My free mowers! - New goats.

[Miss Red]

Meet Mama and Stinky. Mama is a 2ish year old boer doe, and Stinky is her 8 month old whether. My best friend is getting ready to have a kid of her own, and is giving me her goats.

I have 3 acres of wooded area that the horses are on, most of it is yaupon... horrible little weedy tree. The donkeys kept it back pretty good, but in the year since they've been gone it seems the yaupons have DOUBLED or even TRIPLED. I found some 16'x32" goat paneling that you clip together, and TADA a round pen for goats. I'm going to get two/three of these panels and put the goats into it, taking it down and moving them as needed.

My question is, with all the weeds and yaupons they can eat do I still need to feed the nanny goat? I know you don't feed whethers certain things because they get kidney stones, am I correct? I haven't had goats in a LONG time and even then they were show goats, who had special diets. I know they were kept in teeny pens, six by four pens to be exact, and taken out and walked daily. With two panels my area should be 16' in diameter, and I'm guessing this will be more than enough area for Stinky and Mama. Am I correct? They will have a constant supply of water, my main concern is feeding them. On top of their foraging do I give them hay? I can't remember if it was lambs or goats that can't have hay... and for what reason either.

I also know that lamb food is toxic for goats, and vice versa. I have everything prepared, I just need to get the paneling and make the trip down to get them. They'll be brought back in wire dog crates, one for each of them, I'm planning on taking the bottoms out so they're not on slick plastic mats. How long should it take for them to clear it out? My neighbors up the road have 20 goats and 4 acres, and I want to say it only took those goats about 4 months to clear that out of everything but the LARGE trees. Once Stinky and Mama are done clearing, what then?

 

[DonnaBelle]

Goats have special needs, just like horses and other kinds of animals do.

There is a great website: Goat-link.com and also Fiasco Farms has a website.

A great goat book is Storey's meat goats, they also have one for dairy goats.

You can also use the search feature on this website.

Goats may need to be wormed, you can have a fecal test done by a vet. Goats need either hay or brouse, depending on on how much brouse is available to them. PRegnant and nursing does may need extra grain or feed, depending upon their condition.

Goats really don't care much for "grass" They will eat it if they don't have anything else.

Please do a little research on goats, they thrive when they are properly cared for.

Do you have a way to close them up at night? They do have predators, coyotes, etc.

Good luck with them, they are very intelligent animals, and very loving also. We have Nubians and they are wonderful goaties.

DonnaBelle

 

[Miss Red]

I'm not new to goats, I'm not sure if I made that clear or not. (But I'll still check out Goat-link, you never know enough.) I had two for several years, and raised three and a lamb through FFA in high school. Its just been a few years. I know they get wormed, we used to do ours every two months. I also know that you have to be careful on what a whether eats.

They'll be getting PLENTY of greens, weeds, etc. on top of grain (if necessary). Basically what I need to know is if they'll need grain on top of what they're getting out there.

Also, there's a chance the Nanny is bred. Its three months before kidding right?

 

[cmjust0]

They're made to eat green stuff and thrive on it; that should be their primary food source anyway. After that, hay. If browsing, grazing, and eating hay isn't enough to keep them in good body condition, then you want to start thinking about supplementing with grain or some type of concentrated feed.

You're right about the wether and stones...though it's not exactly kidney stones, but bladder stones that kill them. Urinary calculi. And it's not really even stones either, per se, but more like a sandy precipitation of ammonia, magnesium, and phosphorus.

Grains are extremely high in phosphorus. If the goat builds up a lot of 'extra' phosphates in the blood, they're excreted through the urine. Add in the ammonia, a little bit of magnesium, maybe drop the water consumption a bit or raise the urine pH a little for one reason or another and BAM...those three components precipitate into crystals -- kinda like ice forming in water when it hits 32* -- and you get a bladder full of sandy stuff that clogs their urethra.

The best way to combat it is to keep bucks and wethers off bagged feed as much as possible.. If the animal's condition warrants supplementation, the 2nd best way to combat it is to make sure their blood calcium levels stay elevated.. If the blood calcium is high, the intestines basically don't absorb 'extra' phosphorus and it goes right on out with the poo. Most bagged goat feeds are mixed at least 2:1 Ca -- twice as much calcium as phosphorus -- in an effort to limit the absorption of phosphorus.

