Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

[frustratedearthmother]

Parasite resistance is THE critical characteristic I'm going for right now. But, I want to keep in mind udder correctness and other conformation stipulations on my list. It's hard because there aren't any perfect goats around so ya just have to pick your battles and go from there, lol. THIS is why I need to be able to keep a good sized sample herd to work with. (any excuse to keep goats works for me, lol)

 

[frustratedearthmother]

And THIS is why I don't mind when most of my goat kids are male - because I sell 'em and don't do anythng like disbudding or castrating. I just finished disbudding a whole bunch of babies. It was traumatic and I can't remember if I did 5 or 6, lol.

Probably more traumatic for me than them. I'm the one that has to dread it, think about it, dread it, plan for it, dread it, prepare for it, dread it, catch the babies, dread it, shave their heads, and spend about 30 seconds doing the actual deed - and hate all 30 of those seconds.

They only have to submit, or get tricked, into getting caught, cudddled, apologized to a million times, have 30 seconds of not so much fun, get apologized to, get cuddled, and run back to mama for comfort ninnie. Five minutes later they're running and playing with their siblings.

I've always hated it and I always will hate it. And, now - I stink!

 

[NH Homesteader]

That smell… 🤢 and are you doing all the girls or just the ones you did today? Disbudding was one of the reasons we got out of goats, it’s not a fun task!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

are you doing all the girls or just the ones you did today?

Lol - the original plan was just to do the ones I'm keeping. Several problems with that: I don't know for sure which ones I'm keeping - and I'm having a heck of a time telling some of them apart! So, the first one I grabbed I THOUGHT was the offspring of one of my favorite does and it ended up that I was wrong, lol. At this point - I'm just doing 'em as I catch 'em.

 

[tortoise]

Sounds like motivation to breed in a polled breed!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

One of the more colorful babies:

 

[flowerbug]

they don't have a shot or a pill for this! OMG... i'd throw up.

the smell of burning hair/skin is just one of those triggers for me. i can gradually desensitize myself to it but it takes a while. i'm not all that great with the sight of blood either, but my own blood doesn't bother me. it's just when i see someone else's blood i get a bit freaked out. yes, i'm not a farmer's child and i normally don't hunt. i did fish for years but i mostly did catch and release and only ate a few here or there.

i do hunt some creatures here and it does really bother me to have to do it. one of my longer term goals if i stay is to get the fences situated that i no longer have to hunt any ground animals and i'll figure out something else for birds if they become an issue.

 

[Medicine Woman]

I suppose there might be some benefits to having hornless goats but tell you the truth when I need to grab a goat, a set of horns is what I aim for. I believe we have a few pregnant does but we have two extra bucks 😔. We might as well make sausage.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Sounds like motivation to breed in a polled breed!

The first Myotonic goat I inquired about was polled. He was sold before I could get to him - go figger!

I suppose there might be some benefits to having hornless goats but tell you the truth when I need to grab a goat, a set of horns is what I aim for

Goat people are always debating this very issue. I know some folks who think horns are handy. I'm not one of them, lol. One of the first goats I owned was horned - she hung herself in a hay rack. I had another goat with just a scur...just a scur but she got her head hung in a fence. I didn't miss her until the next day. It was summer and she was near death from dehydration and the struggling she went through trying to get loose.

I had my kneecap nearly removed from my leg by the first horned buck I ever owned and I've seen udders destroyed by other horned does. A friend of mine had two horned bucks. They fought and one buck got his leg stuck between the other goats horns. His leg was broken and the other buck was dragging him around by the broken leg. He did not recover.

Nope - no horns for me. I teach my goats to lead by a collar. I don't need horns to grab. I kept Frankie for a year - breeding purposes only. He rubbed a hole in the side of my small wooden barn with his horns.

Other people have other opinions and I understand. It just doesn't work for me.

In thirty seconds I can remove a lifetime of possible problems. I hate it - but I do it for reasons that make sense to me.

 

[Medicine Woman]

Maybe if I had experience otherwise 🤷‍♀️