Goats

Goats are Fun and Useful

Before I moved to the country I lived in many cities, in fact many cities around the world, but never in all of that time did I have much contact with goats. Sure I had seen some at the petting zoo. They were kind of scary. They had horns and would eat everything in the pen. What I didn't know then was that goats don't have top teeth so it doesn't really hurt if they kind of nibble at you. Just don't let your fingers get near the back teeth though,

they are sharp and they hurt. Goats seem to me more like big dogs, but not so threatening. They each have their own personality.

For milk you need baby goats. This was our first year with having babies. We had a male goat named Joe in November of 2009. Joe died on Christmas that year, I am still not too sure why, but I think it had to do with the corn I was feeding my chickens. Goats and corn are like childen and candy. Also you should not feed grain to male goats as it will make them sick.

We started with just two dams:

Marsha - the good saneen goat

 

and Fadra - the almost as good goat. Fadra is a nubian

Our nubian goat seems to have quads when she gives birth. And one seems to die each year.

 

these are the babies from 2010

They are a cross of nubian, saneen and boer.

Goat Milk is Good

This is a fun video that will show you how to milk a goat:

 

We don't use a milking stand. Our dams will stand for us.. We are a little unconventional in some areas, but are squeeky clean in our processing of our milk. We use a stainless steel bucket with no rivits. First the udder area is cleaned then we milk. Once we are done milking the milk is poured into sterilized mason jars and quickly frozen.

In the summer of 2009 we finished our green barn

 This is the frame that we started with. We thought that we were going to use the tires as the base but ended up not going that route. Some neighbors were tearing down their old shed so we scavanged tin for roofing and another neighbor wanted to tear down a portion of their fence so we were able to use that for the walls. This is the barn finished:



It is open on one end for storage and opens toward the fenced area for goat access.
The goats are very happy with it.