# What time of year do Pygmy goats have kids?



## muscovy94 (Nov 15, 2009)

Hello everyone.  4 months ago i purchased a cute little bottle baby pygmy goat.  Her name was annabelle and she was grey agouti.  she was the runt of the litter and cute as can be.  Well we let her out during the day to eat grass and run around and we have neighborhood dogs that have gotten many of our chickens and last night i dreadfully watched as i saw a dog dragging my little annabelle across the yard.  I went and got my gun and shot in the air to scare the dog away but it was too late.  He had killed her.  It was horrible.  I know I"ll never be able to replace her, but we have decided to buy another bottle baby and raise it and keep a closer eye out for the dang dogs.  I was just wondering, when do pygmy goats usually kid?

RIP annabelle: July 4, 2009 - November 14, 2009.  We'll never forget you <3


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## freemotion (Nov 15, 2009)

I am SOOOO sorry.....how horrible.   Will you press charges?


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## muscovy94 (Nov 15, 2009)

I'm not going to press charges, But after i saw the dog with annabelle dead I called the man and informed him very nicely that if i see the dog on my property again it will be shot.


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## lilhill (Nov 16, 2009)

That's terrible, and I'm so sorry for your loss.  I would never allow any of my goats to be out, unprotected from preditors.  It happens too fast and even the friendly neighborhood dogs will see a goat as prey.  Do you have a penned in area for your goat when you aren't outside supervising her play?  If not, then that would be my first order of business before bringing in another little goat.


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## annanicole18 (Nov 16, 2009)

I hope you are at least charging the owner some sort of fee for what you paid for her or the going rate for a doeling her age in your area.  Money is the only way into some peoples brains and by making them shell some out might be the best way to get them to keep a closer eye on their dog.  sorry about your little girl


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## Roll farms (Nov 16, 2009)

Sorry for your loss.


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## Cottage Cheese (Nov 16, 2009)

I am EXTREMELY sorry to hear that! We have had our 2 pygmy's for about 5 months, and yes, they breed year round. Our girls momma just had triplets on thursday!!!


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## kimmyh (Nov 16, 2009)

I'm sorry for your loss, and given your situation I would NOT allow the next goats out of their pen, it is just too dangerous.


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## Cottage Cheese (Nov 16, 2009)

ETA: we let our girls out, but PLEASE, if you do,,,, DONT disbud them!!! They have a much better chance of getting out of a pickle with them on.


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## no nonsense (Nov 17, 2009)

muscovy94 said:
			
		

> Hello everyone.  4 months ago i purchased a cute little bottle baby pygmy goat.  Her name was annabelle and she was grey agouti.  she was the runt of the litter and cute as can be.  Well we let her out during the day to eat grass and run around and we have neighborhood dogs that have gotten many of our chickens and last night i dreadfully watched as i saw a dog dragging my little annabelle across the yard.  I went and got my gun and shot in the air to scare the dog away but it was too late.  He had killed her.  It was horrible.  I know I"ll never be able to replace her, but we have decided to buy another bottle baby and raise it and keep a closer eye out for the dang dogs.  I was just wondering, when do pygmy goats usually kid?
> 
> RIP annabelle: July 4, 2009 - November 14, 2009.  We'll never forget you <3


I suggest researching predator control, and how to erect proper fencing to keep goats protected. You won't have to worry about when they give birth, if they don't live long enough to reproduce. Horns on one baby pygmy goat are no match for a dog. She'll be dead long before they grow in.


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## kimmyh (Nov 17, 2009)

I agree with no nonsense.


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## freemotion (Nov 17, 2009)

I read the question as "will I be able to find a baby this time of year?"  Not:  "What time of year can I breed my next goat?"

When someone learns a hard lesson, there is no need to continually rub their nose in it.  Please be constructive and kind.  How about offering fencing suggestions and links, along with sympathy, when someone is in mourning.

I wouldn't go to a funeral and say to the widow, "Well, I hope you feed better food to your next husband so he lives longer.  Do some research!"  Even if it is true, how about some kindness?  A time and a place, please.

Sorry, this is a flat medium, and I am bothered by the tone a thread here can appear to take when someone suffers a tragedy.


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## Goatzilla (Nov 17, 2009)

freemotion said:
			
		

> I read the question as "will I be able to find a baby this time of year?"  Not:  "What time of year can I breed my next goat?"
> 
> When someone learns a hard lesson, there is no need to continually rub their nose in it.  Please be constructive and kind.  How about offering fencing suggestions and links, along with sympathy, when someone is in mourning.
> 
> ...


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## cmjust0 (Nov 17, 2009)

freemotion said:
			
		

> I wouldn't go to a funeral and say to the widow, "Well, I hope you feed better food to your next husband so he lives longer.  Do some research!"  Even if it is true, how about some kindness?  A time and a place, please.


