New Mini LaMancha Doelings have arrived!

 

I am absolutely thrilled that our new Mini LaMancha goat doelings have arrived!  Please meet our new dairy goat additions - Mary and Martha.  They are so cute and so full of mischief that I am having problems getting anything done other than playing with the babies.







We traveled on Saturday just before Easter and met the breeder.  They were pretty well behaved on the way home, but about an hour from home began calling to us from the back of the truck.





Rebecca and her boyfriend helped get them settled in for the night after lots of snuggle time.  Our old horses didn't take well to the new additions and galloped around kicking and snorting like they were young colts. 
 





The next morning was Easter and the kids couldn't decide if they would rather search for eggs or play with goat kids. 
 


I was shocked to arrive home from church to find one of the goats in the horse pasture grazing with the horses.  I'm grateful that they made friends with the horses, but was surprised that they escaped the field fencing so easily. It could have ended badly if the horses had not accepted them, but everyone was getting along fine. 

With my neighbor's help, Monday evening was spent chasing wayward goats and reinforcing the fence with chicken wire. It is Tuesday morning, and I just got a text from Rebecca saying the rascals have escaped again!

The Little Goat House that We Built



Well, it took nearly 8 months, but here on the day before my Mini LaMancha goat doelings arrive, I have finally completed the goat shelter!

The shelter is 8 feet x 6 feet and is on skids so that we can pull it around with our tractor.  I got the basic idea for the shelter from pictures on the internet, then put it all together in my head about fifty times late at night before I bought my first nail.  This is the first structure I've ever built, so I wanted to get it right!

I started in late August of last year with a load of 2x4s that Home Depot was kind enough to cut for me at no charge. 


The boys and I started framing - here is Caleb helping out:



Framing was a lot of fun.  I used nails to support cross pieces.  Caleb's job was to remove the nails, while Lucas hunted lost nails with the metal detector.

 

I installed a metal roof, then became ill with food poisoning, which kept me down a month.  Before I knew it winter was approaching and I still needed to put up the walls.  I used OSB - it may not have been the best choice, but we will see how it holds up.  I used TrimLoc around the edges of the sheet metal to protect us from the sharp edges.

 


The boys were a big help painting the outside with KILZ, then a coat of paint.
  


Everything sat through the winter and held up very well.  Then the doelings were born in early February, so I knew there wasn't much time left!  Time to get off my tush and back to work.



We painted some 1x4 boards to use as trim and to protect the edges of the OSB.

 

When the ground was dry enough Dan used the tractor to haul the shelter into the horse pasture onto a sand heap.
  


I finished securing the trim this morning, and this afternoon will hang buckets, feeders, and a hay bag then fill it with straw for bedding.  We will enclose the area with field fencing temporarily to give the horses a chance to become accustomed to their new pasture-mates and to give us time to secure the paddock.

All ready for the babies to arrive tomorrow!

Mini LaMancha Goats Coming this Weekend!

So in writing about what is coming up next for my little homestead in Pungo, I mentioned the possibility of dairy goats.  The dairy goat plan is now a reality, and I am so excited!

Coming this Saturday:



Meet Ein Geti's Opal and Ein Geti's Opera (officially), who we may call Lucy and Ethel.
 



Why mini LaMancha dairy goats?

When we decided to get goats, the first decision to make was which kind.  My daughter has a friend who has standard size goats and offered us an unregistered Nubian-cross doe (female) and whether (castrated male) at a very low price, and it was tempting!  However, in looking at the cost of feed- both hay and goat chow, plus calculating in the reduced value of the kids (baby goats), the cost of owning goats was not worth the value of the milk they would produce. 

I wanted to get goats that were easy enough to handle that our children would not be intimidated by them.  Lucas, especially, is interested in learning about goats and milking, and a mini goat will be easier for him to handle. This made me look into the possibility of miniature goats.

Mini goats are not without problems, though.  Because they are a smaller breed, we will need to reinforce our electric fence so that they cannot go under or through it.  For the time being, we are using field fencing to create a small paddock within our horse fence, but eventually we want to allow them to roam the pasture freely to remove small trees and weeds that want to grow.  This will be a significant expense as our fence is approximately 1200 feet that will all need to be re-inforced.

