Questions about milk & cream

[oaksandiron]

So the question is, how often do you all encounter problems with your goats and how many goats are you keeping? I imagine the amount of medical situations increases with the amount of goats. And by "problems" I don't mean minor things like wounds, I mean things that require attention of a vet or a perscription, for example.

I think the answer probably is going to be, as in all things, "it depends." I am going to tell you a relatively brief story to illustrate:

I am new to keeping goats and sheep. DH and I are working hard to get everyone set up for winter, and doing it in the midst of breeding season. Last night our neighbors started randomly shooting off fireworks (for which you have to have a permit in this town) and my 13 sheep ran the fence and stampeded the yard. In the dark. At a new home. I was pretty hot about it, and called another neighbor to find out of there were rules or laws about it, and we ended up having a chat about being beginner homesteaders.

See, she came down a couple weeks ago to help us euth a goat, and it was hard on me. She has been homesteading for 10 years. She asked how I was doing, and I told her how we lost another goat when our doeling put her head through the electric netting, got tangled, and suffocated herself. (It was awful finding her.) I was really down on my self, and she said:

"My first year we buried six."

That gave me pause for all the right reasons.

She is a seasoned homesteader now, but she wasn't at one point. And crap happens even to seasoned people. I have a friend in TX who is a genuine goat maven, and she let her guard down ONCE a couple years ago and lost a good portion of the whole season's kids. We all make mistakes. When we are novices we make more.

We have to be able to accept that bad things will happen, and sometimes we have to make really hard choices; there is no escaping that.

I think the way we survive this and keep persevering is we make up our mind every day to do the very best we can do, and at the end of the day, come what may, we remind ourselves that have done the best we can do.

 

[Mini Horses]

That's right...accept that you do what you can, right as you can & still crap happens. If you own livestock, you will face challenges and their death. I've been doing this for way many years and had a doeling hung in a fence recently, now gone. How many times have you climbed a ladder and one day, you fall? Same thing. You deal. You cry, cuss, stomp.

As to vet bills -- there's another decision. A goat injured to degree you need "big" bill ? If it isn't a pedigree that you can't live without, you chose to let it cross the rainbow bridge. We can love them, care for them, then make cull decisions that are hard but right. We're all sad to lose them but, we will lose some. There are breeders who won't keep their breeders beyond a certain age, selling to cut loses.

 

[Ridgetop]

(BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT OUR RIDGETOP FAMILY DO NOT DO THINGS HALFWAY. DO NOT LET IT FRIGHTEN YOU OFF. Our 4 children had extensive breeding projects in rabbits, dairy goats, sheep, Boer meat goats, Roller pigeons, bantam chickens. They raised hogs, lambs, veal calves, meat goats, turkeys, etc. for the Fair Junior Auction, and our youngest son raised 2 replacement heifers. They were enthusiastic, and DH and I had the best time of our lives doing all this with them. This was a real family involvement although they did all the work.) All our best memories and most hysterical times were involved in this.

Back to your questions and worries:
When we moved to our current home, (6 acres in the so. Cal. foothills) we had been raising chickens for eggs, had a tremendous garden, lots of fruit trees and had a pretty good back yard rabbitry. I had raised and trained dogs, canned most of our fruits and vegetables, could administer meds and give vaccinations. We had 1/3 acre in town, but our children wanted horses so we decided to move out further. Moving to our larger property in a livestock friendly area gave us the opportunity for milk goats so we could be "self sufficient". FYI: You never can be "self-sufficient" since you still have to buy a lot of your stuff. LOL I read everything I could find on raising and milking goats. Since you have to breed goats and they have to kid so you can milk them, I also read everything on that. I got many books from the library and also bought all the publications I could find. Some of the illustrations about pulling kids were scary but when push came to shove, I just visualized the pix and had no problem.

Our kids were in 4-H so I figured it was time we bought our first goat. She would double as a milker for the family and a show goat for DS1. I felt pretty capable when I went to look at our first purchase. she was a lovely Toggenburg dry yearling. Several days after bringing Margot home, I got a call from the 4-H leader warning me NOT to buy a Toggenburg! Apparently their milk was disgusting to drink although it made excellent sharp cheese.

So, first mistake accomplished, I now went looking for a Nubian which I was assured gave delicious milk. 3 hours south I found a breeder who was selling twin 2-year-old Nubian does in their first lactation. She wanted to keep them until they had produced the amount of milk to qualify for their personal Milk Stars. The Milk Star program is used in dairy work to establish registered/recorded animals whose offspring are heavy yielders and produce prodigious amounts of milk with certain amounts of butterfat. With my 3 and 4 year old boys, I drove down to meet her and the goats. We drank the milk - delicious - saw her paperwork including the CAE testing, and determined that I would buy both does. She expected them to qualify for their stars in another month and at that time I could return to pick them up. In August/September I would bring them back and she would breed them for me. We signed a contract for a small deposit.

