Goat folk, good resources? And a buck question~

[Epona142]

Here I am, here I am!

Yes, Facebook is the #1 resource at this point. My goats don’t even make it to the website anymore when they go up for sale - they’re sold just using Facebook.

Go into the search bar and put your state and the word “goats” and look for your state or area’s goat sales group (not page or person, group!). There’s bound to be at least one, probably more!

I’ve found goat people to be among the kindest, I imagine because we simply must band together to share information and personal research, but I assure you, there are plenty of nutters as well. Not as many as horse or dog people at least! It’s more likely to come across someone with unhealthy or CAE/CL carrying goats simply due to ignorance.

Now - making her friendly! Find a nice bucket, and get something good. A bit of cheap sweetfeed or oats, a small amount of cracked corn. Every day, bring out a cup of it in that scoop - make sure to shake it! It needs to make a noise. Then it goes in the bowl and they all get a treat.

Just like any animal, doesn’t take long before they understand that bucket means GOOD THINGS. Soon enough you can hold it out so they can eat from it while you hold it. Then you start reaching out and touching. She’ll run away at first. But what’s in the bucket is sooo good. So just keep touching. Eventually she’ll realize that nothing happens when you touch, and she gets to keep eating the good stuff. (You may need to separate her from the others during this)

Then you start giving itches. Goats like their heads and necks to be scratched. She’ll probably run away again.

Get a collar on her - with a breakaway buckle (anything else is courting death). Then you hold onto the collar, leaving the bucket available for her to continue eating, and touch her until she stops flipping out. Then she can go.

Over, and over, and over, and over…eventually you’ll move to giving treats by hand. Same process.

Food and scratches, over and over. It’s easy! How fast it goes depends on the goat. It’s a rare goat I can’t get to come around eventually.

Here’s a video on the best places to pet and scratch your goat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr3xiHJkZJA

[cuonxc]

[QUOTE=Epona142;8401377]
Okay, if you’re wanting goats as pets, get off of the scrub goat ads. Find local show goat breeders - but don’t be afraid of the high prices and pictures of ribbons and goat boobs.

We all produce an excess of bucklings, and there are only so many pet homes. The rest go for meat generally - so prices tend to stay low, even for high quality wethers. Let the breeder know you are looking for pets that will be cared for like your horse(s) is - we can’t get enough of those homes, they are rare.

You want disbudded kids, at least two, three is better, and you want them from a herd that is tested for CAE and CL at the very least. CL is contagious to horses and people so this is important. CAE is not dangerous to anything other than sheep (and risk of transmission is almost nothing in anything but a lactating female) but will shorten the goat’s lifespan and if they are symptomatic, they will be miserable.

Responsible breeders test, responsible breeders disbud, and a responsible breeder will have your back. Goats get sick quickly, they hide it ten times better than horses, and they appear to die overnight. Wethers in particular need attention paid to their diet to prevent urinary calculi, but otherwise, when it comes to keeping pet goats (as opposed to production breeding/milking animals) it’s honestly not that difficult.

Browse and a good quality hay, hoof trimming (get a milkstand, you’ll thank me), loose minerals (just like with horses, block minerals are useless), and you’ve got yourself a fairly easy pet.

If you want “dogs with hooves” which is what goats absolutely can be, I suggest bottle feeding them. You can use whole cow’s milk from the store - don’t mess around with overpriced replacer.

This is not the best time of the year to buy - depending on your location, most breeders will start kidding out in the Spring, unless you’re in the South as I am, in which case I kid out in January and am pushing for others to follow my example. Right now breeders are dumping culls and overstock before winter.

Now, when it comes to bucks, bucklings, and wethers - they can be banded like a calf, which is the most common procedure. If you are unsure, ask the breeder to do it for you. Some breeders use an emasculator and some simply cut and pull the testicles out. These are all fine methods. Do not believe the myth that the younger you castrate, the higher chance of UC - this is correlation but not causation. The urinary tract shrinks no matter what are you castrate. UC is caused by an imbalance of calcium and phosphorous in the diet, and is caused by the phosphorous - being fed too much grass hay + grain. This is why I get so many cases of intact bucks with it. Over fed, over fed, over fed. Almost every goat I lay hands on (that is not mine) is over fed and under conditioned. Goats are not meant to be fat in any way. They develop fat around their internal organs before any significant amount of subcutaneous fat.

