Goat Care

PLEASE NOTE: 

What works for us may not work for you. As I am learning I will update this with new methods I have seen/heard of as well as putting what we do on our farm and our experiences with the different methods if we have tried them. Please do your own research and see what might work best for you, your location, your animals, and your overall farm goals. We are located in the Pacific Northwest in the desert. You are responsible for judging what practices might fit your farm best. The Internet is a great tool to use to find answers to your questions, but it also requires some effort on your part to judge how accurate that information may be. We have linked to some products we use or have found to work well, feel free to shop around to find better prices (we do not get a commision off of these items).

Feeding:

Our growing kids are fed a grain mix as a supplement which includes alfalfa pellets, whole oats, rolled barley, yellow split peas/field peas, black oil sunflower seeds, and wheat germ oil. 

Kids:

At 3-7 days, if the kid is not polled (naturally hornless) we will disbudd them. I disbud as soon as I can see/feel their horn bud, so it is generally sooner for bucklings than doelings. Because these are dairy goats, all our goats will be disbudded. 

Since our primary goal is milk production, we separate our kids at birth and get them used to a bottle. We will be bottle feeding all kids moving forward as we prefer how friendly the kids are when bottle fed. 

At 3, 6, 9 and 12 weeks old, kids get Toltrazuril 5% to help prevent coccidiosis. Kids are given 1ml per 5 pounds of body weight. 

Kids get their first hoof trims at 4 and 8 weeks. We do our best to make sure all kids have freshly trimmed hoofs before they leave our farm. 

Kids are weaned when we feel they are ready, we like to make sure they are a decent size and are eating solid foods and drinking water well. Since our kids are bottle fed we will often sell them as bottle babies. 

If a buck is going to be wethered, we band at around 12-14 weeks old. This allows time for the urinary tract to develop as much as it can to help prevent Urinary Calculi. However, if we sell a whether as a bottle baby we will band him before he leaves our farm. 

At about 30 days old we vaccinate kids with their CD&T booster.