Let me say here that I was extremely lucky. I had found 2 reputable breeders - the Toggenburg breeder and the Nubian breeder were both honest, knowledgeable, and wiling to mentor us. We became friends. I brought our does back to the Nubian breeder for many years to be bred.

Back to Another person in the neighborhood put me in touch with an old time goat breeder in the area. I bought a wether to raise for meat. This couple became great resources too. He did all my disbudding and his wife did the castrating (surgical). Later I bought his disbudding equipment. We castrated with a bander.

We were very careful with our miking procedures, washing udders with an Iodine base wash, and dipping teats afterwards. We had plenty of milk since our girls gave about 6 quarts each by volume each day. I kept them on a 10 month lactation and we bred them 1 month apart so we had milk year around. The first 2 years we bred them in August when we went on vacation and used Margot's milk, heavily flavored with chocolate milk powder. Still ! After 2 years we sold the Toggenburgs to a girl in FFA. In spite of winning at the shows, their milk WAS terrible and DS1, whose goats they were, decided to leave milking behind and breed sheep. Margot and her family did very well in shows for the FFA girl, they were extremely heavy yielders, and the school raised calves on the milk.

Over 25 years we had few problems with anything. We did not keep pet wethers. We kept our bucks separate and brought them up on a collar and lead to breed the does. This gave us an exact date for kidding to avoid any problems like retained kids. Our dairy does were trained to come to the stanchion to be milked, we vaccinated with CDT every year, gave selenium before breeding (it can cause problems to pregnant animals), weighed the milk yield every day and kept records of how much output each doe gave in lbs. We drank the milk raw but pasteurized the kids. When our youngest kids went to college and sold out, I had 3 pasteurizers going all morning in 2 shifts when we were feeding kids. Once the milk was pasteurized I put blue food color in it to tell it from the raw house milk. At that point we had 2 additional fridges for food and milk storage. At first, we just pasteurized our kids, later we started drawing blood and sending it in to Washington State lab for CAE testing.

The fact that we had no livestock vet after the first 3 years meant we were on our own. Back then you could buy a lot of antibiotics and necessary meds over the counter though. We learned to sew up skin tears, prolapses, etc. One child would stand with the book in his hand while I followed instructions. Eventually they did the sewing up themselves.

Importantly, we disposed of any animal that looked like being a problem. Problem kidders were given a second chance if they milked well and had decent attachment. Poor udders went to auction. Milking a goat with bad attachments is hard work and exhausting. If a goat got a lump we sent her to auction in case of CL, if her udder did not come in properly, she went to auction, if she got mastitis we treated her but if she got it again, she went to auction. If test results came u positive, it went to auction. Weak kids went to auction. All male kids went to auction for meat at weaning time (when we needed their share of milk for the doe kids we wanted to keep).

We have occasionally lost animals. We lost an entire season of bottle calves one year to e. Coli. (DS3 spent the whole summer making ice cream and I canned all the skin milk.) DS1 lost a prime gray ewe lamb he had bred when she hung herself in the feeder and strangled. We lost a couple good rams at different times which meant no lamb crop until we could replace them. Now we keep several rams as back up. We have lost lambs, does and offspring from lambing or kidding - some I have put down myself. We have lost animals to sickness. The point I am making here is that when you are raising livestock, you don't have time or money to expend love and sympathy on poor animals. Save that love for the good ones and dispose of the sickly ones. You now the old saying "It costs as much to raise a healthy specimen as it does a poor one." In fact, it usually takes less to raise a good specimen since a poor keeper will cost more in feed, and a sickly one will suck money out i meds and vet fees.
The trick to all this is to keep them as healthy as possible without cossetting them, cry if you can't save them, then move on.

And we are always here for you - to help with problems and to cry with you when needed.

 

[SageHill]

Do your homework and take the plunge. Follow your instinct - it's there for a reason, but don't over think or you'll never get anywhere.
Vet bills - you'll find your comfort level -- you can spend thousands, or a lot lot less. You need to decide what you can do, will do, won't do, will try, won't try, etc. In the end keep in mind the $$, it may be that an animal needs to go to market/auction or freezer. We do the best we can, give them a good and caring home while they are with us.

 

[dairydreams]

thank you again everyone. Wow these responses are so insightful and thoughtful that I'm actually getting misty-eyed over here!

I have been doing a ton of research (hopefully that's obvious by now) but hadn't thought about what to do with goats/kids that had issues, but not necessarily in need of culling. Thanks for continuing to give me things to consider!

Do auction houses typically take less-than-ideal animals, even those that test positive to things like CL or who have mastitis? Do goats typically sell well at auction?