Sometimes, though, that's not enough...I've had a buck with UC on properly-mixed bagged feed. It does happen.

If they've got 3 acres of browse between the two of them...I doubt you'll need to do much supplementing anyway. Sounds like goat heaven to me.


Something I didn't see mentioned was shelter. Goats absolutely, positively must have shelter. A goat left out in the weather with no shelter will be a dead goat in no time flat.

 

[cmjust0]

Also, there's a chance the Nanny is bred. Its three months before kidding right?

Gestation is five months.. You'll want to watch her somewhat closely in the last two months of pregnancy...the last 5-6 weeks, especially. If there's not enough out there for her to eat, that's when you'll see her begin to burn through body condition.

Burning body condition can lead to a condition called pregnancy toxemia, so if you notice a burn like that...supplement with grain until her condition levels off. You don't want her to gain fat, necessarily....you just don't want her to continue burning through condition.

You'll also want to vaccinate her with C/D-T about 3 weeks to a month before she's due to kid so she can pass along some immunity to her babies. And if you're in a selenium-deficient area, a shot of Bo-Se (1ml/40lbs of bodyweight) at the same time as the C/D-T will be of benefit to the babies..

Do you have any idea how far along she might be?

 

[Miss Red]

I have no idea when she may have been bred, she spent a few months pastured with the whethers father is all I know. At the least she's about two months along, that's when they were pulled and placed on her property again. The buck is an angora x nubian I think, he's got shaggy hair.

Shelter! Forgot to put up what they'll be getting. For now, I've got a tarp to tie over their fencing for shade, it will cover the entire area they'll be in at a time. I'm working on building a light weight area, out of wood,that will provide shade and something to bounce around on as I know goats LOVE to climb.
They're both fat and sassy as it is, and I believe she wormed them when she pulled them off the pasture.

OH. Is poison ivy or virginia creeper poisonous to them? Those and bryer patches are everywhere. I've pulled everything that's poisonous to my horses, just want to make sure neither of those are to goats. They will be stalled at night in a 8x8 old goat stall on the property.

 

[DonnaBelle]

Goats eat poison ivy and virginia creeper like I would eat chocolate if I could.

They love poison ivy, multiflora rose, thistle, all kinds of vines, tree leaves, etc.

Do be careful about hemlock. We have it here, and I have scoured over their grazing area and pulled it all out. It has large white flower heads, and fern like leaves.

DonnaBelle

 

[cmjust0]

Goats and poison ivy are like peas and carrots... They love it, and it doesn't affect them at all.

HOWEVER.. ..you can get poison ivy from your goats after they eat poison ivy, so keep that in mind. My wife did that last year...not fun.

If you happen to have poison hemlock as DonnaBelle mentioned, you might consider trying to get it out of there. A friend of mine, though, has STANDS of the stuff all over the place and the goats won't touch it with a 10' pole. Doesn't taste right to them, apparently, which is good.

Probably a good idea to find a poisonous plant list out there somewhere to confuse yourself with. Lots of lists put plants in both columns (safe/poison) and one list might ID something as harmless where another IDs it as poison.

I dunno.. :/

Do the due diligence, though...the rest of us have. That means you have to, too. It's part of being a goat owner.

 

[Mea]

Just one teensey tiny point.... lamb feed is not Toxic to goats. It simply does not have the copper that goats need.

Goat feed IS toxic to sheep.... It has way too much copper for sheep.


OK....back in my cave now.

 

[Miss Red]

I'm getting a poisonous plant list from the feed store sometime this week, they have them on the wall I've glanced over them but never grabbed one. Are goats on a yearly shot regimin like horses? Or am I going to have to worry before then? I can't remember for the life of me their rotation, and I'm about to do a search for a chart rotation for my area.

I have some powdered minerals that we place out for the horses, I don't have the bag anymore to look and see if its for goats too but I know they'll probably need some. I'm going to go ahead and look through some stuff to soak up what I've forgotton, itd help if I could find my old goat keeing book.

The trees that are above their heads, will they push them down for the leaves or should I go through and cut those down for them when the time comes?