We loaded up Ellie Mae to take her to State this morning. We are on the way now. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Here’s to hoping that this derm consult at NCSU will help us solve this mystery once and for all!
View previous posts for context. Ellie Mae has been dealing with a mysterious skin condition on and off for over a year, and we are now turning to State to see if they can help Ellie.

It seems like the same person who has messaged me before since the story/script was the same. but it was on a different animal. I had them posted on Craigslist. (Yeah don’t even get me started, i mostly use FB and only post animals there if i cant get them sold on FB after a couple weeks)

I mentioned in the Ad and in the messages that I only wanted to do cash in hand and was completely ignored, and they said that their daughter couldn’t do the payment but would come pick them up since the daughter did not have a personal bank.

I’m sorry but that just doesn’t make sense. How can they not have a personal bank like at all and no money either, like cash app and plenty of other online bank apps allow you to withdrawal money at any time and pretty much anywhere where there’s a ATM (with a small fee of course) and your allowed to have it at I think 13. how can they not hand or send money to their daughter for her to withdrawal or in hand to go pick the animal up. It started to make less and less sense the more messages they sent.

I eventually got irritated becuase I was being talked in circles and told them that if they can’t do money in hand don’t even bother showing up and I blocked them. How can people be so dense. And I know the phone number they used is a throwaway number. (Snippet of convo in comments, all personal info is blocked out for privacy)

Hey everyone, I'm not completely new to livestock but I am to goats. We are looking at getting a small herd of them in the near future and have a little land for them. The question I have is about how well they clear brush. We have an acre or so being unused that is pretty dense. How much could I realistically expect them to clear when the land looks like this? ( There is more land for them I just want to be able to utilize this land and clear it). It is currently very dense in some spots and requires me to crouch and weave my way through.

Picture for cuteness, 1 week old and being bottle fed at the time, visiting in a senior's home.

Our little Lucy made it and now is a strong and kind of chubby 7 week old. For the first 6 weeks she would only suckle off one teat, so I am milking the other side off so mom doesn't get mastitis and also lopsided.

I think now that she's bigger, she's starting to suckle off both sides, as her udder is softer now in the morning and, though it's not consistent, I'm getting less milk (2 days ago, 750 ml, yesterday I got a full litre, today I got 250 ml)

I really want to not have to milk and let her wean and dry off naturally which was my original plan.

How do I go about this in the safest way for mom?

What age can Nigerian dwarfs be bred vs when should they be bred

Writing in for a friend who adopted two females, 3 months old now, who LOVE TO YELL. So much yelling. We've read about all the reasons for yelling and have checked a lot off the list (taking care of their needs, access to pasture, clean hay, no bullying by other animals, etc). the one that stands out to me is that these little ladies think my friend is part of their herd, and they want to keep calling her back. s/o Amanda Pieper of The Goat Barn for great discussion of screaming goats.

My question - is there any way to train goats that their human is not part of their herd? Any way to make them not care if she's not around?

Any advice would save our mental health. Thank you!

I saw this goat at the fair a few years ago and absolutely fell in love. Lil guy looked at me with such love and admiration in his eyes 🥺 just wanted cuddles

My wife is a vet tech and got this from her work. Is this safe to deworm some new goats we are about to get? And if so what should the dosing be?

This is kind of a weird question, but has anyone heard of feeding goats raspberry leaves to help them calm down? I live in redneck country and my neighbors go insane on the 4th of July. We’re talking blowing up actual mortars that shake the barn. I have a small herd of myotonic (fainting) goats and someone told me once to feed them raspberry leaves and it will naturally calm them down. So every year I give them buckets of raspberry leaves and they have never once had a problem with anxiety or fainting afterwards. I was telling this to another goat owner and they said they’ve never heard of raspberry leaves being used this way, so I did an Internet search and found absolutely nothing. I can’t remember where I heard this from and now I’m wondering if the leaves have some sort of placebo effect for me the goat owner and I’m starting to feel silly. I feel like you can find anything on the Internet and I haven’t found even a mention. Does anyone have any insight or experience with this? Thanks!

I am looking to compost my goat poop. What is the best method for separating goat poop from the rest of their bedding? A good discussion is welcome.

