goat 20 questions

[sunnylady303]

We are getting goats. Wahoo!! I have several questions and would be grateful to anyone who could answer any of them.

1. What do you wish you had known before you got goats?
2. What do you make with your milk?
3. What do you feed your goats?
4. Does breed (as long as they are dairy) really make a difference?
5. What do you do with the babies if you don't want to grow your herd?
6. Does anyone eat their goat meat? How is that?

Thanks!!

[1jooj]

1. What do you wish you had known before you got goats?
I wish I had known I would grow to love their milk. I'd have started this sooner. Everything else thus far has been stuff you learn by doing as you would with any livestock. It is good to know that goats hate getting wet (IME), and prefer to stay inside much more than, for example, sheep. They are less cold hardy (IME). I am still wondering whether I should have dehorned. Those horns are a whole other subject.

2. What do you make with your milk?
I have made yogurt and fresh cheese. I have a friend who has also made mozzarella and ricotta.

3. What do you feed your goats?
My goats are on grass pasture. They also get oats and hay and will browse maples, poplars and willows, as well as weeds in the yard. They'll take leftovers, too if they can get to them--salad, vegetable bits, bread.

4. Does breed (as long as they are dairy) really make a difference?
I had a Toggenburg who was much muskier smelling than the two Nubians I now milk. She was also wilder in temperament. My two Nubians are incredibly calm. The Nubian-Alpine cross kid is sweet but naughty, and the Nubian-Boer cross kids are generally calm, heavy-bodied and friendly.

5. What do you do with the babies if you don't want to grow your herd?
We can easily sell a young buck or wether to someone who would slaughter for meat. If we had a doeling and didn't want to keep her, we would likely list on CL and she would have a buyer within a week. Dairy doelings seem to be in demand in our area.

6. Does anyone eat their goat meat? How is that?
Have not yet slaughtered our own, but I have eaten a good deal of goat meat. I prefer Boer meat, and the younger the better. Just last weekend, I roasted a goat leg low and slow, and didn't tell my father it was goat. He assumed it was lamb. It was sweet, mild and delicious. It was a Boer.

[riaketty]

Originally Posted by sunnylady303

we are getting goats. Wahoo!! I have several questions and would be grateful to anyone who could answer any of them.

1. What do you wish you had known before you got goats?


that cud breath smells! Lol!
But no, seriously. I wish i had known that kidding season is insane. We had suspicions that one of our does would have problems, so we set up a surveillance cam. I was checking it every 2 hours at night, and sure enough, she had problems.

2. What do you make with your milk?
everything. Baby girl has allergies to cows milk but does fine with goat, so we do cream cheese, hard cheese, butter, ice cream.

3. What do you feed your goats?
they are on pasture through summer. Winter they get hay and a few handfuls of grain. Milking does get a handful of grain when they're on the stand in the morning. We also offer minerals free choice, black sunflower seeds as treats, and diamond yeast to help milk production and rumen health.

4. Does breed (as long as they are dairy) really make a difference?
not to me. :d ours are alpine/nubian mixes.

5. What do you do with the babies if you don't want to grow your herd?
males get sold or sent to the freezer. Does who we don't want normally get sold, almost instantly. The market is great right now for small livestock.

6. Does anyone eat their goat meat? How is that?
tastes a lot like deer. Hard to cook with (at least until you get used to it) but we love it.

thanks!!

hth!

[Chicky2]

I wish I would have known we'd love our Nubians so much! We'd have done it sooner!

We are not yet in milk, but when we are I'll make kefir, ice cream, cheese, and soap.

We feed long-stem hay and a small amount daily of a mixture of sweet feed, goat rations, and oats. We don't have enough land to feed them properly w/out supplementing. They also get their minerals, baking soda, and stock salt daily.

