New goats - what should I get?

[elevan]

any and all breeds of goats tall or short, will tear up your orchard! i know this from exp..

ours can no longer go in that area at all

Fruit trees and goats do NOT mix...yep, I know from experience too Even the elderberries are no more...

 

[Hamsteries]

I had Nubians for most of my life... but recently switched to pygmies. I love both breeds and each brought new experiences to my life. Right now, I am more into fostering goats from criminal cases that I am working (I work as a Humane Investigator), but my "permanent goat" (and by that I mean one that I actually own) is a pygmy... but I have been looking into getting some more Nubians.

It really depends on what you are looking for... I look for more companionship from my goats, which is why I tend to stick to the Nubians and Pygmy breeds.

 

[carolinagirl]

Great suggestions. The qualities I am looking for are: good milk production, nice around kids, and least likely to destroy my fruit trees. I live in Western Washington (which is very mild) and I have 2 acres of beautiful pasture, with a bit of forest. I also have a small orchard that I need to keep them out of (I hope to make small fences around each individual tree). Any breeds that fit this description? I would be willing to pay a bit more for a good breed.

My main purpose would be for milk, breeding would only be a little added bonus to keep the mother in milk. Would you guys still recommend three does in this case? If I buy yearlings, how long will it take until they breed and then make milk? What is an approximate price range for a good milking breed yearling?

Thanks!!

Ryan

If you are wanting a goat for milk and have no place to keep the buck away from the doe, your milk will be tainted with the buck's foul odor. You will need to house him away from the does when they are in milk. The fruit trees.....you are going to need STRONG cages around them. Use sheep and goat stock panel to make cages and stake the cages down with tee-posts. Also in your wooded area....any trees you don't want killed will need cages around them too. they will strip bark of most any trees and that will kill the trees. You can try wrapping the trunks with several layers of bird netting. They will stand on their hind legs and pluck off any branches and leaves they can reach. Goaties LOVE to munch on trees!

 

[rmonge00]

Tainted by the buck's milk eh? Darn it!! So they need to be in separate fenced pens? Will the goats even kill large 50 year old fir trees? For the fruit trees, what about strong gauge welded wire, kept up by t-posts and how far out should it be from the trees?

Maybe I should get a cow instead - they sound less destructive...

Ryan

 

[carolinagirl]

It does not matter how old the tree is. If they like the taste of the bark and eat the bark off around the tree, the tree dies. All of a trees vascular system lies right below the outer bark in the inner bark area which is called the cambium layer. The trunk is there only to support the tree. So it's really easy to kill a mature tree just by destroying the bark around the trunk. It's sometimes done intentionally...it's called girdling a tree. And goats are GOOD at it.

You can cage the trees. How well you have to do it depends on the goats and the abundance of other yummy things to eat. Some goats are much more persistent than others. If you can cage each tree and run a hot wire around each cage, that will help a lot.

I used to make cheese out of my goat milk because I hated the taste of it with the buck around. Bucks are nasty critters. They like to pee on themselves because apparently the girlie goats thinks it makes them smell wonderful. And it does really make the milk taste off. Maybe you can rent a buck when the time comes to breed the does.

Goats are a lot of work in my opinion. But once you get past the learning curve and get them figured out, they are fun.

 

[DKRabbitry]

I wanted a cow... Hubby said no... Now I have 8 goats, all does that will probably be kidding next year, and I will be getting a buck shortly. That'll teach him!

Okay, on topic... I love my Lamanchas. I got them for milk and for meat. I don't expect to get much meat off their kids, but that is fine with me. It is just another good reason to have them around. The one in milk right now has the most delighful tasting milk and is a pleasure to work with. Sweet temperament, sweet milk, what more could you ask for?

I can't help much with your fruit tree dilema. If it were me, I would be inclined just to fence off the whole orchard depending on how big it was. That way they are not just jumping up and eating branches (full sized dairy goats can stand high on their back legs) and I wouldn't have to fence in each individual tree.

Also, a friend of mine keeps bucks in with her does and says the milk tasts fine to her and doesn't have a bucky flavor....

 

[rmonge00]

Wow!! I am not sure that I will be able to get goats now... I have like 40 mature Doug Firs and Cedars that I don't want dead....

 

[20kidsonhill]

Wow!! I am not sure that I will be able to get goats now... I have like 40 mature Doug Firs and Cedars that I don't want dead....

Our goats have killed almost all our cedar trees off in the last 10 years, we have 6 acres, around 20 goats, plenty of pasture, but they will eat the tree as high as they can reach, and then as the lower branches fall off they will eat the bark and kill the trees. We had at least 50 cedars, maybe more and there are maybe 1/3 left and every year more of them die. We figure in another 5 years only the large hard woods will be left, and even some of those they have ate the bark off and killed. It is our one complaint about the goats. We really enjoyed the cedar trees and a woody feel to the pasture.

We wanted the goats to do some clearing, but really didn't expect or want them to kill all the trees off.

A dairy cow wouldn't do this to your pasture.

 

[rmonge00]

Just read something about miniature milking cow breeds. Does anyone know anything about these? Where to buy? What breeds are best? If they are less destructive than goats?

Ryan