I love my goats! I haven't spent nearly as much time with them lately since it's been so hot. Yesterday I looked everybody over good and they all look so healthy and were so happy after a thunder shower that had cooled things off. I think goats are the ultimate homestead animal. Everybody that knows me knows how much I love my goats and how I always have a goat story or have learned something new that I feel a need to share. When I got my computer last winter I think all hoped I'd branch out a little so they'de ask "whatcha been learnin" and for two weeks all I did was go to diffrent goat sights and read Country side archives so my response would be "something about goats". We got our first goats four years ago and I have met some of the nicest people I know through buying and selling , hum maybe they are nice because they don't mind hearing goat talk all the time, he he. Well anyway, how many goat folks do we have here a BTS. Tell us a goat story. Have a sweet day Sherry

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Answers

Yes Sherry, I don't have much in common with folks who don't talk goat! One of my many stories is about my now deceased herd sire Easy Stream Erlene's Eric. Had called my vet for her to stop by the farm on her way through, to pick up a milk sample and to look at a goat of mine with mastitis. Eric, who is a very dairy specimen of Nubians, had a small udder, with milk in his teats. I wasn't really all that concerened because there was an Saanen buck in the next town with this also. Problem was Eric's was hard and hot when I checked him, after trimming feet. My vet about fell over when I had her looking at my bucks udder! She decided we should add an A to the end of Eric's name (Erica) so the lab would take the sample seriously! Defiently only funny to goat folks :) Vicki

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Goat gal here. Isn't it interesting some of the looks you get when you tell people about your goats??? Vicki........had a buck just like that!!! Some one told me that the Arabs would pay a huge price for the milk from a buck........something about virility. Never looked into it though. The daughters of that buck were all great milkers, as was his mother and grandmother. Gary's mother was just here Tuesday and she knows I have had goats all my life. Sooooo, we have icecream right?? Homemade........do I have a cow here??? No, she really almost croaks when I tell her it is from our own cream. Looks at me and says "GOAT'S CREAM!!!!". Well..........., guess you had to be there.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Well Diane, it seems obvious that you need to stop wasting that ice cream on your MIL and instead give it to someone who can truly appreciate it's finer qualities.....someone like ME for example! :)

Sherry, what kind of goats do you have? I milked my first goat last weekend. It was a lot easier than what I thought it was going to be, although I was still scared that I would do something wrong and hurt her.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Saanan, Oberhasli, Nubian boer crosses, and a Boer buck. I haven't milked alot this year, I sold most of my older does and have kept the kids this year. Last year I sold milk and made cheese. Whew talk about some good ice cream, Diane you make my mouth water. Isn't it wonderful when you can look at a herd of goats and make eye contact and talk to just that one. I do that alot when I'm seperating to milk. I can say Shasta in a whisper until she looks at me and then look her in the eyes and say like come around to the door and I'll let you in and she just kinda sneaks out and comes around. My husband calls me goat whisperer. Vicki I can tell you've been a goat women awhile, girl you are a wealth of info. Sherry

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Sorry, I am a goatless goddesswoman. And I'll probably stay that way -- you all (including the CS folks) have terrorized me with all the things that can and DO go wrong with goats! I always thought they were HARDY animals. I thought horses got a lot of things wrong with them, but boy howdy, they're no patch on GOATS!

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Sherry - how funny! I was looking at my one lonely goat tonite and thinking the very same thing! I love goats! I had 2 Saanans and lost one last summer. I got Karen and Kim when they were 2 weeks old - Karen is now 8. I've had Nubians and Toggs too. The doe I lost last year (Kim) was one of those precocious milkers. Never bred her, but milked her for 2 years. Make a wonderful fudge that I sold locally.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Come on Joy, not ALL of us talk about the terrors of keeping goats. About 98% of the stuff talked about on all these forums I have NEVER SEEN in my herd in all my years of goat keeping. Now, when my herd was up in the near 100 numbers, then I had some problems. When I was out there in the show circuit... brought home some problems. Staying home with my little herd, enjoying and milking for me and a few close people.......haven't had a sick goat in years.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

I have 18 goats. Registered Alpines, 3 Saanen does, and Alpine/Saanen. I love the Alpine/Saanen cross, seems very hardy, although a bit wild sometimes (in does). We just had 2 bucks born, will be wethers, but they are pretty.

One boy, Rocket, has to sit in my lap while I milk, and it's hilarious. Gotta stop, he's gettin big! Oh, and there's the way the kids launch off my back and do flips while I milk too! Whiplash city. I just spoil them too much. I know, I know, separate milking area. I had one, but I changed it around AGAIN.

