Finding A Goat Breeder
You can use the internet classifieds, friends who know goat people or the ADGA breeder directory. Buy from a breeder
who has good sanitation in her barn, knows about her goats and how to care for them, and from a breeder whose animals are
in excellent health and condition. Most importantly...own more than one goat. Goats are herd animals and get very lonely when
by themselves. So plan to buy more than one goat when figuring out cost!
Picking Out That Goat
Pick a goat that has good dairy character, a well set udder and a decent pair of teats. The goat should have ONLY two
teats. Stay away from the large "sausage" teats. The withers should be slightly higher or even with the top of the rump.
Nubians are fairly large dairy goats, but should not be overweight. Does should have a feminine head with pendulous ears that
flare forward at the tips. The Nubians should have ears that when stretched flat against the face stick out past the muzzle
one inch. Make sure the animal has trimmed feet, it may be harder to correct over-grown hooves. Color on Nubians doesn't matter...any
color is acceptable.
Bringing Home The Goat
There's no set standard, you could sit them on your lap (for kids) or lay them down in the back seat of the car...or
the truck bed (a topper on it of course) or use a livestock trailer.
Unload that goats and give them good quality hay and water. Leave them be for now. For the first few days they will be
very unsure of their surroundings and start at any little noise.
Feeding
You can use just about any sweet feed or goat feed specially formulated for goats. I use Purina Goat Chow. Split the
feed in to two rations and offer it twice a day while you milk.
Watch how much grain you feed your wethers and bucks, they are prone to urinary calculi.
Hay
Do not feed pure alfalfa, it is too rich. For best milk production feed a mixture of about 3 parts alfalfa to 1
part grass or timothy. (i.e. 75 percent alfalfa, 25 percent grass or timothy)
Setting A Routine
Animals like routine, milk or feed at the same time every morning and evening. You should split the animals feed in to
two and feed it twice a day. If you're switching feed for any reason, do so VERY slowly by mixing in portions of the new feed
in with the old. If you do it quickly, you may upset the fragile bacteria in their stomach and cause problems. An emergency
may arise where you must switch feed suddenly. Although not recommend to do it suddenly, you can cut off all grain for two
or three days and just feed roughage like hay or pasture, then slowly introduce the new feed.
Milking
To prevent your doe from drying up quickly, milk at twelve hour intervals and be punctual about it.
Brush your doe to remove any loose hair or dirt.
Wash the udder and dry it completely (I use non-alcoholic baby wipes).
Do not milk the udder, it may cause the udder tissue to move into the teat with terrible results. Feed her dinner/breakfast
your goat while you milk. Do not pull on the udder when you milk. Starting at the top, squeeze your index finger, then middle
and then the other two fingers the same way. You can "butt" the udder like kids do when the milk flow lessens. The more
you get out of her, the more milk she'll produce. Milk until you get no more coming out.
When you're finished you may strip the teat (meaning get out the last of the milk) the last bit of milk is highest in
butterfat. To stip cradle the top of the teat in your thumb and using the index and middle finger grasp around the teat and
for the milk out by running your fingers down the teat. Be gentle, avoid rough stripping.
The last step is a teat dip. You can either spray it on or dip the teat in a cup. I use gently iodine for my teat spray.
First fresheners often have small teats and you may only be able to fit two fingers around her teat.
Do not milk in to plastic, it scratches and milk may build up in the scratches. Milk into a stainless steel bucket or
a mason jar. Strain the milk and store in clean jars. Cool milk down to 35 degrees within a half hour after milking. For amounts
larger than a quart use an ice bath to super-chill the milk and then put into the fridge.
Breeding Your Doe
Does should be bred when they are seven months old, meaning they'll kid as yearlings. Find the buck that best matches
your doe. Does only come in to heat in fall, pushing it in to early winter may not produce good results--she may not breed.
The Pregnancy
Dry off your doe two months before she is due (gestation is five months). Don't do it by slowly decreasing milking to
once a day and then less...it can lead to fibrosis of the udder and lower milk production later on in life. It's best to let
pressure in the udder signal her to stop producing milk...use a teat dip a couple times a day to prevent infection and mastitis.
Provide good quality hay (as usual), a little bit more feed and minerals.
Here Comes Baby
Try to be there for the delivery, 95% of freshenings go without help needed but it's nice to be there in case something
goes wrong. Give each doe her own kidding stall when she goes in to labor. Provide a thick, clean layer of bedding, no water
or hay rack, though (these can be dangerous and she's not interested in that stuff right now anyways).
After the delivery inspect the kid to make sure he is doing alright and breathing (unless you are on a CAE prevention
program, then do not let the kid be licked by the doe and do not break the sac the kid was delivered in until the kid is in
a box away from the doe, do not let the kid nurse or be bottle fed any milk from an infected doe).
Give the doe some warm water--she has lost a lot of body heat, even in warm weather.
If you are letting the kid nurse it's dam or are bottle feeding it it's dams milk, you need to get some colostrum in
to the kid within the next 30 minutes. Your doe will produce colostrum for three or four days.
