Nigerian dwarf goats advice needed

[farmgirl68]

I am considering getting two Nigerian Dwarf goats....

I am looking for Pros and Cons of doing this.

Also any advice on fencing, pens, feeding them, caring for them etc.

I have been researching this subject and have read they can climb on house roofs and cars. Also they are great escape artist.

Any advice good/bad would be appreciated.

Thanks

Online

 

[lilhill]

Cool! Nigerians, as with any goat given free access, will climb onto anything they can find and are able to reach. With that said, that's the reason we fence them away from those type things.

Nigerian Dwarves are easy to keep, don't need as much in the way of feed/hay/pasture as full sized goats, and very easy to handle. Some folks actually use large doghouses for shelter. Fencing should be adequate to keep them in and preditors out. We use 2x4" 5' tall welded wire fencing and it works well for us and we've never had an escape.

I can't imagine NOT having my Nigerians. Talk about a great stress reducer! So for me, there are no "cons".

Edited to add: One BIG "con" ... they are extremely addictive!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

you'll either love them... or not. i'm a not and i'm so glad that we rehomed the nigi we had. everyone is much happier.

honestly we were spending more on fencing than what she was worth. as little as she was she could clear a 5 ft fence no problem. and we found her to be really loud and obnoxious compared to the easy going la manchas and the saanan we have.

the good news is that everything you'd like about a goat is wrapped up in a little manageable package - ours was great at clearing the poison ivy - and mostly she was an easy keeper. but man if she didnt want to be contained you couldnt keep her in.

mostly she stayed behind the fence b/c we have big dogs who i trained to chase her back inside. which is a 'pro' i think. but the con side is that if you have a dog you CAN'T stop in a dead run when chasing little goaty goat - mostly likely you'll have a dog vs goat decision to make. and remember that the neighborhood dogs will eventually find them - so electric fencing and locking them up at nite is strongly recommended.

good luck!

 

[farmgirl68]

Thanks for the advice, keep it coming.

 

[goat lady]

We started our herd of Nigerian dwarf in March. Except for one of my females was already breed from another person that was mixed with LaManche. She just kidded a week ago and one looks like the father and the other the mother. We have a 5 month old buck, 3 adult females and no one has ever tried to get out of our pen. We use field fence to keep ours in. We do have a 3 sided house with a bench inside for them to climb on. Then I have a 6 week old and 4 week old females that we got about 3 weeks ago that are bottle feed and they will move over there when they are weaned. I have old barrels, and wheel barrels for mine to climb on and they are happy doing that. Once the husband has time he is going to build a few more benches for them to climb on. We love ours and they do put a smile on our faces when we have a bad day.

 

[ksalvagno]

I got my first 2 Nigerians the end of May. I love them. I am getting 3 more. I will probably get a Nubian too because I also really like Nubians but only want to keep it to one since they are a full size dairy goat and we don't have a lot of room. We have 4 foot woven wire horse fence up. It has the 2x4 inch holes and it is attached to 6 inch wooden posts. So far we have no problems with them trying to jump over it. We have some Step 2 & Little Tikes things for them to jump on. We have them in the middle of the field so they can't use it to jump over the fence. I really don't have any cons at this time. I'm not milking them yet but will when they are ready.