Just starting

[Jmafisher]

Thanks and I just put my location on the profile. We need to do some cleanup before we get the goats, so we may not get them until next year, but looks like we've come to the right place for information

 

[Wehner Homestead]

Goats can help with the clean up! They love browse (vines, weeds, briars, tree bark, etc.)

 

[Devonviolet]

Welcome to Backyard Herds, from another NE Texan. We are about 40 minutes from @Latestarter, which is great, because we can share equipment, livestock and meals. LS loaned us his buck last November, and we loaned him our disbudding iron recently, to prevent horns on his new kids. We are going to be buying one of his wethers, to keep our new buck company. Just about every time we get together we share a meal together, so we also take time to have good fellowship as well.

So, it shows to go ya how nice it is to have BYH friends close by.

In addition to LS, we are also good friends with @Baymule, about an hour South of us, and @goatgurl, up in Arkansas. Both LS and I got our foundational dairy goats from her last year.

DH and I used to live in PA, and after we retired, we moved to TX (in June of 2014) following our daughter, and her family, when they left PA to move to Dallas, for jobs.

We moved from a condo, in PA, to a tiny apartment in Dallas, to 5 acres, out in the middle of nowhere, here in North East TX. We now have 5 goats (4 LaMancha's and one Nubian), 2 LGDs (livestock guardian dogs) 11 chickens, 21 ducks, 2 geese and a cranky turkey hen. In the next month, we are planning to buy a beautiful black Myotonic buck and LS's wethered goat. So, we will have 7 goats, but will likely sell our two newest (2 week old) doelings, after they are weaned at 3 months.

The reason I am getting a Myotonic buck, is that if you want to continue to milk a dairy goat, it is usually necessary to "freshen" or breed dairy goats once a year, as after about 8 months their milk production begins to go down. Once they have kid(s), and the kids are weaned, their milk production goes back up. Many people breed their does to bucks of the same breed, and they either keep or sell their little doelings for future milk production. However, young males, are not as sellable as females. Males that aren't going to be sold as bucks, for breeding purposes are generally wethered (castrated) and sold as either pets, buck companions, or for meat.

While their meat is good, dairy goats generally don't have a lot of meat on them. My reason for buying a Myotonic buck, which is an excellent meat goat, is to have kids with more meat, making the bucklings more sellable as meat goats.

If a dairy goat is bred to a meat goat, their bucklings are meatier, making them more sellable. They generally produce doelings that are still good milk producers - albeit maybe not quite as good production wise as their mama's. So, the doelings would still be quite sellable as dairy goats.

As far as suggested breeds, of goats for you, it depends on what you want to do with them. LaMancha's and Nubians are considered more of a full size goat, and depending on if you milk once or twice a day, you can get anywhere from 3 quarts to 1-1/2 or even two gallons of milk, each per day. Their milk has among the highest butter fat content, making their milk excellent for cheese making. I make mozzarella, Chévre, feta, butter (with a cream separator) and Kefir with our milk.

Another great milking breed would be Nigerian Dwarfs, which because they are smaller, produce less milk, but I believe their milk has the highest fat content of all dairy goats. Other good goats, if you aren't wanting lots of volume, are one of the "miniature breeds", which are generally full size dairy goats crossed with Nigerian Dwarfs.

Off the top of my head, some other full size breeds would be Toggenberg and Alpine. I don't have any experience with these, so maybe someone else can fill you in on these breeds.

It's so nice to have you join us, and I look forward to hearing your journey and seeing lots of pictures along the way.