Goats for Self-Sufficiency

[frustratedearthmother]

@tortoise - have you ever considered teaching your guy to pull a cart? That's another thing I forgot to mention. Goats have been used not only as pack animals, but also to pull carts, for eons!

 

[tortoise]

Yup, fem, it's on the list of things I'd love to do. Low priority though and unlikely to happen.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Yes a farm in NH is doing that with their Kiko herd!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

good tips!

 

[tortoise]

My goats LOVE pine needles pine bark, pine branches, pine sap. I tethered out my big boy and he pruned up the trunk of a pine tree and "weedwacked" the edge of my patio. Good boy! I hate weedwacking, so I use him whenever possible - just far away from my hostas!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Mine love 'em too. There's one pen where they can reach a pine tree over the fence and they keep it well - pruned!

 

[rodeogirl]

I'm tossing around the idea of getting goats when I get my property. If I get them it would be for both milk and meat. Possibly even for my little boy to show at fair so I'd have to have a breed thats good with kids.

 

[rodeogirl]

I'm very strong on the idea of I have to get more than one use out of my livestock before I'll even decide if I want to buy them or not.

 

[sumi]

I'm glad you said this @NH Homesteader I've been thinking about getting goats "one day" for awhile. I would like to milk them, but I do not want a lot of milk, so I was thinking smaller breeds, just two or three goats. If/how I can keep it all small and manageable, but when I look at goats for milk, everyone goes for the bigger breeds and gallons of the good stuff daily.

 

[NH Homesteader]

I think minis or kinders are the perfect homestead milk goat myself. But I'm biased towards my mini alpines! I have no need for full size goats (yeah I want golden guernseys but they're the smallest of the full size goats), and Nigerians don't give enough milk for me. Full size goats eat a lot, milking season or not! For me, I want a goat that gives plenty of milk more because I'm feeding it anyway, so I want to get a decent convesion from that feed. But a lot of heavy, heavy milkers are hard to keep weight on, so I am just as concerned with parasite resistance and general hardiness.