Herd Status Breeds We Have CAE Prevention / Kid Personalities De-Worming Methods De-Licing Prevention Feed Housing Kid Care Medicine Milking Vaccines Visitors Scrapies Program Tempermant Goat Myths Things you should know
We maintain a semi-closed herd. Meaning we did bring in a few new does & herd sires this year. They are however from tested show herds that have been around from 10 - 25 years. We will NOT bring in goats from just anywhere & will not allow outside breedings unless to a clean herd. Visitors: If you would like to see our goats in person before placing a deposit we welcome visiters as long as you call first to set up a date/time! Setting up a date/time is a must as we stay extremly busy here! I can also provide buyers a short mpeg video of any goat for sale that you are interested in to give you an even better view of them. Scrapies: We are enrolled in the Scrapie program however we do not put the tags in our goats ears! We can give you a scrapies tag for any goat you buy however or if you wish it can be placed in there ear. De-Worming: We do our own fecal tests to check for worms & de-worm when needed with either Valbazen , Ivomec or Synanthic depending on the type of worm that we are dealing with & the age of the goats. Cydectin is one we rarely ever use we do use it UT (University , TN) has even told people to never use Cydectin on kids under 6 months. Valbazen should never be used on pregnant does during a certain stage of pregnancy (It can cause abortions & deformities in the kids if it does not abort them). Synanthic is our de-wormer of choice with Ivomec as second choice. Keep in mind I do our own fecals so I know what works for us & what don't. Goats need a chemical de-wormer... If you trust herbal de-wormer then do fecals OFTEN ... If you purchase a goat no matter where from a good practice is to have a fecal done & de-worm accordingly. Be sure to tell your vet you want to know the exact egg count the fecal shows & what type parasite. To check for anemia it is best to look in there lower eyelid the gums are not as accurate. Pale pink or white eyelid indicate you have a very bad anemia problem. For your goats sake please take a fecal sample to a vet if you suspect your goat has worms! Below is the Famacha chart it tells the degree of Anemia. De-Licing: Our goats are de-liced with Cylence to prevent lice. Cylence works great & we use it 2 to 3 times a year as a prevention method. The dose we use is 1cc per 25 lbs dripped down there back. Vaccines: We give CD&T (Tetanus & Enterotoxemia) vaccines to all our does one month before they are due to kid! BoSe (Selenium & Vitamin E) is given when needed. Kids are given a CD&T shot at 3-4 weeks of age & another 3 weeks later. After that goats need a yearly CD&T booster shot. We use Bar-Vac CD&T shots on all of our goats. Vaccinations are very important to give they could very well mean the life or death of your goat. CAE Prevention/Kid Personalities: All of our kids are bottle raised none are left with there dam. Kids are removed at birth as soon as they are born! They are raised like this for CAE prevention & because we prefer to raise our kids this way so they will be extremly tame as most dam raised goats we have had expieriance with tend to not be & sometimes have a more hateful nature towards other goats. Goats that have been bottle raised are much easier to handle & are very sweet natured with people. They are given pasturised colostrum by bottle within 30 mins. of birth we never let them nurse it from the doe. Even if a doe is cae negative just a few mins. with there dam can affect the kids personality & our main reason for bottle raising is to have friendly kids! Medicines: We keep the following medicines on hand to use if needed: Excenel , Nuflor , NFZ Puffer , Thiamine , Vitamin B , CMPK , Banimine , C&D Antitoxin , Electrolites , Probios , Mineral Oil , Milk Of Magnesia , Albon , Sulmet , Kaolin , Kaopectate , Iron supplement , Today , Tommorrow , Dimethox 40% , Nutri Drench , BoSe etc... etc... you get the picture our medicine cabinet is stocked with just about everything just in case we ever need it :-) ! If not we throw it away once out of date & buy new stock just to have it & be on the safe side! It is much better to be safe than sorry! The one thing we NEVER use is LA-200 or similiar ( Anything with oxytetracycline in it). That is the worst thing you could buy if you have a sick goat as vets in our area even say it is no better than a drink of water & they are correct... We use good antibiotics if they are needed. Feed: Our goats are given grain on a daily basis. Baking soda (Does only) , hay & UltraLyx goat