× Looking for minerals and goat supplies? Head over to our shop at GoatCare.com! I wanted to ditch shampoo for years but I was afraid of the process. No penny goes unpinched around here though and during a time of reduced income, I decided it was now or never. That was almost a year and a half ago and my only regret is that I waited so long to try. In addition to saving me tons of money, getting rid of shampoo has had unexpected side effects. My hair is much healthier, grows faster and has more body. Perhaps most surprising though is how this journey has helped me to love myself more. Here is the process I used to go shampoo free and the Read More
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The Birth of Nigerian Dwarf Goat Kids in Pictures
× Looking for minerals and goat supplies? Head over to our shop at GoatCare.com! Penny kidded today. We were so warm and cozy in the greenhouse that we didn’t notice the blustery, blowing snow outside at all. It was such a lovely experience, a textbook delivery of twins with no need for assistance. I sat back and watched while shooting these photos. From labor to delivery, here is a Nigerian Dwarf goat birth in photos.
So You’ve Gone in and Assisted a Birth. What Next?
× Looking for minerals and goat supplies? Head over to our shop at GoatCare.com! I am reminded today why raising goats isn’t for the faint of heart. Things are great when they’re great, but it sure can be intense when they’re not so great. I heard Silkie making noise and went out to find her already pushing, not progressing well with a backward breech who came out easily enough, but after low intensity contractions and no progress pushing on the second, I went in to find a mess. This isn’t my first mess, but I felt like sharing this glimpse of goat life for those of you thinking you might want to someday find yourself elbow deep in a screaming doe. 😀 The second kid, Read More
Sometimes Goat Kids Die
× Looking for minerals and goat supplies? Head over to our shop at GoatCare.com! This is a sort of melodramatic title for an issue that I feel needs to be addressed. When you deal with live animals, particularly with buying young live animals, there are an inherent set of risks that can cause injury, illness or death, even if the animal was well cared for prior to leaving the farm of origin. New buyers, with the help of comments on social media like, “A reputable breeder would have…” or “I would never sell an animal like that…” are often led to believe that anything less than a perfectly healthy animal for the first month has got to be the fault of the breeder they bought from. Read More
Natural Treatment for Lice in Goats
× Looking for minerals and goat supplies? Head over to our shop at GoatCare.com! Year after year, despite various changes in management, we would encounter lice in late winter and early spring in our goats. I found dealing with it incredibly frustrating since none of the effective methods were compatible with our goal of natural care. So each year I would resignedly use one of the powdered concoctions on them, hoping maybe next season I’d come up with a solution. All that changed last year, in 2018, when I re-read Pat Coleby’s book Natural Goat Care (aff), one of the few goat books I have that I recommend to people. It finally clicked. In NGC, Pat talks about how important sulfur is: “…animals receiving the correct Read More
Costs of Raising Goats in 2019
× Looking for minerals and goat supplies? Head over to our shop at GoatCare.com! About a year ago, I worked up what it was costing us to raise our registered Nigerian Dwarf goats. It was a fun exploration and I thought I’d do it again this year since a number of things have changed – surprise! The original Costs of Raising Goats concluded that our total annual cost per doe is $415 and $390 per buck. Let’s see how those numbers compare to 2019. Hay We changed suppliers this year at a vastly increased cost. We were paying $70/ton for hay from a family member. We switched to a no-spray supplier and, with the cost of hiring a semi for delivery and a couple kids Read More