Joshua Erdman, Author at Central Coast Ranch

Taking your goat home

People may get overwhelmed when they take their goats home – but if you have your goat pen ready, the rest it really is quite easy.

Your goat pen should include 4 things:

Protection – from mountain lions and coyotes, your goat looks like a 4-legged snack, so keep them in a pen at night and/or have good motion lights.
Water – There should always be water available and it should be clean
Hay – have a bale of that hay matches their current feed. We mostly feed our goats a grass hay and alfalfa
Baking Soda – A Goat’s stomach is a little brewery always fermenting. That is how they get protein from plants. Sometimes their stomach gets imbalanced and they need to supplement with Baking Soda. You should always have baking soda available for them to eat when needed.

Now that you have the basics the rest is just maintenance!

Feed

Feed forage, alfalfa, or grass hay. Grain is a snack, not a main feed. They need roughage for their rumen to stay healthy.

Always keep clean water – no algae in the water trough or water bucket

Supplements

Keep minerals out and free for them to eat. We prefer minerals that are exclusively for goats. ( It is not for sheep) or else some supplements will be missing.

We also keep baking soda next to their minerals. Baking soda is what goats eat to regulate the digestion in the first section of their 4 part stomach, called the rumen. It is basically a fermenter which is why you hear them gurgling and burping so much.

Sick Goats

What does a sick goat look like?

Bloat – A goat who has an imbalanced digestive system will have their stomach fill with pressure, this is called bloat. A combination of forcefeeding them a baking soda solution with water and rubbing their left side can help. Many goats will self care before it gets this far as long as you leave our a bowl of baking soda t=for them to eat as needed.
Scours – happens when they have a digestive sickness. Watch their poo:
- Healthy – pebble-like and not clumped together.
- Keep on Watch – If they have pebbles that are clumped together they may have an upset stomach from eating something they shouldn’t or by eating too much grain – On our farm this happens if they sneak too much chicken feed.

Needs treatment – runny, no pebbles at all. This means you have a sick goat and you should treat them with Corid.

Supplements and shots:

Copper bolus – every 6 months
BO-SE – selenium supplement
CDT – annual shot
Worming – every 6 months

Pest prevention (Big and small)

First keep stalls clean by keeping fresh bedding. Sprinkle lime powered on top of wet spots to neutralize goat pee. Also can spread diatomaceous earth to keep down mites.

Ticks, fleas, mites – varies based on type of pest. You can rub diatomaceous earth in their coat to kill bugs. Use chemicals, dips, and sprays as a last resort.

Grooming

Watch their hooves – hooves should be trimmed every two or three months.

Goats for Homesteads

A homestead is not complete without some dairy goats. If your dream is to live as independently as possible a dairy goat has much to offer.

Goat Milk and Milk Products

A single dairy goat can consistently produce 2 quarts of milk per day. Some people have concern about goat milk having that ‘goaty taste’. The taste in the milk is mostly based on what the dairy goat is fed. When we first moved onto our farm the ground was covered in eucalyptus leaves and the goat milk did have a faint eucalyptus smell and taste.

To sweeten the milk you should feed your does a higher protein diet with alfalfa and a grain mixture optimized for sweet milk production. We have found that feeding black oil sunflower seeds and shredded beets work very well for this.

We have pleased several of our neighbors with goat cheese and recently started making goat milk soap.

Weed Abatement

The goats will continue to keep their roaming area weed free and the trivial amount of weeds that they would eat will have no effect on the flavor of their milk.

Goats perfect for HomeSteads

Goats for Weed Abatement

Nigerian Dwarf Goats are excellent not only for weed abatement but also tree trimming. Goats eat pretty much everything but being picky eaters they eat the yummy stuff first! With these tips you should have weed free areas just like you imagine and happy goats!