We will eat the offspring. We have been butchering goats for a few years now. My mom raises Kikos. We also buy Boer's from a lady down the road to butcher. We currently have 3 bucks waiting to be butchered this weekend. We scored 3 bucks for $60 from our hay dude. We will grind all 3 because they are older (2 yrs), and not castrated. Major sausage-making weekend. Otherwise, I cook goat all.the.time. We roast whole ones for special occasions, we eat roasts, ground goat, sausage, use the front shoulders roasts for stew meat, make fajitas, chili, goat burgers, smoked ribs, really any way you could imagine! We LOVE goat meat! I personally haven't had any problems w/taste w/different breeds. We've had lamancha meat, kiko meat, nubian meat, and boer meat.

Butchering goats is not hard at all. Hardest part for me is getting those soup bones separated so I can fit them in the freezer bags, lol. Goat bone stock is awesome!

[Arduinna]

Originally Posted by sunnylady303

We are getting goats. Wahoo!! I have several questions and would be grateful to anyone who could answer any of them.

1. What do you wish you had known before you got goats?
2. What do you make with your milk?
3. What do you feed your goats?
4. Does breed (as long as they are dairy) really make a difference?
5. What do you do with the babies if you don't want to grow your herd?
6. Does anyone eat their goat meat? How is that?

Thanks!!

1. can't think of anything
2 with the goat milk, we generally just drank it. I had jersey cow milk for butter, cream and yogurt.
3 hay and grain plus they had access to pasture. Milkers and pregnant does got alfalfa and a standard dairy grain mix. Bucks and dry does generally got oat hay if available, otherwise alfalfa.
4 there is a difference in milk production volume and fat % depending on breed but I say go with the breed you like, if it's just for your family and a hobby and not a goat dairy business.
5 we sold some wethers ( castrated make goats) and lower quality does as pets. I've eaten goat but we didn't butcher ours.
6 goat meat is pretty good

[kimmom]

1. What do you wish you had known before you got goats?
How much we would LOVE them!! My husband was hesitant at first he had bad experiences growing up with goats! Ours are amazing we love love love them!!!
2. What do you make with your milk?
So far just milk because we have twins on her still so aren't getting tonnes of milk for us..
3. What do you feed your goats?
Ours eat pasture when available and weeds, maple leaves, apple trees whatever green they can get! We also feed high quality hay and minerals. They also have grain for when being milked
4. Does breed (as long as they are dairy) really make a difference?
We have a purebred Nubian, and some nubian Boer crosses. The Nubian Boer Crosses are SUPER friendly!!
5. What do you do with the babies if you don't want to grow your herd?
We are keeping our buckling and doeling this year since they are our first kids and the human kids are very attached! They are easy to sell here for meat or breeding as well!
6. Does anyone eat their goat meat? How is that?
I have not eaten goat meat.. Not sure when we will yet, not this year for sure!

[*~Danielle~*]

I've had goats on and off for the past 3 years.

1. What do you wish you had known before you got goats?
I wish I had known they are a huge investment, if you don't have fencing already in place. Buying hay and grain and fencing and collars and horn burners and demasculatomes and just all the little odds and ends of starting with them from scratch. Building a milking stanchion. It all adds up.

2. What do you make with your milk?
I make soft and hard cheese, yogurt, ice cream, pudding, ranch dressing, chocolate milk, drink it straight and I made butter two years ago when I had a doe with a lot of cream.

3. What do you feed your goats?
My goats get browse because their paddock is half pasture and half woods. (So native wild flowers, trees and such. Brambles and wild rose bushes and blackberries.) They get grass/alfalfa hay and they get custom mixed grain on when in milk.

4. Does breed (as long as they are dairy) really make a difference?
Breed does make a difference. You have to research temperment and milkfat and taste. I have Saanens and they are very gentle giants. They are the Holstein of the goat world and have lovely, sweet and neutral tasting milk. Very close to that of cows milk.

5. What do you do with the babies if you don't want to grow your herd?
I've sold babies and we've eaten them just short of a year old.

6. Does anyone eat their goat meat? How is that?
The young bucks we ate tasted like a mild beef.