Its like a little horse…so strong it can drag me around a little if im trying to ground game wrangle it. Its actually a smaller sized goat but wow such strong legs. We had to spend most of the day chasing it. Its in our poultry hospital house now (poultry relocated elsewhere)
Its terrified of the local dogs. We have no idea where it could have come from. Our only 2 neighbors within 15 hectare radius of us dont know anything about it. Its got full milk udders.
This is totally insane but we might keep it…cause we cant even figure out how to transport it safely cause we arent setup for mammals beyond cats.
We have rope but cant tie it up or it will choke itself. I would need to procure some kind of harness or halter or probably safer…a very large fenced area out on the wild grass (cause of the dogs…hell dogs will maim a full grown cow by biting the cows face or legs)
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Learning goats was not on my agenda today and of course we have a ton of flowers and veggies we dont want it chowing down on…which is why we couldnt just let it wonder around and destroy our gardening (albeit as delicious as they may be for her)
I think we are going to try. Which is insane for an entirely other reason. We are barely keeping the wheels on with all the differebt poultry types. Too many males. ALL of our females are broody and so so grumpy. But they need to brood to restore their own internal health and balance. But now we have to pasture the females seperatley (which require human guard) or the females act like territorial males. Even our males are now losing backneck feathers while our fave females who are constantly backneck featherless are all grown back. Perimeter fence that needs to be repaired but its sooo big around it cost and time prohibitive to fix yet we can free range our poultry anymore without risk of dogs. Now a goat is going to require a larger and even stronger enclosure and really its going to need a day and night pen thats secure until my copious amounts of spare time and funds goes parabolic and i can repair and fund the entite perimiter fence.
Yesterday i was not happy that a random goat blitzed my day for about 4 hours while I exhausted myself and my family chasing it and trying to get it to go back where it came from.
Now…maybe it is a special gift from God for us
It would not be the first time I got something I didnt want not realising it was actually what I would need or truly needed most.
It is so freeing to be finite
So this morning im out making a goat pen preparing for senorita cabra and what did I see?
1 of my broody females has hatches at least 2 maybe 3 less than day old babies (been doing 7eggs) and the daddy who we manually hatched and raised was nearby mommy and babies being supportive and protective.
Such a joy to witness unexpected new life!
We are all over the moon
6! Babies from 1 broody female and her husband we manually hatched named Levi. We are so proud of Levi. He is just right when it comes to space and sensitivity for his wife and babies. Nice and safe daddys are a blessing
Looks like an Alpine/ Nubian cross. Should be good milk, depending on what it is fed. A lone goat is not a happy goat, so it will most likely need a companion or else it will go and find one for itself! A companion could be a horse or other farm animal, not necessarily another goat. Don’t tie it up, but do keep it in a place with good fencing, goats can really jump. They are escape artists, par excellence. They find the “weak link” in any enclosure. Unless you really want a pet goat, you might be best to find a goat farmer who would like an addition to his herd. Speaking as a former goat breeder here. Oh, and one more thing, forget the cartoon goats that you saw as a kid( pun intended) they really do not eat laundry off the line, or tin cans, but they will “investigate” EVERYTHING with their mouths to see if it is edible. And they love to chew the bark off trees, killing the tree in the process. So be warned.
Yup we are finding this out. Currently my kids have become the surrogate pals. Follows them around and then just lays down wherever they linger to play
And yes the largest enclosure i have ever constructed seemed to work to hold the goat for an hour then it just high jumped out and totally cleared it! It was pretty amazing. I either need to lay a staggering amount of chicken wire across the top of the enclosure for a roof or i need to double the height of my fences or build a woodframe minibarn…
Our prize buck decided our standardbred horse was his life companion. They were always together and the buck would stand under the horses belly when it snowed. Quite the sight.
