[egglady]

ok folks, my goat keeping plans are progressing - or at least i think they are and i'm looking for some advice please.

we had kind of planned to get 2 milking goats - nannys that had already kidded so they were used to being milked and also we would get our milk straight away.

however, as is often the case in life, we now have a chance of a couple of kids.  they were born last month and would be ready about July time i think.

so i guess my questions are:

• do we want kids rather than grown ups
  how soon could we put them to the billy (assuming we couldt get one easily enough in Fife)
  do experienced goat keepers recommend AN's for newbies?

we do have lots of other animals so the whole animal husbandry bit doesnt phaze us at all.

many thanks as ever for advice and comments......

[jinglejoys]

No
18mnths/two yrs
no
 

[ballingall]

Hi,

It depends on what you want to do with them- if you get kids they will grow up with you and be nice and friendly. But you will have to wait longer for your milk- goats are best not put into kid until they are 18 months old, so next autumn, meaning they have kids about the time they are 2 years old. If the people who have offered you the kids, have kids, do they have any milkers for sale as well? If you got a milker with the two kids to keep her company, you would get your milk.

Also, this does mean you have to go through kidding, and learning to milk your newly kidded goats- certainly not impossible, but challanging at times.

Bill and Margaret Scott in Leven used to always keep a Anglo-Nubian male, but I am not sure if they still do. However I always have a male, so as long you get your animals CAE tested, you can bring them to my male.

AN's are great to keep- they are the breed I have. They are not as good supplying year round milk as some of the other breeds, but the milk they do produce is richer and creamy.

Who has offered you the kids if you don't mind me asking? I don't know anyone with AN's who already has kids.

Beth

[Anke]

In my opinion your best option is to buy an older nanny with her kids (preferably female), or an in-milk nanny with a companion (ideally last year's kid, now goatling). That would mean that you learn to milk and look after the goats, will have one goatling to put into kid this coming autumn and keep milking the nanny through the winter. That's what I did (in a roundabout way), only did not milk the nanny as she was just finishing off suckling the kid and the amount of milk would not have been worth milking. Put her back into kid and then milked the following spring.

Starting of with kids only means you have an expensive 18 months wait at least until you get ay milk, also having just two kids seems to make them a lot more naughty. They grow up to be much better behaved if part of a larger herd. My boss nanny (GG) puts the BT kids/goatlings and the BT type (much bigger than her!) into their places all the time.

If you can get a nanny that is already used to being milked you will have a headstart, as it can be quite challenging being the first person to milk a goat....

Anglo nubians are quite noisy goats (but very lovely nonetheless), so if you have close neighbours it may be preferably to go for a quieter breed. I know someone in Northumberland who might be selling some GG's and a GGXSaanen nanny (I think) later this summer. I am sure delivery/swap at a service station halfway would be possible.

The actual breed of the billy is only important if you buy BGS registered goats (which you should) and want to go into breeding. Offspring from crossbred registered goats can be registered too, and if milk yield rather than looks is important to you, just go by milkfigures of both billy and nanny. CAE testing is easy and important to do, vet just takes a blood sample.

Going round the shows this summer and speak to the goatkeepers there will give you quite a bit of insight, and also in my opinion buying stock from someone who is prepared to show his/her goats in public gives you more of a guarantee of getting sound stock from people who care. The price may be higher, but you know what you are getting. They may also have recommendations as to who else (not showing maybe) may also have stock for sale.

Best of luck!

[egglady]

thanks folks, i think that is what i thought, but great to have 'proper' goat keeper thoughts and advice.  I'll phone the lady tonight and tell her thanks but no thanks.  i know she doesnt have anything older cos we discussed that already.  Beth, I think she's out Alloa way but not exactly sure where.

so my next question is "does anyone have a couple of nanny's they'd like to sell please?"......or where I could maybe get some?

[ballingall]

Mrs Maddocks? She is at Coalsnaughton (Alloa-ish). They do have some nice goats, they always used to use pure bred pedigree males in the local area, so they do have fairly good stock.

Have just posted in the March thread about what we might have available- not sure yet. But I can also get you in contact with other people in the vicinity as well.


Beth