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COTHy Wan Ken-goatie, you're my only hope

I have learned a lot about goats from the Blue Cactus Dairy Goat youtube channel:

The Goat Health and Care playlist goes over how to trim hooves, tell if your goat is becoming copper deficient, worming, etc. Plus lots of fun goat videos!

You’ve gotten all the FB groups and online sources of info, but I would suggest getting your daughter either the Storey book on raising goats or the FFA book. Internet info is piecemeal and not edited. An edited, corrected, recent edition book always has the most reliable info and it’s organized. Start with the fencing, shelters, and feeding chapters, then move on to the chapters about buying a goat. Then go back to fencing, lol! Did I mention fencing? That will be your biggest expense.

I am no help. I know a lot of horse things, but goats are weird like cats. Like I think my goat had an abcess in her hoof the other day and I had no idea if I could give her some Bute. :woman_shrugging: it’s better now and the swelling has gone down so all good.
Goats:
Lots of deworming
They get out of everything
They chew wood
They make a mess out of hay
Their poop stinks
I threaten them all the time that if they are naughty I’m going to make a mighty fine pair of tall boots out of them
They like hot cheetos and gold fish
They like to eat all my horses grain and raid the horse cookies :cookie:
They know my verbal commands and are pretty smart.

But the reason I keep them ariund:
Goats are really good at grounding out anxious horses and being their BFF in a non threatening manner.

Also, everyone likes them and thinks they are super cute.


Do you think he’s cute? I have to lock him in the stock trailer before I can do anything with the horses. He protects them.

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Those horns are :open_mouth:

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That’s why he’s locked in the trailer when I’m doing something with the horses. His feet need trimmed badly but I’m having trouble finding someone to do it.

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Many years ago, I rode at a barn that had a free ranging billy goat. He used to corner people in the tack room or in stalls and butt them. He also stunk.

After that, I kept my horse at a place that had 2 goats in the adjoining pasture. They were cute but the female always got her head stuck in the fence and the male (neutered) was obnoxious. If you went into the goat pasture the male would be all in your business and in your personal space. :rofl:

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My friend had a billy that absolutely hated me, and he had horns. Doesn’t matter how cute they are when they’re trying to kill you :grimacing:

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Goats really aren’t that bad and they’re so cute and funny. Only get all does or all wethers don’t mix them. You don’t have to milk even if it’s a milk breed you can just let them raise the babies sell and dry them up or don’t even breed them. As long as you don’t have too many goats for your land and feed all hay off the ground you shouldn’t have to deworm them often and shouldn’t you don’t want to build up resistance. I mow my one acre goat field in strips rotating so they’re not grazing where they poop and I maybe deworm once a year. It’s easy to see if they need copper because of their goat and a copper bolus is easy to give. All of the stuff you’re reading on fb really are the outliers and once you know what you’re looking for a lot of those issues are related to care/environment. If your goats have fresh clean water, grass or browse to eat and lots of hay in winter they’ll be good to go!

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Gruff attacked me once when I was trying to catch my old pony to put a fly mask on him. Pony was being an a hole about being caught. I was trying to walk him down and Gruff got upset because he and the pony are buds. Since then Gruff and I have a live and let live policy. I don’t mess with him and he is securely locked in the trailer if I want to catch one of the horses. I have someone coming Saturday to trim his feet. Her husband is her holder. Should be interesting. BTW, if there are any Dresden Files fans out there his full name is Eldest Gruff and he likes donuts with white frosting and sprinkles.

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We have three female dairy type goats. They’re bigger, no male goat drama, and they can even carry a pack saddle on a hike with us. Trimming their hooves is really no big deal, once you get used to it. Vaccines twice a year. Deworming as needed. Great farm pets.

Goats are easy to trim yourself. All you need is some foot clippers https://www.jefferspet.com/products/b-b-supersharp-foot-rot-shears

Goats do best with rotational deworming and really only if needed and their dewormers are easy to get but you are right. If using equine dewormer ( and you can if it is the same class) it can be hard to get.

Seeing as how Gruff weighs around 300# and has a horn span close to 3’ and I’m 69 with a bad back, I think I’ll pay someone to trim him. Plus he’s really stinky. The trimmer only charges $35, $25 for the farm call and $10 for the trim. I’m thinking that’s too cheap given how big Gruff is, his horns and how bad his feet are.

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You are right . I can’t trim my Boer buck alone, nor would I want to! One of my kids holds him and he is good but when he wants to move, we move :roll_eyes: He weighs as much as my daughter and I combined!