we think she will do better) but her milk is soooo good she is a keeper if not for any other reason than I like her milk for my coffee LOL Another registered Nigie FF is giving 1 1/2 qts day. Her milk is great!
Of course we do Lamanchas, mini manchas and Nigerians. We also have 1 Alpine and 1 Nubian (both will be bred for mini's). So it really depends on what a person is looking for and what their goals are.
We rather engage and answer all questions and offer answers for questions that people don't know to ask. If we do not know what a particular goat will produce (FF you just don't have history on that goat to know) we let people know that the doeling is from a first freshener and we don't know what output will be. Our FF offspring are usually sold at a lower price. Exception is if the doeling is retained long enough for the dam's history to be established.
If we know a person is serious about one of our goats then we go further.
We will run a fecal and give them a brief overview of what we are doing, show them how we run them allow them to look through the scope etc.
Sidetrack for a funny story- we had a couple travel a considerable distance, we were going over the goats and when the goats they were looking at pooped we picked it up off the ground and ran fecals- we were trying to show the ease of it and also to get a count. There were 0 parasites on the slide. We ran the next one – 0 parasites on the slide. Now that is great BUT when you are trying to show someone you want to see at least 1 so they can see what they would be looking for! LOL I finally pulled my book out as I had just run 13 fecals a few days before- 1 of the goats had 2 eggs the other we never ran a fecal on. Finally I said here is my book She really did have 2 eggs (50 EPG)
They got a chuckle out of it that I was irritated that I had nothing to show them.
Yet they could also see from the book that we had 2 goats that did need dewormed (one was due to kid in a few weeks- they tend to have a bloom at this point due to the hormones).
Now that is not always the case- The point is we will do a fecal right there and we get to see together what that count is. We do regular monitoring and if a goat has a high load than we will deworm- record it and tell the person when, how many (EPG counts), dewormer etc. If it is a kid we look for cocci.
We go over every inch of he goat. We use our own checklist (on our website)
http://www.winginitfarms.com/buyers-checklist
We give a sheet on what we expect from them as far as a new owner- these are recommendations.
We do FAMACHA with card in hand.
We send home the goats history- CD&T dates, fecal EPG counts, cocci counts, dates, weights etc. just about everything on the list.
Our goats are bathed and “dipped” before they leave our farm- why? Because mites are microscopic and if a goat gets mites it may be awhile before there is evidence so we feel that doing that is the best way to prevent any kind of issue.
Often experienced goat owners don't need as much time but we have also found even those experienced will learn something. We also get to glean from other owners too!
We look at our goats as a bigger picture. We believe pedigrees are great but a pedigree is not the whole goat. We want good parasite resistance. Good milkers, long lactation, steady lactation, healthy, no environmental allergy issues, well mannered and overall a solid goat! We also look at feed conversion.
We explain what these things mean and why they are important. A goat with poor parasite issues will not be great as a dairy goat. Who wants to get lots of great delicious milk that they have to pitch all the time from chronic worm issues.
Each goat we have on our farm is different. Looking at the overall goat is key.
Management is also important. Environmental factors are big contributors to the health of a goat. Wet humid hot regions will have more issues.
I think support is a big thing too. Will the breeder be there? Is the breeder knowledgeable?
If it is a new breeder they may not be knowledgeable and that is ok, it does mean you will need to be smart about what you do. Often relationships develop through buying/selling goats.
There are times we get so busy we will fail to send something or get back to a person in a timely manner – for those times I feel like I failed. Yet I know everyone we have ever placed a goat with are great people and would just call if it was real important.
Hope this helps. We know of very few breeders that go as far as we do but we do it because we LOVE what we do! Health is the most important thing to us. We want to know that we are sending out a healthy goat, we want our clients to walk away educated, confident, comfortable in their decision.
Above all we stress the importance of finding a good vet in their area. Building a relationship with a good vet is critical when owning goats!
We first find out what the person is looking for and their goals.
We tell people about our goats.
We have registered and unregistered.
We provide pedigrees on our registered goats and lineage on our unregistered goats.
