The first question is milk or meat goats or both? I think i want both
Where can we get them?
My new property is 40 acres of brush. Water is available.
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Just watch they donât eat the wood off your outbuildings too.
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He could have been Clark the pear man
He could have been Clark the pond builder
He could have been Clark the solar power guy
Under all the layers, he is actually Clark the goat herder! 
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A farmer always has options
https://pethelpful.com/dogs/five-most-popular-livestock-guard-dogs
https://modernfarmer.com/2014/06/modern-farmers-guide-guard-donkeys/
Some dogs become pretty protective of their goats Animal shelter near me: Goat and dog dynamic duo living in harmony at Wake County animal shelter in Raleigh, NC - ABC7 Chicago
If you prefer cows remember calves are dirt cheap FARM SHOW Magazine - The BEST stories about Made-It-Myself Shop Inventions, Farming and Gardening Tips, Time-saving Tricks & the Best Farm Shop Hacks, DIY Farm Projects, Tips on Boosting your farm income, time-saving farming advice, farming tractors and Agriculture equipment reviewsâ%20health%20is%20better.
Raising goats might be a wise choice. There are water shortages for cattle all over my area as ponds dry up. Ultimately beef prices should begin to fall. Some people believe in climate change and others just believe what they see in front of them right now.
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When I was a very small kid we had goats. I donât remember them well but I do recall Dad saying they could climb right over the wire fence. And I know that if they get into poison ivy you wonât want to drink the milk!
As for llamas- our daughterâs mother-in-law was nearly killed by one once when she wandered onto its area while jogging. The thing sat on her, and she got away only when the rancher showed up. Since then she has carried a cattle prod, no lie.
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@clarkinks the problem with goats in orchards for brush management is goats can also attack trees. I am not saying it is not possible. But, the herds need to be actively managed with fences and other meansâŚ
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yes. they will strip all the bark from any tree they can reach. and they are good climbers and escape artists but they are very effective at clearing land of brush. just need to protect the trees you want to keep. id get some meat boer goats if i had the land though goat meat flavor depends on what they are eating. some people dont care for it. the milk that i had was similar in taste to cowâs milk but some have tried it and they say its too ââgoatyââ. the milk i got was from a Nigerian dwarf. they have a high fat content milk. if you want a easy to handle goat that cant reach as high and still have decent milk production i recommend Nigerians. if they are stubborn, you can pick them up to move them. very intelligent as well.
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I had goats when I was in veterinary college - while still living at home on the farm with Mom & Dad. Containing them was mostly an exercise in futility. When graduation was coming up, Dad told me, âSon, I love you, but when you leave, the goats have to go, too.â He was tired of them constantly eating his flowers and the buck getting up on top of cars. They did, however, save the hay barn from a grass fire, started by a passing motorist throwing a cigarette butt out the window⌠older does were reluctant to brave the electric fence, and had effectively eaten/trampled a âfirebreakâ just inside the barnyard fence, so the fire played out before it could get to the barn full of dry hay.
Iâve seen claims that the only effective way to contain goats is to build two 10-ft tall concrete walls, 20 ft apart, fill in the space between with water, and stock it with sharks and piranhas. Thatâs not far from the truthâŚ
I have a particular preference for Nubian goats (as well as bloodhounds and Brahman cattle⌠I guess itâs the droopy ear thing), but Nigerian Dwarfs seem to be a very good choice for a small family milk goat. If you intend to milk⌠itâs best not to have a buck around⌠they up the âgoat stinkâ thing exponentially. Commercial goat dairies milk does for several years without having to have the does re-bred to âfreshenâ (give birth)⌠whereas dairy cowsâ production drops off significantly during the typical 305-day lactation period, needing a 60+ day âdryâ period before freshening and starting a new lactation.
That said, goats will effectively reduce brush. I had the abstract for a late 1980s WVU study comparing âbrush clearingâ using goats, sheep or cattle⌠but canât put my hands on it⌠but, in essence: âIn one grazing study in West Virginia, goats reduced brush cover from 45% to 15% in one year while sheep took three years to achieve the same results. After 5 years of grazing goats had reduced brush cover to 2%.â They did - and will - strip bark from any/all trees, so will likely not be a desirable component of vegetation control in an orchard.
