Preparing For Your New Goat
This page is full of basic goat care information, helpful links, and how we choose to manage our own herd. When it comes to managing a herd, everyone does it a bit differently. What works for us, may not work for someone else. We feel that it's important for us to tell new buyers what has worked for our herd so they can get a general idea of what they should be doing for theirs as well as making changes to fit their needs. As goat owners, it's our responsibility to gather information, sort through it, and decide if that is something we want/should practice in our own herd.
Helpful Links
Below are links that have very helpful, in-depth information. We highly recommend for you to read them as we found them to be really helpful when just starting out with goats.
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https://thegivinggoat.home.blog/
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Our Herd Management
Remember, the information below is just what works for our herd and may not work for yours.
Feeding Practices
Does: Our girls receive a high quality, second cutting orchard/alfalfa mixed hay free choice. When they are towards the end of pregnancy or lactating, they will receive additional alfalfa to meet all the calcium requirements needed to produce strong, healthy kids and lots of milk. When needed, we will feed the appropriate amount of a complete, balanced grain to make up for what they are lacking.
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Bucks: Our boys are fed free choice, high quality grass/alfalfa mixed hay. When in rut or needing to gain weight, they will also receive a complete, balanced, grain. The amount will depend on their individual needs.
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Kids: Our kids are co-raised (dam & bottle fed). We've found this method works best for us and results in friendly, hardy kids. During the first few days after birth, kids will be offered bottles a couple times a day to get familiar with it. Then, once the kids are around 7-10 days old, we will separate them from their dams at night so we can milk her in the morning and bottle feed it back to the kids before they get to be together again for the whole day. Around that same time of separating at night, we will also start offering the kids free choice grain at night.
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The grain we use is Kent Home Fresh 16 Grow & Finish Pelleted Goat Feed. We have been very happy with the results we get from feeding it.
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We always make sure that our goats have access to clean, fresh water.
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For health reasons, we feel that goats should not be fed on the ground whether it's hay or grain. Our goats are fed hay from hay racks/feeders and grain from bowls.
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As a treat, we give our herd "goat safe" kitchen scraps from time to time. This includes citrus peels, banana peels, apple/pear cores, carrot tops/skins, cucumber ends/skins, and much more!
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A note about feeding male goats: Bucks and wethers are at risk of developing urinary calculi (kidney stones) which are fatal if not caught soon enough and receiving proper vet care. The key to preventing UC, is by making sure their whole diet (water, hay, grain, minerals, etc.) is properly calcium to phosphorous balanced (2:1 or 2.5:1). Make sure to do your research if you plan on adding wethers or bucks to your herd. *Wethers are more susceptible to developing UC than bucks.*
Housing
Our goats have 24/7 access to a shelter that protects them from the wind, rain, sun, and snow. Their hay, grain, and mineral feeders are located inside the shelters along with buckets of water.
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Our does and bucks are housed separately and don't share a fence line to prevent unwanted breedings.
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We use 4' welded wire for our does and 4' woven wire for our bucks. We also have wooden spools and half buried tires in our goats' pens for enrichment. Goats thoroughly enjoy having things to jump on.
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All of our pens and shelters have plenty space for the amount of goats housed in them. Nigerian Dwarfs require a minimum of 250 sq. ft. of pen space per goat and 10-15 sq. ft. of shelter space per goat.
Minerals
A free choice, loose mineral is a necessity to a goat's diet. We have great results with using this mineral: Purina Wind and Rain Storm All Season 7.5 Complete Beef Cattle Mineral. We also supplement our herd with a selenium & vitamin e gel every four months or as needed.
Deworming
We only deworm our goats when needed. One of the ways we determine if a goat needs dewormed is by their FAMACHA score. We have used both herbal and chemical dewormers and had good results with both. Which one we use will depend on the individual situation.
Hoof Trimming
We make sure to check all of our goats' hooves at least once a month and trim them when needed.
CD/T
All of our goats are up-to-date on their yearly CD/T vaccinations. Does will receive theirs when they are a month out from kidding to pass immunity onto their kids until they are old enough to receive their own CD/T shots. We vaccinate our kids when they are 5+ months of age.
Biosecurity
All of our goats that are at least 7-8 months of age are tested annually for CAE, CL, and Johne's. Click here to see our latest test results.