**irrelevant story time**
I have to laugh at being intimidated by the birthing process because that was one of my first experiences (not sure if I mentioned it already)...I went to a local ND breeder to sample goat milk and just see how her operation worked. She invited me and my kiddos up to check it out. Well while I was there one of her goats unexpectedly went into labor. In her herd of probably 20+ goats (and a couple of cows), this one was the first she raised from a baby and was having her first kid. The lady was a bit frantic as she wasn't expecting the birth to happen that day. She heard the goat yelling (it was in a field shelter), excused herself, then bolted across the pasture, scooped up the goat, and brought her to the barn and put her in a stall. She invited me and the kids to observe. I was excited! My oldest watched for a bit but got uncomfortable and joined his brothers just walking around looking at some free range chickens. Well several minutes in, the goat was pushing but nothing was happening. The owner started to panic and said it was taking too long...so she starts to reach in to assist, and a mouth and hoof appear together. Still, mama was not making progress. The lady tried to pull out what she could but couldn't get a good grip (slick, obviously), and then when she did, she was pulling the baby and the mama across the straw. She says, "Do you think you could help me?" -- of course I would! I jumped into the stall and ended up holding mama while she pulled out the baby.

In the end, baby came out, and it was just one large doe. Mama was having a rough go during labor (I thought a couple times she was going to loss consciousness) but when baby was out, she did much better. She took to the baby immediately, and all turned out fine. I took some photos and the owner was happy to have had me there (no one else was around that day), and also to get some first photos of her first baby goat becoming a first freshener <3

anyway nothing like diving head first into the goat owner experience!
--
There was really no point to that story I realize after writing it, lol!

 

[Mini Horses]

Point was -- you had a great experience to help set you up!! If you hadn't been there, a collar & rope would be a consideration. I'm glad for you, starting tough! Most pop them out without help.

Yes, auctions take those you mention. That's why we REALLY caution buying at many. It's a place where you can get good but ONLY if you know animals and preferably seller farm. Sometimes there are buys but, often/always be prepared for issues. Graded & specific auctions, different story.

 

[dairydreams]

I'm terrified to buy from auction lol
I'm lucky that I have a few local Mini Nubian breeders around here that are very knowledgable, kind, and open to visits and questions, etc. That's who I want to purchase from for my first goats. I already have feelers out for doe/kid pairs this spring

Alas, we still don't have a place to put them though. That's next on the list. We are re-organzing the spaces first.

Which reminds me, another question...
Have any of you used mature trees for fence posts? I've seen someone else do it to run some pastures through the woods but wondering how well that would work, given the growth of trees...but trying to do things economically so I can splurge on the actual fencing (rather than posts).

 

[Ridgetop]

There was really no point to that story I realize after writing it, lol!

On the contrary, good experience!

 

[Baymule]

No on running wire around trees. Trees keep growing, I have trees on my place that i literally took bolt cutters to, cutting off barbed wire, mesh wire and all kinds of wire. One tree has a chain around the base, I left it. Also, trees sometimes die, they fall down, there goes your fence.

On losing livestock, it will happen. I have cried many a tear. I held lambs until they died. I’ve sat on the trailer floor, holding a sheep, stroking them as the euthanasia drugs took effect and they died. I cry, bury them and write it here. My BYH friends are wonderful. I don’t know how I would make it sometimes without all these wonderful people.

I will tell you this, remember it when a bad time hits.
I’ll take the hits, I’ll take the hurt, so I can have the joys. The joys far outweigh the hurts.

 

[farmerjan]

There are "no's" to running a fence on trees... BUT... there are some ways to work with it. Yes, trees continue to grow. Have seen some interesting things "growing out of trees" because someone left something in a fork and then years later the tree had grown around it.
You can use trees for fencing with some precautions. If you want/need to run fencing on trees ALWAYS ALWAYS use a 2x4 or 2x6 nailed to the tree and attach the fencing to that. So a full 4-5 ft 2x4 nailed straight against the tree for the fence to fully rest against. The tree will not "grow around" the 2x4 in the way it will grow around a piece of fence/ or wire. It is not ideal to use trees for fencing... but.... in a pinch, they can be used. Often it is because a big tree is in the fenceline and going around is not practical.
Trees will die, they will come down in bad storms... and they will inevitably take the fence down with them. Even fencing close to trees is in jeopardy of being smashed/mashed/crushed if a tree comes down.

We used trees all the time up north for running fence as it was mostly barbed wire... it was fast to put it up, gave you a good way to get a tight pull. And then in several years the tree had grown around the wire and you had to cut it on both sides. PLUS..... woe to the person that ever wanted to cut the tree down and got the chainsaw into the wire.....dangerous, and it ruins a chain saw blade.

Woven wire, field fence, other names for wire that has 2x4, 4x4, or graduated spacing with 6 inch verticals, is even worse to attach directly to trees... but you could attach it to the 2x4..... However, if you are keeping it close to the ground, you HAVE TO make sure it is on the 2x4 and not touching the ground or the tree as the tree will expand it's root system and it will get embedded in it. Also, as the tree grows, it will change the tension slowly on the fence. Single wires are easier to tighten and adjust than a whole 48 inch tall section.

Your best bet is to use T-posts for the fence with solid wood posts with H braces, or other forms of corners and in the middle of a long stretch of fence for strength and "pulling against".