Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Smallhold Farming and Rural Living => Livestock and Growing on a larger scale => Topic started by: LivvyW on August 30, 2013, 22:05
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Goodness they are lovely. But i have a tonne of little questions and im still struggling to find the right answers on line. I really need a more experienced goat buddy for a while........
This is where we are at. Two months ago i discovered some one in our village was keeping goats. We have always had a yearning for sometime keeping goats so i asked to come and see his set up. Two weeks ago he rings to say he is moving away to look after his grandparents and would we like as many of his six goats as we wanted.
Betsy was the largest but most chilled of all of them and her beautiful 6mnth old doeling/kid. She was being milked by her previous owner and of course the kid had been kept with her.
OH has done a great job converting our shed (old cow byre) and erecting a 5ft sheep wire and post fence. They have about 60 sq ft indoor space and about 550sq ft outdoor space that they share with 4 hens and it did have some browse but is already depleted. :ohmy:
They have constant hay and fresh water (indoors) We are also giving them about 2lbs of dairy nuts morning and evening. I'm not confident about their dietary requirements and need some help here.
We have access to lots of 'browse' that we can cut from around the area. Plenty of willow, and all my veg garden clean up. But what is good or to be avoided. How often and when to be fed. Im also fearful of overfeeding.
OH has been milking her in the evening. Her milk is coming less and less. I think morning is better?
Is there anyone that could share their daily experience with me.
Help. We would love to be able to milk her for a while, but my main concern is that we are caring for them correctly.
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Need to milk twice a day to keep up supply really.
Veg garden should be OK, if you can eat it they can! Willow is great browse, so is most native hedgerow stuff except yew, spindle, laburnum, conifers. It will keep them occupied longer and keep their rumens healthy too.
Your best bet is to get a couple of good books on goat husbandry, I say a couple so you can see where opinions and approaches sometimes differ. Maybe a really dry comprehensive one and one with a bit more of a personal touch. A good book will tell you how to "condition score" them to make sure they are getting the right amount of food, and trim feet etc.
Goats are lovely, I've never had my own but have worked several places where we kept them.
*edited to add privet also very poisonous, you really need a book!
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Thanks Diospyros,
We are slowly getting there. Ordered a bunch of books from the library and am working my way through them.
found a few places on line that help too.
Thanks for replying.
Goats are groovy!!!
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Wean the kid it should not be on milk now :)