A wether will not demonstrate the foul behavior of a buck if wethered early. Older bucks can be castrated, but will often continue at least some of the foul behavior, though the smell and intensity will be greatly lessened.

I have no clue if anything I just wrote flows in any kind of mindful order, but please feel free to follow my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/knsfarm and know that I spend literal (and I do mean literal, not figurative) hours a day answering emails and messages about goats and their care.

If other breeders had not helped me when I started, I would not be where I am today, and I pay that back ten fold.[/QUOTE]

SUPER advice!!

My pet goat came from a local dairy. They did/do not advertise their meat goats. I called as they are local and advertised a CEA/CL free closed herd on a chance they might have some not advertised. The dairy was thrilled with the prospect of a pet home. I was able to go out and meet the goats as well as meet their parents. The breeder recommended a specific goat as having a pet temperament (she was right!).

I waited until mine was weaned from milk and he came to me de-horned and vaccinated. I paid $100 3 years ago.

The breeders have been phenomenal support whenever I have had a question or concern (even years after the sale). They have proven to be the best resource for care vs internet and veterinarians as it seems not much is actually proven and published in regards to goats.

So I suggest googling for a goat dairy near you & giving them a ring.

I too like Nubians and just love mine He is so sociable and great with the horses.

He even does tricks: https://youtu.be/NUviNjQe668

Best wishes to a fellow goat lover- you have gotten great advice here.

[cuonxc]

@saje;8401361

So, they boys go cheaply enough, but how do I get them castrated and does it matter if they’ve already been in rut? (As in an older buck, not a kid)

If I had one thing to do differently I would have asked the breeder to castrate…mine quickly became a “dog with hooves”…so when the time came to do the deed he went into the clinic to get “neutered” with anesthesia and after care. They are not difficult to castrate at all but I couldn’t stand the idea of him being in any pain.

The vet got a huge kick out of it as did the clients in the waiting room

[saje]

I absolutely could see myself doing that!

[saje]

And I love that wethers have been wethered like geldings have been gelded. I don’t know why that amuses me but it does!

Random thought:

We turn bulls into steers, rams & bucks into wethers, stallions into geldings, and even roosters into capons. I wonder why there is no separate term for castrated dogs or cats?

[Hilary]

Reading this makes me miss my goaties - a little. They were supposed to be pasture clearers, but I had too much land for the 3 of them, and too soft of a heart, so they became not quite housepets.

3 huge Nubians - 2 were barren does and the 3rd thrown in for good measure because she was too old to safely have another set of triplets, which she always did. She was very wild, until the 2nd winter we had her when we had a 2 week sub-zero cold snap and I found her hypothermic one morning. Brought her into the cellar to warm her up ( and the other 2 had to come too because you can’t take one goat away from the other 2, or leave one and take the other 2).

After she warmed up (and got a blanket) her attitude towards people did a 180 and instead of being wary and wild, she became almost as tame as the 2 who had always been pets. And they all lived to be about 13. Much longer than we’d been told.

But they refused to be fenced and when they died we didn’t get any more.

[kashmere]

I LOVE my goat! I board at a working sheep farm, which also has some goats just for the heck of it. Two years ago, when the resident matriarch doe birthed twins, i made myself NOT get attached to the buckling, because I knew he was going for meat. I called him Goatchop in my head to remind myself he was going to be a goat chop and not a pet.

Well… first mistake. Named the meat. $250 and 2 years later and Goatchop is still my main goat:

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb294/rosemareez/goatchop2.png

He is sweet, snuggly, and all around wonderful. Just a little mutt goat who is obsessed with mints and carrots. Love him.

[Epona142]

Anesthesia is extremely dangerous for goats and putting them under for any reason should be a last effort. Obviously it works out many times, especially in skilled hands, but the case reports of dead goats from complications from anesthesia fill a folder nicely.

