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Posted by Helene on November 02, 2001 at 07:22:45:
In Reply to: Re: Topic of the Day - Picking a Goat (Part 1) posted by nancy on November 02, 2001 at 06:16:32:
LOL..our "How Not To Do It" is almost the same as yours.
We originally wanted goats for brush control. Mike knows a lot of people with goats and he had heard that there was someone selling his goats, he was not going to raise livestock anymore, did not have the time. He had 6 Spanish, 3 were adult females the other32 were their babies, one each, all were females except one baby who was a beautiful silver looking billy..his name was William (pretty original hu?). As a bonus the mama's were also bred with a boer. So we bought them. This guy had his goats in woven wire, but Mike knows several who have theirs behind electric fencing. Sooo that is what he did..spent 2 weekends putting up electric fencing. We get the goats, my mom, brother and nephew were at our house visiting.
First of all these goats were not paid attention to enough so they were skittish with humans. They had never been petted or anything. So night one was ok. The next day comes around, Mike gets up at 4am to go to work..all was ok. The school bus comes at 6:15 for the kids, my one son was looking outside his bedroom window and sees one goat at a time leaping the fence like deers..Down the road they go. Then a car comes so back up the road they come..on to our front lawn..then down the road they go again..then another car..and this goes on for about 30 minutes. Then I decided I would drive the kids to school..so down the road goes me, my brother and my older son..calling here goat here goat..and they are in an empty lot looking at us like we are crazy. They were not about to come to us..no way no how. We brought feed etc..didn't work..Keep in mind I am in my sweats, hair sticking straight up in the air because I had just gotten up, and my mom is following far behind with a video camera.
So nothing we could do, They spent the day comming back to the house then back to that field again..Funny they knew were to come..Mike comes home..and says just go out..leave me here alone and maybe I can get them..We get home a few hours later and there all the goats are..all penned up in a quick coral Mike built when we were gone. I asked him how he got them in. He layed feed out, and went over to the other side of the yard where he was doing some work..watched them all go in one by one and then after the last one went in, he shut the door behind them. We had to keep them in there until we could work something else out..Put more strands of hot wire..but not all of them would stay behind it. Needless to say we only have the new babies left..got rid of those escape artists. We have definatly learned how to choose our animals..although once in a while if we see one that we feel needs saving, we will buy it.
Me personally I like the dairy goats and want to raise them for the milk and the products I can make with the milk. My preference is the LaMancha Breed. Although I am thinking I would like both LaMancha and Newbian. My husband, he wants to raise for the meat. So he likes the boer breed. Needless to say if I can't get my Eris to a LaMancha Buck soon we are going to wind up w/boer goats w/no ears..LOL..
We we are going to stick with the Spanish, LaMancha and Boers..and probably a few newbians. Definatly have learned our lesson on who to get our goats from, and what to look for..although we are still learning and probably will never know it all (smile)