Containment Areas

Nigeria Dwarf Goats are browsers, meaning that they eat a little here and there and just like children they will eat the tastiest stuff first. So the secret to good weed abatement is containment. Create zones using a temporary electric fencing or a portable pen for each area that you want cleaned up. For very low cost you can use T-bars, temporary electric fence wire and an electric fence charger used for 5-miles or less (the type used for dogs works just as well).

Inside this enclosure the goats will be content spending all day munching away on grass, weeds, star thistles, and even poison ivy. Wherever you enclose them, always make sure that your goats have easy access to plenty of water and a bit of shade.

Goats are great Tree Trimmers!

Nigerian Dwarf Goats are the perfect size for trimming the bottoms of your trees. In our back area all our trees are perfectly trimmed at 4-feet!

Poisonous Plants

Be careful not to give your goats easy access to poisonous plants. They have robust digestive systems and are very tolerant of the occasional unhealthy plant – like a tomato plant. But bad things can happen if they were allowed access to a hill full of nightshade or azaleas. Make sure you do some quick research on the types of plants your property has to ensure they are not poisonous to your goats. Some examples of poisonous plants include azaleas, China berries, sumac, dog fennel, bracken fern, curly dock, eastern baccharis, honeysuckle, nightshade, pokeweed, red root pigweed, black cherry, Virginia creeper, and crotalaria.

Goats for Sale

What to feed Nigerian Dwarf Bucks/Wethers

Nigerian Dwarf Bucks and wethers are fed only grass type hays such as forage hay or Bermuda grass. Because of the urinary tract of male goats, wethers are at higher risk of developing urinary calculi or ‘stones’. The development of these stones can cause an obstruction in the urethral process (a small tube that acts as a urine sprayer). In our feeding practices we avoid feeding legume hay and grain to our wethers and not frequently to our bucks.

Preventing Calculi buildup

There are a couple of things you can do to detour calculi build up. You can supplement their fed with aluminum chloride to counter act the acidity of the urine. Wait to castrate bucklings until they are 3-5 months old to give more time for the urinary tract to mature and open up more. Feeds should be lower protein with plenty of water available.

Also read our article on feeding your Nigerian Dwarf Does and Kids

Goats as Pets

Nigerian Dwarf Goats make excellent outdoor pets. They are herd animals so it is important that you start with a pair of goats or else they will be miserable when by themselves. As herd animals they will see you as part of the herd and come by to be pet and they also love to be brushed.

Pet Goat Cost

The amazing thing about livestock pets is they are low maintenance and low cost. Goats are cheaper to feed than large dogs, as they graze they drop their feces that does not need to be picked up as it makes great fertilizer. You can keep your goats in your backyard so they will keep your lawn trimmed and simultaneously fertilized. Since we got goats and KuneKune pigs I have not mowed my backyard for 3 years!

Health visits to a livestock Veterinarian are also much cheaper than your typical domestic pet veterinarian and you can expect a healthier animal as the goat is eating feed that they were naturally made for, this is still a question that has yet to be answered by dog and cat food for your domestic animals.

Pet Goats for Sale

Getting your KuneKune Pig Pen Ready

Please take the time to get your property ready for your new animals. When they come to you they are young and small – so if it is winter be sure you have extra bedding until they get more bodyfat. A heatlamp is also a good idea – on very cold winter nights we have used a 250W red heatlamp for the youngest babies. Pigs are particular as to where they urinate and defecate and once they choose a corner that is where they will always go for as long as they live in that pen. So MAKE SURE you make it difficult for them to leave their waste where you need to walk. We will typically take an old pallet (they hate walking on those) and leave it in front of the gates so they use a different corner.

Shelter

Pigs need dirt. KuneKune pigs may not root for food but they lie in dirt to sleep (or bedding when its cold) and need wet soil or even mud if it is hot outside to stay cool. They should also have some shade to get out of the sun. As simple leaning shelter with a corrugated steel roof only 4 feet off the ground will work wonders.

