More Goat Questions, Starting a herd?

chanceosunshine

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I raised and showed pygmy goats for years - a long time ago. They get accustomed to traveling. Mine would hop into the trailer and go to their own pen. All I had to do was latch the gate. We would line the pens in the show barn with tarps to try and reduce the goat to goat contact. You wouldn't need to do that since you're just going form your own farm to your other farm. One thing I did was to carry water from home so they didn't get fussy about water changes.
I was hoping it would be something they’d get used to since we’d be starting them off with travel right off the bat. I just didn’t want to cause them harm in doing so. Taking water with me sounds like a good idea...one less variable. Thank you!!
 

chanceosunshine

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W
Oh, no, I just told you the minor bad stuff. We got our herd from an auction in September 2019 and didn't know we had 9 of 21 pregnant does. To make a long story short, we had an excellent kidding year. We spent Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec feeding and vetting everyone. We vaccinated, we treated, we spoiled! We ended up with 1 miscarriage (stress), 1 preemie that we lost (stress) and 6 PERFECT sets of twins and one PERFECT bonus single from a girl we didn't know was pregnant! We have veen so blessed with this little auction herd.
The first pic is our first set if twins. 1 doe and one buck.
The 2nd pic is our first 3 sets. Ivory and Shadow, doelings, Staubach and Landry, 2 bucks and, of course, Phil and Lil.
The next pic is my husband, standing with Olive and ger twins, Skye (doe) and Kelley (buck).
Then is Hazel (black Doe) with her doelings, Minnie and Daisy.
Next is our herd Queen, Scarlett (Red, 1/2 Boer) with her Moon spotted buckling twins, Rhett (black) and Ashe (Light brown).
Finally, our bonus baby! Her Momma is our lowest ranked female, with all kinds of issues but she is MY girl, my favorite and I spoil her......Calamity is her name and she is a 🔥 mess! Her kid, doeling, we named Rockette (Rah Ket)....seemed stunned to have been born. Unlike all the other kids, she stood for a solid hour, in disbelief, that she was in the world. I'm not sure who was more stunned, the baby, the Momma or us! Of course, I made sure she nursed immediately and dipped her cord in iodine, Momma let me, but Calamity was immediately a goid Momma and has been the entire time. Rockette is our youngest kid....at 5 months now and she will eventually be our herd Queen, if her personality is any indication. She is small but BOSSY! We currently have our other 5 does headed into their last month of pregnancy so August shoukd be a great month for us!! Fingers crossed!!
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[/QUOTE
Oh, no, I just told you the minor bad stuff. We got our herd from an auction in September 2019 and didn't know we had 9 of 21 pregnant does. To make a long story short, we had an excellent kidding year. We spent Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec feeding and vetting everyone. We vaccinated, we treated, we spoiled! We ended up with 1 miscarriage (stress), 1 preemie that we lost (stress) and 6 PERFECT sets of twins and one PERFECT bonus single from a girl we didn't know was pregnant! We have veen so blessed with this little auction herd.
The first pic is our first set if twins. 1 doe and one buck.
The 2nd pic is our first 3 sets. Ivory and Shadow, doelings, Staubach and Landry, 2 bucks and, of course, Phil and Lil.
The next pic is my husband, standing with Olive and ger twins, Skye (doe) and Kelley (buck).
Then is Hazel (black Doe) with her doelings, Minnie and Daisy.
Next is our herd Queen, Scarlett (Red, 1/2 Boer) with her Moon spotted buckling twins, Rhett (black) and Ashe (Light brown).
Finally, our bonus baby! Her Momma is our lowest ranked female, with all kinds of issues but she is MY girl, my favorite and I spoil her......Calamity is her name and she is a 🔥 mess! Her kid, doeling, we named Rockette (Rah Ket)....seemed stunned to have been born. Unlike all the other kids, she stood for a solid hour, in disbelief, that she was in the world. I'm not sure who was more stunned, the baby, the Momma or us! Of course, I made sure she nursed immediately and dipped her cord in iodine, Momma let me, but Calamity was immediately a goid Momma and has been the entire time. Rockette is our youngest kid....at 5 months now and she will eventually be our herd Queen, if her personality is any indication. She is small but BOSSY! We currently have our other 5 does headed into their last month of pregnancy so August shoukd be a great month for us!! Fingers crossed!!
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Those are great pictures! Thank you for sharing that. It looks like you did have a very good year kidding!
The goats you got at auction weren’t your first goats, right?? That’s a lot of goats!
 