That's true, but wouldn't you at least be a bit taken aback if the widow caught you in the funeral home parking lot and asked if you could come over later and help her sign up on eHarmony.com?

  

I do know what you mean, though..  I had some pretty rough things said to me for no good reason (IMHO) when I lost a goat recently, and it wasn't a pleasant experience.


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## kimmyh (Nov 17, 2009)

I guess I am not reading the same things some of you are. The sympathy was offered up, then some people suggested things that others found dangerous, and now a few of you are taking offense? No one in this thread beat up anyone, geesh folks we are all adults right? Are the word police here so ignorant, or self centered that they have to pick on people. Advice is free, take it or leave it, ignore it, but at least have the good sense/common decency to say thank you and move on. Too all of you who look for things to bunch up your panties, I say "Well bless your heart".


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## mully (Nov 17, 2009)




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## freemotion (Nov 17, 2009)

I rest my case.


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## freemotion (Nov 17, 2009)

cmjust0 said:
			
		

> freemotion said:
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				cmjust0 said:
			
		

> I do know what you mean, though..  I had some pretty rough things said to me for no good reason (IMHO) when I lost a goat recently, and it wasn't a pleasant experience.


Yep, and the nice people need to step up a bit more often and balance this out.  Whether they agree or not is not really my point.  It is being kind when someone's heart is broken.


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## big brown horse (Nov 17, 2009)

kimmyh said:
			
		

> we are all adults right?


Not all of us are adults.  I am, but I really don't act like one most of the time. 


I am very sorry you lost your baby goat.  That was very very sad.


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## Cottage Cheese (Nov 17, 2009)

I Do apologize if I sounded a bit harsh, I did not mean too!! I cannot fathom the thought of losing my sweet girls, and that goes for all of us; that is why we joined BYH in the first place!!! BUT, we all need to take the advice that is given to heart, it is for the best :}. Again, I am extremely sorry for your loss.


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## no nonsense (Nov 18, 2009)

> I guess I am not reading the same things some of you are. The sympathy was offered up, then some people suggested things that others found dangerous, and now a few of you are taking offense? No one in this thread beat up anyone, geesh folks we are all adults right? Are the word police here so ignorant, or self centered that they have to pick on people. Advice is free, take it or leave it, ignore it, but at least have the good sense/common decency to say thank you and move on. Too all of you who look for things to bunch up your panties, I say "Well bless your heart".


Exactly. 



> I read the question as "will I be able to find a baby this time of year?"  Not:  "What time of year can I breed my next goat?"


I see your point, but either way, it wouldn't have changed my answer. I was trying to prevent the same thing from happening to another goat, and to spare the owner from going through another devestating tragedy. 

The outpouring of support was very touching, but I didn't see one person try to help her with practical advice to try to prevent it from happening again, except kimmyh. If the way this is supposed to go is that we all have to think emotionally rather than rationally, then to put it another way, I didn't see one person advocating for the animals. I'm not trying to beat up on anyone, but since others have made it into something else, how fair is it to enable someone to go ahead and repeat the same mistake, with no more intent to try to prevent it from happening again, than to just "keep a closer eye out for the dang dogs"? How many of you would sell one of your own animals into this situation? Where's the comon sense?



> Sorry, this is a flat medium, and I am bothered by the tone a thread here can appear to take when someone suffers a tragedy.


As you pointed out yourself, we all read things differently depending on how they're phrased. Your interpretation and your reaction is your issue, not someone else's.



> Advice is free, take it or leave it, ignore it, but at least have the good sense/common decency to say thank you and move on. Too all of you who look for things to bunch up your panties, I say "Well bless your heart".


This just bears repeating.

To put it another way, for those who lean this way, you can feed a man now by giving him a fish, but you can fed him for a lifetime if you _teach_ him how to fish.



> BUT, we all need to take the advice that is given to heart, it is for the best





> Not all of us are adults.  I am, but I really don't act like one most of the time.


And that, I'm afraid, may be the crux of the issue.


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## cmjust0 (Nov 18, 2009)

big brown horse said:
			
		

> kimmyh said:
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A good friend of mine always says "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever."

I like that attitude.  

Of course, that's the same good friend who once said to me "Your optimism is a reflection of your ignorance."


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## freemotion (Nov 18, 2009)

If someone can watch a dog kill their pet and not then see the need to protect the next one from the same mistake, then a few sentences typed here are not really going to make much difference.  

A time and a place, is all I am saying.  This was the time for sympathy, not a slap.  I agreed with all the concepts, just not the timing nor the tone.  Make a sandwich.  Serve advice between two compliments, or in this case, sympathy.  If you feel that you must give advice at a funeral.

I can only imagine what some of you would say to a parent who just lost a teenager to drunk driving.  You would have to protect that parent's other children, after all.


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## big brown horse (Nov 18, 2009)

Well said free!


