The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: novicesmallholder on February 11, 2012, 01:25:09 pm
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Hi all,
have sheep at the moment, but thinking of supplimenting with some angoras.
Some questions I have if you could please help with before I plunge in headfirst!
Are they easy to keep compared with sheep?
Will the fencing I have be ok to keep them in - stock fencing with either post and rail or barbed wire
How many can you keep per acre? - ground is not lush grass but good enough to keep 4 big shropshire sheep per acre.
Is there a market for their wool?
Is there are market for offspring if we breed?
Any help and advice would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Mark
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I can't help regarding angoras as I have never kept them (though will be watching this topic with interest) but as a rule I find keeping my goats as easy as keeping my sheep.
However all of my sheep AND goats have access to shelter 24/7 for which local sheep keepers laugh at me.
That is the main difference, goats MUST have shelter at all times to use if they choose whereas sheep do not (mine would argue that just because they can make do without, it does'nt mean it's nice ;D)
Also feeding may be tricky, what is good for goats has too much copper for sheep, what is good for sheep is copper deficient for goats....
I get round this when mine are grazing together by penning them at feed times, the goats in their house, the sheep in theirs. They get let out when they have finished.
I split mine this time of year in the run up to lambing/kidding as feeding each species at this stage is easier for me to do seperately (different licky buckets etc, the goats would stay at the sheeps licky til it was gone :D)
HTH :wave:
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goats are like donkeys in this respect: people think they are tough - and they are, in a rocky desert-y place, but those places dont include rain and sleet and wind combined! Both are designed for dry warm places and both need good protection from the elements, more so than sheep do with their built in woolly radiators!
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Hi,
Can't tell you much about keeping them but ideally they should be sheared twice a year as the fleece grows quite fast and gets too long and matted if only shorn once.
Hope this helps,
Philip
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I have three angora goats. I have found them easier to keep in than my previous pygmies but they were very adept escape artists! Angoras graze grass a little more than other goats but otherwise are very similar. Stock fencing with a row of plain wire above will be fine as long as they have shelter from the rain. Their feet need quite a lot of attention trimming every 4-6 weeks unless you have a rocky crag in your field! Mine also get scald regularly :( They are quite soft animals and feel very sorry for themselves if there is anything slightly wrong with them and lay down looking for the world that they may die! Whereas a sheep has to be nearly dead before it shows any signs at all ::)
Philip is right with the shearing - and unless you want the mohair two shearings a year is a bit of a pain. We missed the last shearing last year because it got too wet and cold before we had chance to do it and they look like walking rugs now, although they won't be cold now even in these temperatures!
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sorry just realised haven't answered half your questions!! Not sure how many to the acre but they prefer longer grass not really short like sheep can graze. There is a market for the wool you can get between £3 and £5 per kilo. There is a British mohair society which can give more details. Not sure how the market is for offspring, you can eat them :o . Adverts on preloved and the like don't seem to sell really quickly - not like pygmies. There are one or two angora goat farms open to the public - in Cumbria and Wales - not sure where you are? It may help to have a trip out.
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"Will the fencing I have be ok to keep them in - stock fencing with either post and rail or barbed wire"
Please no barbed wire. We had one of our goats in the cattle paddock last year and she jumped the fence and her leg twisted in round the barbed wire as she jumped - we eventually put her down as she stayed on 3 legs even when the wound had healed.
I am taking all my barbed wire down slowly and having an electric wire alond the top of the stock fence instead.
And - one of my young ones can clear one and a half stock fence height!
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I don't have angoras, (thought about it for a while), just Toggs, but we do have barbed wire along the top of the stock fencing OH decided that, I hate it, but I have electric fencing running about 18-24" inside the fencing, so goats don't go near it anway, and won't try and jump it (yet)
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Question - if angora is produced by angora rabbits why is it that mohair is not produced by mo's?