We provide our most current CAE, CL, Johnes test results (whole herd)
We explain limitations, strengths, weaknesses of individual goats
Example – we have a great doe with great pedigree with heavy milklines as is apparent on her pedigree yet her weaknesses – she doesn't have the best confirmation. Beautiful udder and teats but her front and shoulders are a bit “wonky” if you will. As far as a milker awesome, but as a FF she did go down in production earlier than she should have. Unregistered doe has been in milk for 16 months and has no indication she will be dropping off anytime soon. I have one unregistered Nigie that only gives 1 qt a day (next freshening we think she will do better) but her milk is soooo good she is a keeper if not for any other reason than I like her milk for my coffee LOL Another registered Nigie FF is giving 1 1/2 qts day. Her milk is great!
Of course we do Lamanchas, mini manchas and Nigerians. We also have 1 Alpine and 1 Nubian (both will be bred for mini's). So it really depends on what a person is looking for and what their goals are.
We rather engage and answer all questions and offer answers for questions that people don't know to ask. If we do not know what a particular goat will produce (FF you just don't have history on that goat to know) we let people know that the doeling is from a first freshener and we don't know what output will be. Our FF offspring are usually sold at a lower price. Exception is if the doeling is retained long enough for the dam's history to be established.
If we know a person is serious about one of our goats then we go further.
We will run a fecal and give them a brief overview of what we are doing, show them how we run them allow them to look through the scope etc.
Sidetrack for a funny story- we had a couple travel a considerable distance, we were going over the goats and when the goats they were looking at pooped we picked it up off the ground and ran fecals- we were trying to show the ease of it and also to get a count. There were 0 parasites on the slide. We ran the next one – 0 parasites on the slide. Now that is great BUT when you are trying to show someone you want to see at least 1 so they can see what they would be looking for! LOL I finally pulled my book out as I had just run 13 fecals a few days before- 1 of the goats had 2 eggs the other we never ran a fecal on. Finally I said here is my book She really did have 2 eggs (50 EPG)
They got a chuckle out of it that I was irritated that I had nothing to show them.
Yet they could also see from the book that we had 2 goats that did need dewormed (one was due to kid in a few weeks- they tend to have a bloom at this point due to the hormones).
Now that is not always the case- The point is we will do a fecal right there and we get to see together what that count is. We do regular monitoring and if a goat has a high load than we will deworm- record it and tell the person when, how many (EPG counts), dewormer etc. If it is a kid we look for cocci.
We go over every inch of he goat. We use our own checklist (on our website)
http://www.winginitfarms.com/buyers-checklist
We give a sheet on what we expect from them as far as a new owner- these are recommendations.
We do FAMACHA with card in hand.
We send home the goats history- CD&T dates, fecal EPG counts, cocci counts, dates, weights etc. just about everything on the list.
Our goats are bathed and “dipped” before they leave our farm- why? Because mites are microscopic and if a goat gets mites it may be awhile before there is evidence so we feel that doing that is the best way to prevent any kind of issue.
Often experienced goat owners don't need as much time but we have also found even those experienced will learn something. We also get to glean from other owners too!
We look at our goats as a bigger picture. We believe pedigrees are great but a pedigree is not the whole goat. We want good parasite resistance. Good milkers, long lactation, steady lactation, healthy, no environmental allergy issues, well mannered and overall a solid goat! We also look at feed conversion.
We explain what these things mean and why they are important. A goat with poor parasite issues will not be great as a dairy goat. Who wants to get lots of great delicious milk that they have to pitch all the time from chronic worm issues.
Each goat we have on our farm is different. Looking at the overall goat is key.
Management is also important. Environmental factors are big contributors to the health of a goat. Wet humid hot regions will have more issues.
I think support is a big thing too. Will the breeder be there? Is the breeder knowledgeable?
If it is a new breeder they may not be knowledgeable and that is ok, it does mean you will need to be smart about what you do. Often relationships develop through buying/selling goats.
There are times we get so busy we will fail to send something or get back to a person in a timely manner – for those times I feel like I failed. Yet I know everyone we have ever placed a goat with are great people and would just call if it was real important.
Hope this helps. We know of very few breeders that go as far as we do but we do it because we LOVE what we do! Health is the most important thing to us. We want to know that we are sending out a healthy goat, we want our clients to walk away educated, confident, comfortable in their decision.
Above all we stress the importance of finding a good vet in their area. Building a relationship with a good vet is critical when owning goats!