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## cmjust0 (Nov 18, 2009)

freemotion said:
			
		

> I can only imagine what some of you would say to a parent who just lost a teenager to drunk driving.  You would have to protect that parent's other children, after all.


Okay, but I think we can all agree that a baby goat is less in control of its own safety and welfare than a teenage human.  

To me, a more apt analogy would be to say that you can only imagine what some of us would say to a parent whose three year old just wandered off a cliff.

Personally, if I knew the parent personally...I'd probably express my condolences and _silently_ wonder how the hell they could ever let that happen.

Now, if I were an adoption counselor who just heard such a story from a prospective client....that's a whole different ballgame.  The audacity alone would warrant an earful, in my opinion.



Here's the thing...to some, this forum seems to be viewed as a place where goat people can come together and celebrate the little victories and mourn the failures together, ideally in a very non-judgmental way.  To others, this forum is seen as a place where goat people can come get advice about what to do and what not to do in order to help ensure the welfare of their animals.

While those two views certainly aren't mutually exclusive, it's threads like this one where we see who's on which side of that particular fence..  

I tend more toward the goat side of it than the human side, where if helping the animal means occasionally stepping on human toes...well, that's invariably what ends up happening.  If you look through the comments, it's pretty easy to see who shares that outlook and who doesn't.  

Anyone who's willing to take that mindset into consideration as they're reading the comments would, I think, begin to see them as being more about objectivity than petty aggression and nose-rubbing.

That's just my opinion, though.


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## no nonsense (Nov 18, 2009)

cmjust0 said:
			
		

> freemotion said:
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Well put, for the most part, however the truly apt analogy would be to wonder what some of us would say to a parent whose _second_ child just fell off a cliff, and who said: "Well, I guess I better keep a closer eye on the third." The answer: nothing, because at that point the child welfare people would be having the conversations with her.

Freeemotion, it's your opinion that this was a time for sympathy. Mine is that the time for sympathy was when the chickens were killed, not after the goat got killed by the same dogs known to have access to the animals. Be that as it may, I don't wish to continue to have to bring up examples to use to defend my outlook, out of consideration for the original poster, so I'll let it drop here. Just reread the previous post, and try to understand that we all have different ways to approach these issues, and my view is not wrong simply because it is different from yours, or because you disagree with it.


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## chandasue (Nov 18, 2009)

So sorry to hear...  Our neighbor's 4 prized hunting dogs got into my coop once while I was out feeding them, they came in right behind me and managed to kill 5 of them. My animals are now double fenced... The chickens have a run, the goats have a larger run, AND we now have a 6 foot privacy fence that runs most of the way around our back 2 acres. Expensive but worth it to keep those bastards out. (Pardon my French...) I used to love dogs but not so much anymore...


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## cmjust0 (Nov 19, 2009)

no nonsense said:
			
		

> Well put, for the most part, however the truly apt analogy would be to wonder what some of us would say to a parent whose _second_ child just fell off a cliff, and who said: "Well, I guess I better keep a closer eye on the third." The answer: nothing, because at that point the child welfare people would be having the conversations with her.


Exactly!

From here on out, everyone should probably just think of me (and possibly a few others) on here as GPS officers -- Goat Protective Services.

I think that might actually help our more sympathetic members understand where we're coming from when we seem to be coming down on someone who just did something that endangered their animals.


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## freemotion (Nov 19, 2009)

Hmmm.....I wonder why BYH has so few members, and can't hang onto new ones?


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## FarmerChick (Nov 19, 2009)

that is just horrible.

We have farming in the blood, we know how to protect our livestock...mostly....something will always attempt to eat your livestock and it will happen to all of us.

Goats are prey.  Simple.  So we must take the measures to truly stop the predators...and neighbor dogs are a biggie.

Sorry for your loss.  I know, been there.

BUT it means better protection for your livestock in the future.

Life is for learning.  You learned alot as we all do and time to hit google and find that good fencing and next time, don't shoot in the air, shoot the dog.    Once a predator knows the dinner buffet area, they come back.

it is rough with animals....we all know that.  Hope you get another and everything goes fine for you.


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## ksalvagno (Nov 19, 2009)

Just like the other thread, why isn't your opinion stated only ONCE? I'm sure everyone has enough brains to get it the first time. I think it is fine to state suggestions but you can certainly state it in nicer manner. There is no reason for the meanness.


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## Cottage Cheese (Nov 19, 2009)

I think this thread needs to be closed: it is going too far. We dont need to share LEARNING lessons today, just our condolences.


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## Cottage Cheese (Nov 19, 2009)

BTW, get 2 bottle babies!!!


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## DuckLady (Nov 19, 2009)

How nasty and mean most of you are to someone who just suffered a loss.

When you lose a goat or a dog or something you cared for, please do post here so we can return the favor.

Shame on you.

Condolences to the OP.


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