MuldrowHomeFarm

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@chanceosunshine yes, they were our first goats. All I can do now is laugh but please know.....it was a wonderfully terrible, amazingly awful, terrifying incredible experience. I am working on my journal so you can see what I mean. All I can say is: we just thought we were prepared........but no, we were not.....
 

chanceosunshine

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@chanceosunshine yes, they were our first goats. All I can do now is laugh but please know.....it was a wonderfully terrible, amazingly awful, terrifying incredible experience. I am working on my journal so you can see what I mean. All I can say is: we just thought we were prepared........but no, we were not.....
Wow, do you have guts!! And your husband must love you a lot! That is such a story!! I love it!
 

Baymule

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If you don't have goats now, I would advise you to wait until your move. It will be a lot less stress and work on you and the goats. In the meantime, read the posts here and study up on them. I joined here while living on a small lot in town, we didn't move until 5 years later. But I used that time to read, study and ask questions. I was so excited when I finally got my sheep. Hauling goats back and forth will be extra time and work, which will take away time from what you are driving to the other place to accomplish. If you have waited this long for your dream to come true, what's a little more time?

Start a journal of your new farm and chronicle your adventures along the way. That way, you can look back when you have one of "those days" when you feel despondent and down, and see how far you have come.
 

chanceosunshine

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If you don't have goats now, I would advise you to wait until your move. It will be a lot less stress and work on you and the goats. In the meantime, read the posts here and study up on them. I joined here while living on a small lot in town, we didn't move until 5 years later. But I used that time to read, study and ask questions. I was so excited when I finally got my sheep. Hauling goats back and forth will be extra time and work, which will take away time from what you are driving to the other place to accomplish. If you have waited this long for your dream to come true, what's a little more time?

Start a journal of your new farm and chronicle your adventures along the way. That way, you can look back when you have one of "those days" when you feel despondent and down, and see how far you have come.
I think you are right and if I am wise I will follow your advice and be able to enjoy the journey more. I will definitely keep studying and learning. And at that point I think a doe in milk with a doeling or two will be a good choice.

Thank you all for the advice.
 

Ridgetop

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Waiting to get the goats until after your move is the best idea. By waiting, studying and talking on this website, you can plan your new goat facilities properly. Just be sure to make them twice the size you think you will need. Goats are addictive!

Definitely a doe in milk will be a better buy for you. In fact rather than a doe with kids, I would suggest 2 does in milk without their kids They will bond to you faster, and when they are bred will be accustomed to being milked. Get disbudded goats and disbud the kids that you keep. Selling buck kids for meat which is actually the most humane way to go, you will sell them at 6 weeks to 2 months old without disbudding and without castrating since they bring a better price fro the ethnic buyers that way. I know some people think it is cruel to disbud, but so much better than having a horned goat caught in a fence and hanging there, or getting a goat blinded by a horn tip. Not to mention when the horned goat tosses its head at you and gores you in the leg. The dangers fro horns are not the butting, but the goring and getting caught I things. Horned animals seem to butt more and be harder on fences too.