vitamin/mineral is provided free of choice to all goats. We mix our own feed which consists of: Alfalfa pellets , Oats/corn mixture , Country Acres pelleted feed , Beet Pulp , Calf Manna & black oil sunflower seeds. Bucks get strictly Country Acres medicated goat feed for urinary calculi prevention. It has ammoniom chloride in it for there urinary tract. Depending on there age & size our goats get 2-4 lbs of grain a day (If you look on Country Acres feed designed for goats it states to feed 1.64 lbs per 50 lbs. I highly recomend using the medicated Country Acres for your kids , bucks & wethers). Make sure your minerals for feeding your goats esp. bucks & wethers have a 2 to 1 calcium/phosphorus ratio. It is very important to have a balanced mineral. Doe kids get extra calf manna added to there ration to insure they grow proper & get everything they need to make healthy & productive adults. All of our goats get cookies , bread , cereal , horse cookies etc... etc... for treats. Treats are not given everyday but , are given at least once a week in there grain ration or just handed out to each individual. They love all sorts of "human food" & are very spoiled!! The milkers get treats every day on the milk stand as an added bonus for them & also extra calf manna added to there grain. If you are milking a goat she must be fed very well to keep her in good condition & we feel they should also have some extras given to them. Kids are given grain twice a day & adults are given grain once a day unless it is a doe that is being milked twice a day & then she gets grain at each milking. Housing: Our bucks are kept in separate pens from our does. We do not allow them to run together! Buck kids are seperated at 5-6 weeks from the doe kids. A buck can & will breed young so it is a must to seperate them young. Our grown bucks are also always housed seperately from the does. All of our does are took to a breeding pen & the buck of choice brought in when it is time for them to be bred. We do not leave the adult bucks & does together. Kids are also housed in seperate areas from the adults. They are not with the adults until usually after there first kidding (Around or a little after a year old). Buck kids are never placed with adult bucks! Kids are housed in seperate age groups. Tempermant: We bottle raise all of our kids. When we tried dam raising the kids would run right with there dam & they never wanted petted no matter how much we tried so we decided to start bottle raising everyone for added CAE prevention as well as having tame kids because it just wasn't worth it having goats with a bad personality... Our kids are fed by individual bottles they are not bucket raised. They are raised for pets & breeding purposes not meat. Breeds: We only raise Purebred LaMancha & Nubian breeds as well as having a couple expieramental LaMancha's & one Sable Saanen doe who will be bred to a LaMancha for 07 kids & hopefully ai'd the next year. Milking: We do own a milking machine & milk every goat here , yes even the Boer doe gets milked! I use to hand milk them but , when your milking about 30 or more goats that gets quite difficult. If there is only a few in milk they are hand milked still so most are use to both the machine & hand milking. When you buy a doe from us it will be use to being milked as we do not leave any of our kids with there moms. All of the moms are milked then it is pasturized & fed to the kids by bottle. We remove kids at birth. Pasturized colostrum is first fed to the kids we milk it out & give it by bottle just like the milk. A dual pasturizer is used on all milk that is fed to our kids. This year (2006) I have decided to "attempt" making goat cheese & goat milk soap. If I have good luck I will also be offering soap for sale on the website. Kids: Our kids are given hay , grain & water free choice by a week of age. We also mix Calf Manna into there grain. We want our kids to grow up healthy & strong. If a kid is not given the correct nutrients as a baby it will grow into an unhealthy adult. All of our kids are also bottle raised & are on Deccox-M prevention for coccidios. They also are given Dimethox 40% at 3 weeks of age then once a week until weaning as an added coccidios prevention. The kids are fed bottles 3-4 times a day there first few days then they are on two bottles a day until 2 months of age. Our kids reach there breeding weight of 80-100 lbs by 7-9 months old & are bred to kid around the time of there first birthday or slighty after. By the time they kid at a year old they weigh 100 - 130 lbs or more. Goat Myths/Facts Some things I have heard or been asked before on raising kids