give me a list please

[lorihadams]

Okay, I am getting 4 nigis in May, or thereabouts, 3 2month olds and 1 older doe. We are just starting out and I want to know what I should have on hand. The basics....meds, feed mix, minerals, supplies. Also, what should we plant in the pasture for them? I'm planting some beets, sunflowers, and chard in the garden. We are trying to determine what kind of seed to plant in the pasture...we have straight pasture, no browse.

 

[chandasue]

I'm just starting out as well with Nigerians and I'm just adding things as I need them. This is a great place to start and the first place I go for questions: http://fiascofarm.com/ I also find the Storey Guide to Raising Dairy Goats a good reference that I keep going back to. If you do a google search for "Personal Milkers: A Primer to Nigerian Dwarf Goats" you should find an e-book that's available for download that I also found to be really useful.

 

[countrywife]

You really need to do some research before you plant things. There are plants and grasses that are poisonioius to goats. Some only poisinous at different times of the growing year. Do be careful before you do a bunch of planting. Google plants poisinous to goats.

Right of the top of my head I would have:

1st aid kit, including stop powder and antibiotic spray
wormer, just in case
hoof clippers
fresh hay
goat block
good, sturdy fence, and plug it in. If they are not coming from a hotwire pen, you might need a smaller inner pen for training.

 

[freemotion]

What is growing in your pasture now? It may be just fine as it is!

 

[cmjust0]

I'm not saying "DO THIS" but something I've been reading about for whitetail deer management is strip disking.. People's first inclination when they decide to start managing property for whitetail deer is to plant a monocrop food plot of some kind of wheat or clover or something to that effect, when that's not necessarily a good thing. Most crops like that are at their best at a certain point, and after that....well, they're just kinda taking up space. Like post-bloom alfalfa, for instance.

Strip disking, on the other hand, is where you pretty much just take a set of disks (aka cutting harrows) and let them scratch up strips of earth.. What happens then is that native plants -- weeds, really -- take advantage of the opened earth and begin to sprout..

Goats -- just like whitetail -- love weeds, and weeds love them back.. Keeps their noses off the ground by providing browse, which is a goat's first preference for food anyway.

Now, depending on what you disk and how much you turn, what apparently tends to happen after disking is that you get some opportunistic 'annual' type weeds first, then perennial weeds start taking over, then you get brush and tree seedlings, and eventually -- if you let it -- it turns into a wooded patch. This is of the course of several years, obviously..

But the point is that, through diversity of the forage that makes itself available, you're able to avoid the issues that go along with monocrop plots where they hit a defined nutrional value peak and then degrade.. Instead, you get all kinds of different things at different nutritional levels throughout the year, and then year after year beyond that.

But, again...I'm not saying DO THIS because it's something I need to look into more even for myself.. One thing that concerns me are harmful weeds like Jimson, Nightshade, and so forth that grown naturally.. How do you deal with those, for instance.. And that's just one of the things I need to look into..

But.. ..I wouldn't at all mind if other people looked into it with me and offered up their opinions. Indeed, that may have been why I posted this..

ETA: Strip disking would also be WAAAAAAAAAY cheaper and easier than intentional seeding and quite an 'organic' way to enhance one's goat pasture...provided it works like I think it might.

 

[nrthrnlightz]

I'm passing that one on to my partner, heck of an idea if you ask me!

 

[lorihadams]

Well, funny you should say that....we were just going to go over the field and disk it and then toss in some seed mix. We weren't looking to till it up or anything...probably should have clarified that. We may go with some kind of mix like what FiascoFarm has on their website. We want to gradually add some stuff...our uncle grazes his cows there now (he only has like 4 or 5) and he says " the hay from this field is crap" We just wanted to make sure we had some good stuff in there since we are getting dairy goats.

 

[goodgirlmolly]

I'm not saying "DO THIS" but something I've been reading about for whitetail deer management is strip disking.. People's first inclination when they decide to start managing property for whitetail deer is to plant a monocrop food plot of some kind of wheat or clover or something to that effect, when that's not necessarily a good thing. Most crops like that are at their best at a certain point, and after that....well, they're just kinda taking up space. Like post-bloom alfalfa, for instance.

Strip disking, on the other hand, is where you pretty much just take a set of disks (aka cutting harrows) and let them scratch up strips of earth.. What happens then is that native plants -- weeds, really -- take advantage of the opened earth and begin to sprout..

Goats -- just like whitetail -- love weeds, and weeds love them back.. Keeps their noses off the ground by providing browse, which is a goat's first preference for food anyway.

Now, depending on what you disk and how much you turn, what apparently tends to happen after disking is that you get some opportunistic 'annual' type weeds first, then perennial weeds start taking over, then you get brush and tree seedlings, and eventually -- if you let it -- it turns into a wooded patch. This is of the course of several years, obviously..

But the point is that, through diversity of the forage that makes itself available, you're able to avoid the issues that go along with monocrop plots where they hit a defined nutrional value peak and then degrade.. Instead, you get all kinds of different things at different nutritional levels throughout the year, and then year after year beyond that.

But, again...I'm not saying DO THIS because it's something I need to look into more even for myself.. One thing that concerns me are harmful weeds like Jimson, Nightshade, and so forth that grown naturally.. How do you deal with those, for instance.. And that's just one of the things I need to look into..

But.. ..I wouldn't at all mind if other people looked into it with me and offered up their opinions. Indeed, that may have been why I posted this..

ETA: Strip disking would also be WAAAAAAAAAY cheaper and easier than intentional seeding and quite an 'organic' way to enhance one's goat pasture...provided it works like I think it might.

I've never heard of this. Sounds like an amazing practice!
I'm going to start researching asap.