Goats are BROWSERS, and as long as their diet is principally coarse, brushy materials, they do great. But⌠once all the browse is gone, and theyâre reduced to GRAZING - or if theyâre pastured, with no browse available, gastrointestinal parasitism will rear its ugly head, and death losses are not far behind.
Infective larvae of the barberpole stomach worm (Haemonchus contortus) can only âswimâ 4-6 inches up the vegetation on dew/rainfall moisture film, so as long as goats are browsing above that level, they donât experience heavy infection rates, but if reduced to having to graze, they rapidly accumulate heavy parasite infection rates.
An adult Haemonchus can âdrinkâ up to 1/2 cc of blood per day⌠when you have 10 lb. kids with thousands of worms in their stomach, they can very quickly be exsanguinated⌠and they look happy and healthy one day, just before their RBC count hits âcritical lowâ, and you just find them dead, or down and severely anemic the next day. Adults can be similarly impacted⌠it just takes them longer to reach critical anemia levels.
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Lucky you know this already but ill post for others. theres a test to see what kind of worm load your goat is carrying. you push on the upper eye and look at the inside of the lower eyelid. the color gives you a rough idea of the worm load. in the 3 years ive had my nigerans the load stayed very low to nonexistant but my goats never touched grass despite being in a small enclosure that was once lawn. they preferred the weedy hay i gave and occasional pellets. maybe if they had nothing else they would . but mine thankfully dont. mine absolutely love evergreens. its their 1st choice of prunings i give them. some evergrens are good for deworming ive read . like cedar but too much could be toxic
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I wonât suggest this is a good idea -ask Lucky and Steve- but a friend of mine used to give his goats a bit of Copenhagen, claiming it was a good wormer.
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ive heard of that as well. makes sense as tobacco juice sprayed of plants is a good insecticide/ fungicide. i have some dried tobacco leaves that i grew that ive been using to make a spray for my plants. ill see if they will eat a few.
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We had nubian that picked up a brain or spinal cord deer worm and was left partially limp and deficient. A bug heartache.
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Two years ago while hiking in a state park I saw a large fenced area with very heavy brush and goats. The brush was so dense it was hard to see the goats. It was part of an experimental brush clearing program. I havenât been back there to see how successful the goats were.
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Thereâs a local effort that uses sheep to graze and area (Waterworks Hill) for yellow toadflax and I gather itâs at least of some use. They move a local herd in and have hired a herder from South America who spends the summer with his horse and dogs keeping the sheep in the right areas.
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I think itâs terrific. Sweet, lean. Some people love lamb, I much prefer goat.
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Check with the 4H club leader. Some cows will clean out brush. I have Dexters they eat most anything.
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Scottish highlanders like brush too
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Tobacco was long used as a âdewormerâ. Notice I didnât say an âeffective dewormerâ.
At the appropriate dosage levelâŚ
- How much tobacco can you feed a goat, IF they will eat it, before you reach a potentially toxic-to-the-animal level of nicotine?
- Does nicotine content vary across different types/brands of tobacco? Here in western KY, two very different types of tobacco are grown - Burley and Dark-Fired⌠they look very different in the field, and are cured/handled very differently from one another⌠Burley typically is incorporated into âsmokingâ products, while Dark-Fired typically goes into âchewingâ tobacco.
While tobacco-derived nicotine may kill (or immobilize) some adult stages of some nematode parasites in the intestinal lumen⌠such that you can visualize them when excreted in feces, it likely does nothing against migrating or encysted larvae that are present in sites other than the intestinal lumen - or tapeworms.
Safer, more effective anthelminthics have been developed and have been available since 1950, when piperazine came on the market, followed in the 1960s by the benzamidazoles, tetrahydro-pyrimidines in the 1970s, macrocyclic lactones in the 1980s.
I see that the average cost for a pack of cigarettes in the USA is $8 ($5.88 here in KY), and a 1-oz pouch of pipe tobacco goes for $10-$25. Iâm pretty sure you could effectively deworm a 1200 lb cow, horse, or 12+ goats with a âmodernâ anthelminthic, chesper than you could by feeding costly tobacco.
$8.00 a pack⌠whew⌠Iâm sure glad I quit smoking 35+ years agoâŚ
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I recommend absinthe. & as a side benefit, your goats will become much more artistic
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