Baby Goats Anyone?

[The15thMember]

My sister's goats kidded for the first time this spring.  Here are some pictures of our first ever babies! 

[Jen]

Nothing Cuter Than A Baby Goat 

[neillsayers]

Nothing Cuter Than A Baby Goat 

X2 

[Bakersdozen]

Recently in the local news, a nearby city has hired someone with goats to clear invasive plants from a stream.  https://fox4kc.com/news/lenexa-enlists-goats-to-clear-weeds-brush-from-sar-ko-par-trails-park/  I think that's what I need here!  I might be pressing my luck with bees and goats.

[The15thMember]

They are great for brush clearing!  Here are pictures of our pasture before and after we got goats. 

[Bakersdozen]

Yes!  I need some goats.

[The15thMember]

Both does were rebred recently.  Maybe we can set you up with a couple. 

[The15thMember]

Here's this year's first batch of baby goats!  Our black doe Bella had four kids last evening, 3 boys and 1 girl!  My sister went out to check on her around suppertime last night, and she was showing signs of pre-labor, so my sister came back into the house to get her kidding supplies, which only took a couple of minutes, and by the time she got back, two kids were already out!  Two more followed within a half hour.

[neillsayers]

Nice looking babies!

[The15thMember]

Nice looking babies!

Thanks!  Two of them just went to their forever home on Monday.  Their new owners named them Priscilla and Gideon. 



The other two boys, Zeb and Joseph, will stay and get big and then go to freezer camp in the fall. 

Our other doe, Prim, had 3 girls, who are waiting to go to their new home in Ohio. 



The doelings' future owners told us an amazing story when they came to see the babies about a month ago.  Their 14 year old daughter had a doe named Daisy who was her favorite.  Daisy was a show winner and had a great personality, and they sent Daisy to another farm to be bred to a particular buck.  The people at this farm didn't transition her onto their food slowly enough, and she died while she was there.  Apparently, the doeling in the last picture, who we call Mikaela, looks exactly like Daisy, so they bought her and the black doeling, Carol, for their daughter, and the brown doeling, Luthien, was purchased by the daughter's grandmother.  They'll be picking them up some time around Memorial Day.         

[iddee]

When sending males to freezer camp, keep in mind.

Eunuchs taste great. Studs taste like hades gone bad.

[Zweefer]

Our neighbor raises pygmy goats. Agreed, they are super cute when new.

[The15thMember]

When sending males to freezer camp, keep in mind.

Eunuchs taste great. Studs taste like hades gone bad.

They have already been banded. 

[The15thMember]

Here are our new babies!  We had Prim go first this year.  She had 1 boy and 2 girls.  The doelings are black and the buckling is the brown one.  My sister is going to be keeping the doe with white side patches.  She named her Halo, since she was born on 1/17 (video game people will get the joke).  The other doeling will be for sale, and the buckling will be wethered for the freezer. 

[The15thMember]

We have Halo and the buckling, who we are calling Issachar, in the house this afternoon.  My sister wants to supplementally bottle feed them, since Prim is shy and tends to teach her kids to be afraid of us, and feeding can really help to tame a kid.  They are too little to really know anything yet, so they are just chilling in the play pen.  We left the other doeling, who we named Nicola, with Prim so she wouldn't be upset that all her babies are gone.  She can't count very well, so if one is in the warming barrel, she just thinks they are all in there. 

[Bakersdozen]

There is a woman in the area that has started a business renting out goats for cleaning up property.  About 2 years ago a local municipality used her and her goats to clean up property that was impossible to do using equipment or manpower.  A beekeeping couple that live close by contacted her for an estimate.  They have rural property and I don't know how many acres they needed cleaned up.  The cost for renting goats was so high that my friends decided to go with a controlled burn for a lot less.  In the goat owner's defense, she would set up fencing and come out daily to give the goats water and check on them.  Another negative was the presence of certain weeds that the goats won't eat.

[The15thMember]

Here's our next round of goat babies!  Bella had a girl and two boys last night.  It was a rough birth, since the first two kids were positioned strangely, and my sister had to help, but everyone is doing great.  We have a waiting list of people looking for kids, so the spotted girl is already sold to a lady who purchased a doe and a wether from us last year.  She has an Elvis theme with all her goats, so she named the baby Ann-Margaret after one of Elvis's mistresses.  My sister named the spotted boy Mr. Moon after the Asheville Tourists mascot and because colored spots in goats are called "moonspots", and he couldn't possibly have any more!  We have someone looking for a buck, so he will probably go to them.  She named the black baby Blu, mostly just because she felt it fit him, but she took the spelling from the movie Rio.

[neillsayers]

We've got 5 kids this year. 3 bucks and twin does. We raise our does on the bottle. Find it makes them much easier to handle when training for milking, etc....
We have one buck we are hand raising and he will get neutered soon. Sweetie has it in mind to train him as a pack goat when we go hiking and foraging. 
 Other two bucks get sold right before Easter for meat market. Helps defray feed costs.

[The15thMember]

We've got 5 kids this year. 3 bucks and twin does. We raise our does on the bottle. Find it makes them much easier to handle when training for milking, etc....
We have one buck we are hand raising and he will get neutered soon. Sweetie has it in mind to train him as a pack goat when we go hiking and foraging. 
 Other two bucks get sold right before Easter for meat market. Helps defray feed costs.

Nice!  Some of the people on my sister's goat forum, The Goat Spot, have pack wethers, and they love them.  My sister did the bottle feeding thing for a little while with Prim's babies, but she found it easier to just give them treats every time she goes in the pasture, which is working very well.  Bella's babies never need taming, as Bella is extremely outgoing and friendly, and she never teaches her babies to be afraid of us.  We always have to teach them manners instead of taming them!  What breed of goats do you have, @neillsayers ?

[neillsayers]

!5th,
 We have a purebred Nubian buck and 5 does of different lineage. Three of my milkers are out of an old Sanaan doe who passed of old age at 14yo a year ago. The sire of all of my does is a Purebred Nubian buck who passed a few years ago. I have one pure Nubian left that is such a pet that we refuse to give her up even though she hasn't kidded in 2 seasons. She is 14 or 15.