Oh, Yoda!

Back before I was married, only about five years ago, my best friend and I had a horse rescue/flipping business. In one year we re-homed 23 horses... and one goat.

We called her Yoda. We bought her on a whim at the auction we frequented and brought her home in the back of my Cherokee-- which was never the same again. Advice: buy a tarp before you buy a goat!

Within 24 hours she had demolished her goat pen, showed up about 1/4 a mile away at my house (how did she find me?), introduced herself to the horses and been set up as their queen, and made friends with the hereto hostile neighbor next to the horse property. He hated horses, but worshipped on the throne of Yoda.

Yoda was personable and friendly, she had a great habit of chuckling in response to being talked to, and following everyone around. This made the fact that she had horns and such bad mastitis she was no good as a milk goat negligable-- she was loveable, personable... and just great.

She was rehomed to a place where she became a "mama" to bottle-fed baby goats at a goat farm.

Yoda, plus growing up with goats until I was 5 or 6 is one of the reasons I want goats so badly. I love them and their personalities. 

But Yoda also set a high standard. She was intelligent, she was friendly, she was CUDDLY. She would rather have her head scratched then eat. She would rather have a conversation and follow a person around than anything else. She was never aggressive, never unpleasant, and completely loveable.

"Flower" and "Mater" have a lot to live up to!

Penelope

My FIL brought us a goat-- a single goat, who was used to being a HOUSE goat as someone's pet. Lovely and sweet, she was miserable alone and cried all night, even when I gave in and barricaded up the kitchen and set up a place for her.

Still, I was working towards a good solution when she started rearing up and threatening me and my sons.

Now, I have been around goats enough to be *shocked* by this behavior. Good goats don't do it and those that learn it cannot unlearn it. Sadly, I knew that she was not the goat for us, as well as that the timing was off... we're planning to get our goats when we get back from a trip to Utah.

My MIL scoffed at me and told me that "you don't really want goats, they're all noisy and cranky and they ALL butt people around."

I said that I'd been around goats and that was obviously not true. She gave me the "I pity your idiocy" look and I... well... went and pouted. :) Hey, I'm not perfect. But I'm going to prove her wrong. And, honestly, the pouting was because my darling husband was agreeing with her and I felt undermined.

Pooh.

BUT. We found her a new home and she's happy and the new owners love her. AND we'll get my original choice of goat when we get back from Utah. And I will MAKE this work. :)

And people call me pessimistic :)

Surprise Goat...

Meet the Goats!

Meet our new goats, due to arrive here to live with us after our trip to Utah this March. The wether (neutered male goat) is the gold and white with the green halter (behind the roan nubian). The doe is the white one.

They're full brother and sister-- with a nubian sire and a saanen dam. This should make the doe produce a good quantity of good-tasting milk. She's being bred to a Boer buck, which will probably mean that the kids are destined for the freezer. Next year I'll breed her to a Nigerian dwarf and try for some mini-Saabians :).

The wether is to keep her company. Goats do not do well alone. I got him free, so I can't complain :).

What would you do for a glass of Milk?

This is one of those things that I feel passionately about, but have run into that inevitable evil wall of... TIMING.

I've never been able to tolerate cow's milk. In fact, my tolerance of ANYTHING pasteurized seems non-existant, but that's another story. Over time I've realized that I'm BOTH lactose intolerant, AND I have issues with the milk itself... meaning any lactose treatment leaves me with half my symptoms :). Sunny also shows signs of at LEAST half of the problem when he has milk.

On top of that, I have no (bodily) tolerance for legumes or nuts-- they spell migraine to me-- which leaves me with rice milk, which, for whatever reason, causes sugar issues with me.

I can handle some cheese (in moderation), no yogurt, some sour cream (moderation)... BUT the whole problem goes away when the dairy in question comes from a GOAT.

I can eat goat cheese, goat yogurt, and drink goat's milk.

Yeah, but goat's milk costs about $6 a quart.

(See how much stress this is to eat a bowl of cereal?)

Because of my long-term milk issues, I'm usually very calcium deficient. My diet is really restricted already, esp. as I'm expecting again, which means I have food aversions to just about every existing protien out there. But I *crave* milk. You know that moment when you need something creamy and wholesome? I can't do that!

So, I've been doing my homework about owning a goat. We can in this neighborhood, as long as the pen is 20 feet from our house. I've been mostly looking into Nigerian dwarfs, as they are smaller, tend to be mild-mannered, and have sweet milk. They're perfect for a suburban situation. I'd say I'd only want ONE, but have been informed many times that that means a sad goat, so I'd either do two does OR one doe and a wether (neutered male goat) as a companion.

OK, so Hubby's issues were:

1) What do we do with the kids? (Baby goats, not ours)

2) What if we want to do a trip or need to go away?

3) What about when our baby comes?

1) There are two answers to this one: sell, or eat. The university farms allows us the ability to drop off babies and pick of anonymous white-wrapped packages. OR-- selling kids allows us to revamp our initial expense of acquiring the goat (more on that later).

2) Fias Co Farms has a program they follow where the kids have access to the doe through-out the day-- have a slumber party at night-- and then the doe is milked in the mornings... ONLY. Milking once a day is less stressful for sure-- as is not needing to bottle feed the kids. On going out of town, you just leave the kids with mom and, voila, problem solved! Of course, if we sell the kids, we have to milk once a day, still, but that's really not that big of a deal!

3) There are two things about this situation-- if we got a goat in milk NOW, we would want to re-breed her in July or so, so, no milking with the new baby. If we bought a goat and then bred her now, she'd either be due at the same time as me or a few weeks after (depending on timing)-- we'd have the babies exclusively on mom for two weeks, so again, I don't think that's an issue. (AND WHY does everyone give me a hard time about when I have a new baby? I'm not that bad- everyone has give me a bad wrap, people!)

MY concerns, with the above addressed are, namely, disbudding (ICK), and neutering (ICK). I can do it, I've helped before. They're just... not pretty. And I know Hubby won't help, because he's squeemish.

I have a Nigerian Dwarf buck picked out if we needed to breed ourselves.

Which brings us to...

Where is the money for buying coming from?

Well, because this really is this important to me, I'm working out trading some of my craft supplies, like my loom and a dress mannequin I have, or selling them to raise the money. Is this fun? No! Is it worth it, YES!

A lot of fuss over a glass of milk... but... so worth it!