Raising Kids
Frequent large feedings of milk is bad, be consistant and on time every day. If you have a busy schedule you can feed
every twelve hours...don't overfeed though, your kid may scour or grow fat. Or, you could feed every couple hours. Feed cold
or warm milk but stick with one. Let the kid nurse, be pan fed or be bottle fed, once you pick one there's no going back.
They will start to nibble on hay and grains around one week...encourage this!
Weaning
Wean your goats around eight weeks IF they weigh enough. The ideal is 2.5 times their birth weight. Feeding them milk
for longer periods of time (like up to six months) may cause bone problems as milk is high in calcium. You can feed a calf
started ration about a 1/2 pound twice a day. Hay is important! Feeding pure alfalfa is too rich. Most feed a mixture of alfalfa
and grass.
Switch does to milking ration at six months.
Castration
For wethers or meat wethers you must castrate them. You can use an elastrator (puts a super-tight band around testicles
and they atrophy and fall off in three weeks to a month), use a burdizzo which crushes the cords or surgical castration. For
surgical or elastrator methods, give a tetanus shot.
Disbudding
Disbudding dairy goats is important, it's better for their health (don't injure each other by gouging and poking out
eyes) and most importantly--you can't show a dairy goat with horns.
Disbudding is the process of burning off the cells that produce the horns. They are found behind the poll in two areas.
The best time to disbud a goat is when it is a few days old.
Hold the heated iron on each horn bud for a full fifteen seconds and twist it around, go to the other horn bud and do
the same. Go back to the first horn bud and hold the iron on for another eight seconds, repeat with other horn bud. You should
see a copper ring. If you don't kill all the cells, scurs may appear later.
A scur is a thin, misshapen horn. Simply heat up the iron again and repeat the job. Scurs can grow into the head
or eye of an animal or repeatedly break off--causing pain and bleeding. To fix a scur in an older animal you want to show
simply cut it off with a knife.
Tattooing
Tattooing is important for personal identification reasons as well as the fact that you cannot register your goat without
one. Even if you do not register your goats, tattooing is still a good idea. For all goats except Lamanchas (which are tattooed
in the tail web) it's recommended to tattoo in the ears; personal flock ID tattoo in the left ear, your herd ID tattoo
(which will be given to you through ADGA when you become a member, although you can pick what you want, if it's
available) goes in the right ear.
The left ear is the animal's own ID tattoo. Most put the letter assigned to the year the animal was born in
and then put a number next to it.
Example:
My herd tattoo registered through ADGA is SCDG
The first kid born in to my herd recieves this tattoo in the LEFT ear: W1
All kids born in to my herd recieve this tattoo in their RIGHT ear: SCDG
The "W" stands for the year 2006 (according to ADGA), next year's letter for 2007 is X, and so on down the alphabet. "1"
just means it was the first animal born in to my herd, the second animal would be W2, the third W3 and so on. These
letters aren't used to avoid confusion: G, I, O, Q and U. No year letter will be a G, I, O, Q or U.
Tattoo kids soon after birth. You can tattoo goats later on in life, but they will struggle more and be stronger.
Buy a size 5/16 or 1/4 inch tattoo pliers. Use green ink or paste--it shows up easier than black on dark eared animals.
How To Tattoo
- Clean the area where the tattoo will go with some rubbing alcohol, let it dry.
- Double check your tattoo sequence, it's very important that you tattoo a piece of paper and make sure that it reads correctly,
as they're backwards, like printer's type. A tattoo is PERMANENT don't mess up.
- Have someone hold the kid securely while you spread ink or paste on to the spot to be tattooed.
- Test tattoo on paper.
- Position the pliers where you've already spread ink.
- Puncture the skin with a very firm, quick squeeze, make sure that you've suck the needles in far enough.
- Release the ear from the needles.
- Put on some more ink or paste and rub in with a toothbrush. Make sure you work the ink in good
It takes about a month for it to heal completely, do not rub off any extra ink until it has healed over.
Trimming Hooves
Goat hooves are constantly growing. The ideal hoof is similar to what a hoof looks like on a young kid. You can use foot
rot shears, pruning shears or very good scissors. Do not trim into the fleshy part of the hoof too much, just the overgrown
portion. If you make the hoof bleed you can use blood stop powder, apply pressure and cleanse it with something like iodine.
Make sure that it does not become infected, keep it clean
Grooming
You may clip your doe's udder, flanks and belly. I give my does a full body clip a few weeks before showing. In
summer, a full body clip enhances the look of the goat and keeps them cooler. I'd only clip the udder, flanks and belly
in winter.
Forget A Lot About What You've Heard About Goats
They do not eat tin cans...honestly...what living animal does? They're actually very picky about what they eat
and won't touch dirty water or hay. Goats may nibble on things to find out about them, but won't eat it unless it is edible. Goats
are browsers, not grazers. Meaning they don't utilize much pasture but love trees, bark and shrubs. Pine trees and apple limbs
are favorites. Petting zoo goats and farm goats are two totally different types of animals to me. One type is spoiled rotten
and has learned many bad habits, the other (if treated like the livestock animal it is) type is your dairy goat: maybe a little
spoiled with pats and attention, but other than that had good manners, doesn't nibble and doesn't butt/jump on you.