Our best goats that started us on a long life with dairy goats were 2 does in milk. They were only 2 years old, were twin sisters, bottle raised, had a clean CAE test, and had their milk stars. The breeder kept them until they finished their stars since she was putting a milk star on their sire. She also let me call her anytime I needed advice, took the girls back every year for stud service, and became a good friend. We really enjoyed those goats and their subsequent kids. Our 3 and 4 year olds would lead them to and from the milk stand and if they got out could round them up and lead them back to their pen easily. We learned on them and it was a joy because they were seasoned milkers, would leap up on the milk stand, milked easily and gave delicious milk. They routinely gave us 3-4 kids a year each, delivered easily, and were the original start of DD1's 4-H dairy herd. We removed the kids and bottle fed them. Their names were Firecracker - a large red doe with black points, and Sparkler - a red roan. Obviously they were born on the 4th of July! LOL We have had over 100 goats since but those 2 and Rosebud, DS2's favorite and first LaMancha will always be loved in our hearts. We have had goats that kicked on the stand, goats that were escape artists, goats that had excellent udders and poor udders, but having those first 2 easy milking, affectionate, sweet goats made all the difference and taught us how to cope with any problems later because we had experienced the best first.

The best gift you can give yourself is to buy well bred bottle raised does from a reputable breeder. Get them in milk in their second or third lactation, that are used to being milked. It makes your first experience fun and if it is not fun, why bother?
 

chanceosunshine

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Waiting to get the goats until after your move is the best idea. By waiting, studying and talking on this website, you can plan your new goat facilities properly. Just be sure to make them twice the size you think you will need. Goats are addictive!

Definitely a doe in milk will be a better buy for you. In fact rather than a doe with kids, I would suggest 2 does in milk without their kids They will bond to you faster, and when they are bred will be accustomed to being milked. Get disbudded goats and disbud the kids that you keep. Selling buck kids for meat which is actually the most humane way to go, you will sell them at 6 weeks to 2 months old without disbudding and without castrating since they bring a better price fro the ethnic buyers that way. I know some people think it is cruel to disbud, but so much better than having a horned goat caught in a fence and hanging there, or getting a goat blinded by a horn tip. Not to mention when the horned goat tosses its head at you and gores you in the leg. The dangers fro horns are not the butting, but the goring and getting caught I things. Horned animals seem to butt more and be harder on fences too.

Our best goats that started us on a long life with dairy goats were 2 does in milk. They were only 2 years old, were twin sisters, bottle raised, had a clean CAE test, and had their milk stars. The breeder kept them until they finished their stars since she was putting a milk star on their sire. She also let me call her anytime I needed advice, took the girls back every year for stud service, and became a good friend. We really enjoyed those goats and their subsequent kids. Our 3 and 4 year olds would lead them to and from the milk stand and if they got out could round them up and lead them back to their pen easily. We learned on them and it was a joy because they were seasoned milkers, would leap up on the milk stand, milked easily and gave delicious milk. They routinely gave us 3-4 kids a year each, delivered easily, and were the original start of DD1's 4-H dairy herd. We removed the kids and bottle fed them. Their names were Firecracker - a large red doe with black points, and Sparkler - a red roan. Obviously they were born on the 4th of July! LOL We have had over 100 goats since but those 2 and Rosebud, DS2's favorite and first LaMancha will always be loved in our hearts. We have had goats that kicked on the stand, goats that were escape artists, goats that had excellent udders and poor udders, but having those first 2 easy milking, affectionate, sweet goats made all the difference and taught us how to cope with any problems later because we had experienced the best first.

The best gift you can give yourself is to buy well bred bottle raised does from a reputable breeder. Get them in milk in their second or third lactation, that are used to being milked. It makes your first experience fun and if it is not fun, why bother?
Thanks for sharing your experience with me. I have decided to wait and only get swayed a bit here and there, but I don’t want this to be a bad experience.
We actually plan to raise meat goats as well, so we may keep the males. So I guess we’d be disbudding and castrating then ourselves. That’s IF we go for more of a dual purpose goat.
I’ve been studying a lot and looking at different breeds. At this point I’m thinkIng either ND for milk and Kiko for meat OR a herd of Kinder goats to use for both.
It would be great if I could find a breeder like you did who would/could sell me two (Friendly) does in milk!
Thanks again!
 

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