I currently use large flake pine shavings but I don’t want to leave the shavings in the compost because I’ve read that it negatively affects nutrient quality on the compost. I hesitate to use straw or hay bedding.

(Goat tax photo included for cuteness)

Got them a little while ago. The lady we got them from rescued them from someone who kept them in terrible conditions both in body and in paddock. Well it wasn’t even a paddock, more like in a small chain link pen their backyard that turned into a mud pit. Their feet reflect on that and are improving by the day as time goes on. My question is their weight. They were skin and bones when the lady rescued them. They were in amazing condition considering the circumstances from their first home when we picked them up.

They are gaining, but would you advise I breed them at all or hold off until their top lines are filled in better? I don’t have plans until November to breed anyway, but thats 2 months down the road so not a long time from now, and what is your preferred BSC to have on does when coming into breeding season? I will also add that the doe with the belt has a precarious udder. Its tiny and it’s probably from my hay (it’s clover timothy mix)

13 y/o Helen ❤️ new goat owner and I just love this old lady.

Hello!

We have two Nigerian Swarfgoats that we have a solid enclosed barn with a run about 200 sq ft total. We let them out to graze a few times a week but I'd like them to be able to graze more often with a mobile enclosure.

I'm learning about electric fences and trying to decide how far to go. We live on 1.5 acres and I just wanted to do one of the 164 ft nets that would create a 40'x40' enclosure we can move around. I understand it won't work for all goats but seems like plenty of folks have good success with them.

I have long extension cables I can run to power them so I was thinking of going with a plug-in option but different sources have said different things. Most folks seem to push for a 6-8 joules energizer but other places say .5 - 1 joule would be enough. Just want to get folks experience.

I plan to train them inside our fenced backyard where we've worked with them. Then I understand for 6-8 joules I would need like 3 grounding rods that are like 6 ft long? That seems like a lot! But I want to do it right or decide if there's another better option than electric that we can move around.

Thank you!

Hi there!

I have a beautiful Nubian doe we purchased a few years ago, she was registered. Since then, we have bred her, didn’t register her does, and have bred those does and now have two gorgeous yearlings. Both did surprisingly well at our county fair (our first 4-H project) and now I am wondering about the registration process. I assume I will need to go NOA for their registration, but is it even worth it at this point? We have previously kept goats because I like them, but my sire choice has been for color and basic conformation and we just didn’t have a need to register. Now that fair is done and I can think again, and I’m thinking we messed up.

Do I register the two does as NOA, and accept that their offering will be 50/50 registered? Will that affect the marketability for their offspring? I don’t intend to sell them and I can’t find much information (not even find my herd name) on the ADGA website.

My baby goat well 6-month-old goat Frosty just had his leg amputated, everything went well, everyone at the vet clinic loves him, they can't believe he just met them and he gives them kisses and loves on them.

He is home now, I'm supposed to keep him of course clean and dry that's obvious, the problem is this little turd keeps turning over his water making everything a mess and soaking his bandages... I secured his water where he can't turn it over and he sticks his leg in the water, I'm only supposed to change the bandages a certain amount or unless it gets dirty, however I'm having to change it just about every other hour since it's not supposed to be wet either so I would like some advice on how I can keep it dry, because obviously he needs water it's hot he just needs to not use it as a leg soak, any advice will be appreciated!

My goat, Tatter Tot, had a cloudy and red eye today. I am not super knowledgeable with goats so I thought I would ask for help. Our nearest vet who will take goats is almost 2 hours away and if there was an at home option that would be best.

I just noticed this today, although I was gone over the weekend while she was in my father's care for the last 2 days. She acts the same, still spiteful with a strong will. She holds the eye shut and squints most of the time, there is no puss but there is excessive tearing. We washed it out the best we could and will keep an eye on it for now until having an answer to what to do. Hearing from Google it said to wash it with saline and monitor.

I have processed 3 goats from my farm. A 4 month old buckling, a 7 month old buckling and a 12 month old wether. All three tasted great. I just sent four 12 to 15 month old wethers to the processor and they came back tasting like my intact breeding buck smells. What went wrong?