Unfortunately vets just are not equipped to deal with goats and there’s a nice fat folder full of case files that were deaths directly caused by misinformation or mishandling by a veterinarian. It’s not their fault - they simply do not have the resources to learn. That’s why our dairy is open to vet students and they can earn credit working here.

[cowboymom]

That’s for sure-be wary of a vet’s advice for a goat. I always fact check it with my online goat sources. I remember one of the most exclusive high-end equine veterinarians trying to treat a goat that in retrospect, probably had meningeal worms. I worked in the barn and I remember the vets were haphazardly trying different treatments and joking around about the goat in the barn with the neuro problems. The owner was absolutely heart-broken when the goat died a couple days later and I felt bad that she were charged as much as they were for a bunch of vets that really did the goat no good at all.

[Bluey]

When we had our goat dairy, our all around vet for horses and cattle and dogs and cats and wildlife and you name it was raised on a goat farm in South TX.

How handy for our goats.

[Epona142]

That’s a valuable resource, and a rare one, for sure! Our vet does his best, but luckily he is very open to just giving us the Rx medication we ask for without a fuss. We’ve built a good working relationship with the clinic and I am so grateful!

[Callista17]

I REALLY REALLY want some goats…still…But then there’s the coyote thread…So…then I’d probably need a standard donkey…lol I have a horse farm, but don’t really want a “FARM”. lol

[Calamber]

http://greenville.craigslist.org/grd/5276510347.html

And if you have goats, of course you will need one of these.

http://greenville.craigslist.org/grd/5287657593.html

Or, one of these.

http://greenville.craigslist.org/grd/5259060036.html

[Callista17]

^^^^^^ENABLER!!!:lol:

[saje]

The free ones were long gone. Or at least I never got a response back when I replied within days of the post going up.

Going to pass for now on the guard critters, though there might be a donk in my future somewhere down the line

[Epona142]

Free goat ads are almost always scams or joke posts except in very rare cases. It’s actually quite “vogue” in some circles to post a “Free Goats” ad using someone’s email/phone number you don’t like so they get inundated with messages. It’s not like it’s overly difficult to sell goats, if you are aware of your local market. Heck, people fight over our buckling crop every year.

Be wary of donks with goats (obviously you mentioned you are not ready for that stage, but for future readers) I have seen one pick up a goat by the neck and sling it across the field.

No thanks, my goats are worth far more money than any donkey, lol. Though with such a large herd and a large property, we can’t be without our Livestock Guardian Dogs.

[cowboymom]

We’ve had donkeys recommended for guards for sheep and had the same experience; they attacked the sheep instead!

I love the guard dogs too; where I live we have to deal with coyotes and wolves and the Hutterites, ranchers and small time folk like me all use dogs. Mine recently died and I’m missing him a lot lately.

Pigweed, my wether, helped me figure out a coyote in the barn yard on Sunday. I had glanced out the window for a welfare check as usual and noticed Pigweed in a frozen stance, staring at something I couldn’t see on the other side of the barn. I know him well and knew there was something up… snuck down there and spooked away a coyote SECONDS before he snagged a chicken. That coyote was right in the middle of the pens, under one horse’s nose and in the middle of a group of escaped chickens. And Pigweed! :lol: If he hadn’t been giving it the stink eye I wouldn’t have known it was there.

Those coyotes usually pass us by and even with so many loose chickens and nine free ranging cats I haven’t lost anything (yet). I think it’s b/c my LGD laid out the territory so well… even though he’s gone now the coyotes respect it. But those loose chickens were too much temptation, I don’t blame that coyote. We scared it off and locked the chickens back up. And that afternoon I gave Pigweed a drink of my wine which he loves. :yes:

[cowboymom]

Adding-goat ads are totally legit here. The joke ads must be regional?
http://bozeman.craigslist.org/grd/5305996932.html

[Epona142]

Could be!

[chaos_theory]

If you are near NC, the Piedmont Dairy Goat Association and the NC Dairy Goat Breeders Association (both on FB) would be great places to start searching. Many great Nubian breeders in this area.