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One thing I learned when I built our stand was to make it bigger than you think you will need. Unfortunately I didn't go big enough and forgot to factor in the Nigerians. Now that we have weaned and are milking the Nigerians, I have to try to run the gate to keep them from all stampeding through...

Bolder Boulder is always a blast. I've ran it 4 or 5 times, and its always great. I am always amazed at the level of organization they have to get 50,000 runners from start to finish, smoothly. I had some friends that did a Spartan race the weekend before and they had a blast. Not sure if it was...

Greetings from western Nebraska. We are a couple hundred miles away but were just nearby for the Bolder Boulder. Tons of great information on this site. Looks like you have a barnfull!

I went back and re-read all the posts. I think the goat math formula is off. Nigerians should only count as 1/3 and minis as 1/2. I milked our 3 Nigerians this morning and tonight and got a quart each time, same as our togg. To me the 1/3 makes sense and that helps me justify the numbers we...

Well last nights milking was a 2.5 hour effort that ended in frustration. Mostly the goats. Today went much better. I still can't figure out how to hand milk a ff Nigerian without using tweezers. I'm pretty sure they liked me using the Henry milker as much as I did.

I think it's safe to say that I remain a goat addict. We did sell 2 adults (one of the toggs and our boer buck) but we are retaining all the kids (9) except for 2 bucklings. We are also looking for a different boer buck for this years breeding. I'm now milking our one togg and 3 Nigerians that...

Today was the day we weaned all but one of our kids (she was born late and only 4 weeks old now). I think it was more traumatic for me than the kids or dams. We didn't bottle feed any kids so now the real fun begins - milking a ff who doesn't like to be handled. Fortunately she likes grain more...

Thank you. We've been playing around with different cultures, and found one we liked. I can't remember which one it is but Sheri knows. We also did the plain yogurt for a culture and that was what was tangy. I've added some granola in ours and it seems to help the taste. We also got a culture...

We pick it up about 70 miles from where we live. We can load 3 big round bales on the trailer at a time, so roughly 2.25 tons. The last load we got was the last the guy had for sale. I am sweating the fact that I might have to head west and pay Colorado prices for alfalfa since I'm struggling to...

@Latestarter said it best. We feed different types depending on the goat. Our dairy and nursing does get pure alfalfa (either 3rd or 4th cutting) because they are producing milk for us or their kids and need the extra protein. Our bucks and wethers get alfalfa and grass, mostly grass hay. We...

Believe me - they are not the only 2 we have. I am not sure if I can eat more ice cream and still fit into any of my clothes. My wife made about 5 quarts of cajeta and between the ice cream and it, I'm going to have to start buying my clothes in the tent and awning store. We are also still...

I thought about that but wasn't sure if that would affect her production next year as well. Also, when we had a blizzard I went about 20 hours one day between milkings. She was streaming milk out from the pen all the way to the stand.

I am looking for some advice. We have come to the conclusion that we won't be able to use anywhere near the milk we would get while my wife is recovering from knee surgery. We are getting around 12 gallons a week from 2 does. We have discussed drying one up or selling one. My question is if we...

We "sell" them to friends and family. I say sell lightly because we really aren't pricing them near market price. I think she charges $1.50 a dozen. We do use a lot of them but there's always extras. I think we get around 15 eggs a day. The duck eggs get scrambled on Sunday's for the dogs. They...

That's an interesting cross and she's cute too. We are thinking about crossing one of our toggs with our Nigerian dwarf buck this fall.

We had been doing good with using it until this last weekend, which was clearly way more important than a few gallons of milk. So far we've frozen about 4 gallons in ice cube trays for future soap batches, and we've frozen several quart bags. Not really sure what we are going to do with those...

@OneFineAcre Believe me I would love to have 40 goats. We're getting there, but still a few short. It's always good to have a goal. If I had 40 goats in milk the only thing I know for certain is I would no longer be married. These pictures are of our refrigerators tonight with the milk we have...

I'm watching this thread as well. We just got the mini strainer a couple of weeks ago from Caprine Supply, but had seriously considered the one from Hamby. Since we store our milk in quart jars, we thought having a large capacity strainer would lead to lots of overflows. We love the pint...

Here is a picture of the 6 Nigerian babies enjoying the sun. Thanks for the welcome too.

I've learned this spring about cooling the milk. Our goats milk was getting progressively more "goaty" and all I could contribute it to was the warmer weather. So after reading as many threads here as I could I changed my system. I now have a cooler (little blue 6-pack size cooler) that I put...