We decided to get goats that would be high quality, registered, and from a good dairy line so that they would produce adequate milk for our family and so that their offspring would be valuable enough to cover the costs of owning goats.  I thought at first the only mini goat that fit this description was the Nigerian Dwarf, but then I found out about other mini breeds, which are registered with the MDGA (Miniature Dairy Goat Association) and TMGR (The Miniature Goat Registry). 

Mini Goats are produced by originally crossing the Nigerian Dwarf dairy goat with another kind to get a mini first generation goat. The first 4 generations of this cross are considered "experimental" because you use these generations to experiment with the breed to ultimately get the wonderful traits you want to see in your goat.  Goats later than 4th generation are considered American and then Purebred and must conform to more strict standards.

Here are some of the mini goats that are being produced:



Mini Saanen, a white goat known for its easy going temperament
Picture taken from www.homesteadingtoday.com



Mini Nubian - cute droopy ears and beautiful markings, but they can be loud and sassy!
This goat is from www.bellsgoats.com
 

Mini Oberhasli, a goat with a stronger flavored milk that some people love
Pic taken from www.Glimmercroft.com

Mini Lamancha, best known for its ears, or actually the lack of outer ear!
Pic from www.echohillsfarm.com

We decided on the Mini Lamancha based on it's friendly easy-going nature, the high butterfat in the milk, and because my husband likes the tall lean look of the Mini Lamancha's frame.  The Mini-Lamanchas we are getting will be 4th generation from good dairy lines, meaning their offspring (if they meet the standard) will be 5th generation American registered dairy goats.  We have already found a couple suitable bucks (intact males) that are 4th generation from excellent dairy lines to choose from for this fall's breeding!

Look for more goaty info and pics next week when the babies arrive!

These Crazy Animals: What's Next? Goats?

     With the amount of animals we have, you would think that a petting farm would be of no interest to Caleb and Lucas, but they love going to Hunt Club Farm.  They chase the Hunt Club's chickens, take a pony ride, and spend quite a bit of time feeding and brushing the goats.  The goats at Hunt Club Farm are extremely cute and very gentle.  (Also, Hunt Club keeps the goat area deceptively clean, as though their particular goats don't leave the vast amount of droppings goats are  known for.) I'm pretty sure this is why Caleb and Lucas both want us to get goats.  Lucas went so far as to pick out the very goat he wanted, a large Nubian at Hunt Club.  After feeding this particular goat a handful of sweet feed, he turned to me and said, "Yes, this is the one," as though we were picking out a shirt to wear.  

Caleb and Lucas brushing a friendly Hunt Club Farm goat.

     So last year I checked out a couple books on keeping dairy goats.  Here's the thing about dairy goats:  You have to milk them twice a day.  Twice a day, every day.  That is, let this sink in, twice a day even if you are sick, even if it is sleeting, even if you want to go to an out of town, even if you are running late for work and are supposed to meet your boss at Panera for breakfast in 20 minutes.  I don't know about you, but this is the kind of relationship I don't enter into lightly!  

     There are other difficulties to consider, too.  To get milk, goats need to be bred, so you have to find someone with a male goat (If you keep a male on the premises, it makes the milk taste bad).  You also have to deal with the birth, de-budding (burning off the horns), and bottle raising of the kid (baby goat).  Then you have to find a home for the kid.  And this has to take place every year that you want milk!

     After reading about all this, you would think the goat idea would be banished from my mind forever.  But like a puzzle, my mind keeps returning to goats and working out the logistics.  Especially after Rebecca's friend, Jesse, brought us a half gallon of goats' milk to try - it was creamy with a wonderful fresh taste, and it immediately (although temporarily) cured the stomach issue I had been suffering with for about 10 days.

"Do you love me?  Do you want to be my friend?"

So here's what I came up with so far...

Raising goats will only work for us with good neighbors, and we have good neighbors.  With careful planning we can schedule a goat sharing program where each of our 3 families would take a couple days of the week to milk and care for the two goats, and any milk collected on those days would be kept.  Of course, we would need to be flexible to work with anyone who needed time off for illness or vacation.

One particular neighbor raised goats for years and is completely familiar with the process of breeding, so we would have a knowledgeable mentor, and I've been assured that finding a home for a good milk goat kid is not a difficult process.

"Please feed me!"

Some of the other issues such as food, shelter, fencing, etc. still need to be worked out, but with the biggest issue of my commitment-phobia cleared up, we may just see goats within the next year or two!  

To all you goat keepers out there, what are your biggest challenges?  I'd love to hear from you!