I have a sensitivity to the protein found in cow's milk (called caesin) and avoided most milk products for years now. I eventually discovered that goat's milk did not affect me the same way, which inspired me to want to own my own goats at some point. The added benefit is that it is yet another way to produce some of our own food. I now know how to make my own cheese, yogurt, and butter and plan to learn some other things to do with goats milk (soap, etc.) We were lucky to have neighbors with goats, who were interested in doing a "milk share" with the goat's milk. Goat shares are just a tricky way to get beyond the laws governing the sale of milk in general, but especially raw milk. In a milk share, you do not pay for the milk, but a share of the goat, which conveniently comes with some milk. In our milk share, we actually helped care for the animals, including feeding, milking, cleaning, etc. In return, we kept the milk and only paid the price of what it costs to feed the animals for the days we took care of them. This was excellent practice for us. Our neighbors were new to owning goats as well, so we were able to learn from their experiences and figure out how we wanted to do it ourselves. Goats are creatures of habit, and can be hard to manage when you change something in their routine. Our neighbor's goats were full grown milk producing goats when they bought them and took a while to adjust to the new home and routine. For this reason, I wanted two goats that were young enough to raise ourselves.
About 6 months ago, we bought our first goats. The family we bought them from seemed like good people trying to do a lot of the same things we wanted to do, including raising and producing much of their own food while working regular jobs. They owned the mothers of the goats we bought. The mothers both came from the herd of goats owned by their neighbors. The father (of both of our goats) came from the same herd, so our goats were sisters (and cousins too, technically). We knew about two main goat diseases to be concerned about, CL and CAE. We were assured that the herd tested negative for these diseases, which should mean that the mothers of our goats (and therefore our goats) would have no exposure to either of these diseases. They were both hybrids of two dairy breeds (LaManch and Alpine breeds). They seemed perfect for us. We brought them home.
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| The goat on the left is Coco. Her sister on the right is Moe. |
We were only partially finished building our new fence and goat pen when we brought them home. Luckily, it was summer, so I had time to devote to help Brian with these projects. It was a lot of work, but we finally enclosed a nice area of our property for the goats to browse and play.
There are few things cuter than young goats. Our little gals adjusted easily to their new home. It was good that they had each other. We were always told that goats need companions, and this was evident from how these two stuck together for everything.
For several months, everything was fine with our goats. We created a "goat playground" for them to climb around on. We fed them well, so they grew quickly. We began to consider breeding them. Since these were dairy goats, they need to give birth to kids before they can start producing milk. I had joined several online goat forums as well as made friends with several local goat owners, so I had advice about breeding goats coming from every direction. I soon learned how opinionated (and often pushy) some people can be when it comes to breeding goats. Several experienced, trustworthy sources told me that once a goat reaches about 80 lbs, it can be bred safely. Others swore that goats bred earlier than a year old will have complications because they are too young. When I asked these sources to explain the negative effects of breeding a young goat (that was of an appropriate weight), the most common answer was to compare it to teenage pregnancies in humans. They "just aren't ready," was the response I was given.
As interesting as this point of view was, I could have pointed out that human teenagers have been having healthy babies for centuries. The social/emotional impact of having a child as a teenager is another issue completely, but let's be real here. We are talking about goats, not humans. I came to the conclusion that, as long as my goats were healthy and large enough, I was going to go ahead and breed them.
Other factors to consider when wanting to breed a goat include figuring out when your goat goes into heat and how you are going to breed her. Most goats have a window of time in which they go into heat. They are in "standing heat" for 3 days of this time period on a 18 to 21 day cycle. This is when they can actually get pregnant. So you first need to be able to recognize the signs of your doe in heat. Then you need to either get her to a buck or get a buck to her. Choices include scheduling a "date" between doe and buck. You bring one to the other and let them hang out for a while and hope the deed is done while you are waiting. You can also board your doe with someone who has a buck until she is "confirmed bred." Another option is to take the buck onto your property for a few weeks, which should insure that she is receptive to the buck for at least a few days of that period of time. We had a lot of choices to make.
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