Fencing

Piglets will be sure to exploit any hole they can squeeze through. We recommend using pigwire when you build out their pens, it is strong and the holes are smaller toward the bottom. T-Bars are a great way to erect fencing quickly and still keep it strong. A 3’ tall fence would be just fine but what you want is strong. A full-grown, hungry pig is extremely strong and they can push through anything, so use heavy-duty wires on your Pig Fence

Water

automatic bowl waterer water nipple for pigs Make sure you have a freshwater delivery system as well. So as you prepare your farm now is the perfect time to run some PVC and setup a livestock waterer.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/little-giant-automatic-waterer

We recommend a bowl type that mounts to a fence and includes a float. Make sure you set these up at the proper height as pigs need them much lower to the ground (especially piglets). You can also use cinder blocks so they can setup up to reach a slightly higher watering bowl.

If you have high water pressure (above 50 PSI) use interactive watering devices like hog nipples.

Feeders

These work great for feeding grain to our pigs. And since pigs are so low to the ground we put the hay in a clean place in the pen. Rubber Grain Feeder

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/double-tuf-rubber-pan-with-handles-3-gal

History of Kune Kune Pigs

Pronounced: coonie-coonie

Kune Kune Pigs come from New Zealand, where in the late 1970’s researchers re-discovered the breed and found them to be almost extinct. With only 50 left, they rescued the breed and brought them to the UK and to the United States in the late 90s. Kune Kune pigs have been on the East Coast for a couple of decades now and are quickly growing in popularity on the Central Coast.

These pigs are GRASS EATERS that DO NOT root up your yard and also eat forage/orchard/alfalfa. Their diet is very simple and one can easily meet the majority of their dietary needs by allowing them to graze off your yard/pasture.

They make a great pet as even the boars are quite docile and they love attention. Our Kunes come up to us and flop on their side for a nice belly rub. They have a shorter snout, which is why they don’t prefer rooting.

Since Kune Kune pigs are not inbred for the small pig trait (think tea-cup pigs), they are very HEARTY and HEALTHY with rare complications.

Kunekunes are SOCIAL herd animals that will ENJOY your company, the company of another pet (dog) or another KuneKune.

KuneKune Pigs for Sale

References:

http://www.americankunekunepigsociety.com/kkhistory

Feeding Nigerian Dwarf Goats

Feeding Nigerian dwarf goats can be as complicated as you want to make it. There are a hardy animal that are easy to please but the simplest of diets could affect the quality of their milk.

Simplest goat diet

The simplest goat diet is to just let them roam free and eat to their hearts content all the weeds they can find. You’re guaranteed to have a very clean property and content goats, they will first only eat the weeds that they like and we’ll go after each weed type by preference so before a property is completely cleared it could be several weeks to months depending on size. And alternative to this method would be to use temporary fencing and locate the goats in a zone of weeds leaving them there until there’s nothing left but dirt. You will be pleased to see just how fast goats can cut down all the weeds and leave plenty of goat fertilizer behind. If you choose this method be sure to always leave to them free minerals so they can self-regulate the most important of these is a big tub of baking soda.

Again this can work against you especially if you are milking goats as what they eat will leave a taint and their milk. This may not be too bad if they’re eating sweet potatoes or yams but entirely bad if they’re in a forest full of eucalyptus.

Simplest feeding plan

If you are breeding goats, raising kids, or milking them you will want to get them on a more controlled diet. you can see a significant difference in the health of baby goats and the quality of the milk and then the sheen of their coat by the variety of foods that you get that give them. New basic feeding plan would start with alfalfa hay and grain always a continuous supply of freshwater, and free minerals one bucket of minerals would be baking soda, and another bucket of minerals would be one with supplements.

We have some more specific feed articles that are best for Bucks and Wethers, Pregnant Does, and Milkers.

Feeding Nigerian Dwarf Bucks and Wethers

Feeding Nigerian Dwarf Milkers