by bottle , goat milk etc... #1 Do kids raised on bottle learn to eat feed & drink water on there own without a mom to show them how? Answer: Yes ofcourse!!! We have never had trouble with any of our kids & there has been over 200 kids raised on bottle here. People who think that just because there bottle raised they do not learn to eat & drink on there own don't know very much about a goat. #2 Do kids raised on bottle learn to eat trees & hay on there on without a mom showing them how? Answer: Yes again. Do not listen to old "wives tales" like this whom ever started them did not know there facts... #3 Do kids raised on bottle grow slower? Answer: No they do not in fact I saw the opposite to be true. Kids raised on there moms seem to be slower at growing. We dam raised many years ago & our kids who are raised on our feeding program & on bottle grow twice as big as the dam raised ones. Once again this is another old wives tale just like the above two myths are. Kids should be properly fed no matter how they are raised be it on a dam or bottle for them to grow up into healthy adults. If you bottle raise goats & have to use milk replacer go with Sav-A-Kid or Purina DO NOT use Manna Pro Unimilk I have heard from many people they scour terrible on that & that they don't seem to grow as good. Also do not take a kid who has been bottle raised & put it directly in with adult does or they will not grow good because kids will not get enough to eat the adults will push them away. #4 Do you use the goat milk for yourself? Does it taste different? Answer: Yes we do. We know how our goats are took care of & what they are fed. Some people act like goats milk is nasty but , it is not & I never have figured out why they think that. Goats milk is not much different than fresh cow's milk it has no unpleasant tastes or odors if your milk is handled right & your does are fed good. Most of the Mexican cheese dip at restuarants is made from goat milk when some people find this out they refuse to eat it which IMO is crazy when these same people drink cows milk. Have you ever been to a cattle dairy? Milk just doesn't magically appear in the jugs & cow pastures stay much nastier than goat pastures usually do. Also if you knew the real truth of what tests they do & do not do on cattle dairies you would think twice about which is the cleanest... Don't judge goat milk before trying it & don't go by what the store bought types taste like there nothing at all like fresh goat milk. We plan on making goat milk soap also & selling it. We also recently made goat milk cheese & we use our on goat milk in all of our cooking. #5 Do kids from triplets turn out smaller than single kids? Answer: Kids from twins , triplets or more grow just as well as single kids. Do not let anyone tell you they don't. In our area I have heard many times a single kid will grow better than twins or more. We have found that not to be true for example Lady Natika was the smallest doeling of triplets from Lady Gray in 2005. She weighed only 4 1/2 lbs & was the smallest dairy goat kid we have ever have. At 12 months old Natika weighed 120lbs. However you must feed your goat a good quality grain & hay for them to reach there full potential no matter there breed or litter size. More facts/myths coming soon as I get a chance... Things you should know when buying a goat... Be careful where you get your advice/information from. If you frequent goat message boards be careful what you trust. There are some good boards out there & some that are not. Do not take one person's advice do your research buy goat books. I highly advide buying these books: Goat Medicine , Goat Keepers Veternairy Handbook , Storey's Guide to raising dairy goats & Goat Health Handbook. NEVER allow your goats to eat plants such as: cherry trees , peach trees , plum trees , mountain laurel , poke plant , nightshades , rhoderdendrum , etc... Check out GoatWorld.com for an extensive list of posion plants. Keep plenty of fresh water out for your goats & clean there water troughs often esp. in the summertime! Be sure your goats have a shelter to get in to protect them from rain , severe heat , cold weather , etc... NEVER feed your goats moldy hay or feed as it can kill them. If you currently have goats & buy an outside one do not put it straight in with yours. Give them a few days to adjust to there new home so they will have only minimum stress. If you buy a kid & put it in with adult goats the kid will not get enough to eat & will never grow to it's full potential unless at feeding time you stay there & make certain they get to eat & that the adults don't run it away. More coming soon...