Sherri, would love to see you milk one of my does with Rocket standing on your legs and nibbling on your ear! He makes little baby sounds in your face, and then he punches your nose as if milk is supposed to come out!

My boy goats out front are driving me crazy here of late. Seem they want to scream all the time. Every time I go outside in the yard, the little bucks come running and screaming, like I'm going to give them grain like 50 times a day! It's getting old now. I don't throw stuff over the fence ever. Yeah, of course I love my goats, but sometimes I just can't figure them out! BOYS.

-- Anonymous, July 28, 2001

Joy, you just have to find a local mentor to learn from. All the horror questions that are asked are from mistakes made in management. Try as hard as you will, you simply can't treat them like they are mini cows or sheep, so asking most vets for help, is no help. With the exception of my vet, you take the goat to the vet to die around me. And then most folks try everything in the fridge, and then ask for help! With a healthy animal to start with, and good management, like you don't feed your dog icecream all the time right? Goats are extremely hardy! I have not opened an antibiotic on my place in 2 years to treat my goats. The biggest problem most new folks have is buying the cute spotted kid down the road because it is cute, or they feel sorry for the sick kid at the auction. Purchase older does then breed them, let them teach you how to raise kids! Vicki

-- Anonymous, July 28, 2001

She's right Joy. I had my first kidding this year and because of all the horror stories (and boy, I was worried myself) I learned so much that when I did have problems, I knew what to do. Since the kidding, I've had it pretty easy. I love them, they're great. By the way, I've got Boer/Alpine with the kids being able to be registered full Boer. I'm not into milking.

-- Anonymous, August 01, 2001

Are you going to eat them, Dee?

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001

Joy if you came here to look or to buy, you would get this speech from me. Before you breed your goats, you need to think ahead about what you are going to do with all the boys born. Until the time comes that you are very well known and folks want your bloodlines you will not be selling but just a small handful of your boys as breeding bucks. And even then it will be at giveaway prices. If you give boys away than that is the care mentality that most folks give them. "Hell I didn't pay anything for him, surely ain't going to take him to the vet if he is sick!!" What? But this is the mentality. So castrate them and try to find them a pet home..............I have had dairy goats for 15 years this month, I know of one wether who had a forever home, with a vet, he died there when he was 14. Most pet wethers have horrid lives once the first owners tire of them, they are picked on by children and eaten by dogs. So.........if you just can't deal with the aspect of...99% of the male livestock that is born, cow, goat, sheep, pig etc. is dinner, though maybe not today, or maybe not to who you sold it to yesterday, but eventually he stops breeding, he butts somebody in the butt, the kids grow up and leave home, eventually he will end up us hamburger. So you may find out you do want goats sometime in the future, perhaps only as pets, once you step over the line and breed, you have to answer that question for yourself. Vicki

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

Uh, okay, Vicki . . . I'm sure you're right . . . Just not sure why you're telling me this -- goats aren't in my plans. But, what about for fiber . . . are wethers not valuable for fiber? Of course, I mean if you have a fiber breed, such as Angora. How about wether sheep -- is their wool less nice than ewes?

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

I will take a stab and say that with ewes you get a lamb to sell and the wool, whereas a wether sheep just the wool. I've never heard of a wether sheep, but then I don't get out much. And I don't know allot about the fiber breeds either.

Here in KY any kind of stinkin buck is bought in the fall for breeding and then the Sunday before Easter, bucks and wethers go for outragious prices at the auctions for Easter dinners. They want them intact and with horns, nothing missing. The bigger horns and stinker the more money! Like 200 dollars! Eeeeeewwwwwww. (you want a little musk with your potatoes!)

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

Sounds like a good guess, Cindy. There are indeed wether sheep. I know that they were OFTEN used as flock leaders, and wore a bell (hence, bellwether). I think the rational was that although he was castrated, the wether was indeed a male, and would be a flock leader. Also, he probably would live to be older (hence more experienced) -- not subject to dying during lambing. Of course, I've also heard of using a goat as a flock leader -- supposedly smarter about danger than the sheep.

Ha ha! Sheepish is gone, and NOW we're talking about sheep! She'll probably be disgusted with us.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

Joy, I've got 6 goats for my breeding stock. From this stock, I'll sell the kids. I don't eat goat but have tried it in the past and didn't care for it. (May have been how it was prepared) I have them for my farmland assessment to keep my taxes down and also so no one in the neighborhood could ever complain about me having animals. And they are ever so much fun!

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

Thanks Dee -- I was just being "curious"! ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001