[fiestyredhead331]

whats not to love about goats 

they are easy to handle, to my mind they are like a cross between a dog and a sheep. They can be your best friend and sit with you for hours but still have that independent streak.
Even on the roughest day they can make me smile and laugh with their nonsense, plus there's the usual milk (cheese etc), meat and skins.
but they are so addictive, my herd started with 1 and now I have 20  but I wouldn't swap them for the world and can't see myself never having a few goats about the place

[clydesdaleclopper]

One of the downsides - when your OH announces that he's just been cuddling the most beautiful girl in the work and he not talking about you but about a little spotty Anglo Nubian 

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Clydesdale I'm already there


When he comes home and says "hello beautiful" I don't answer as I know he is talking to the cat


Well MGWoM your new man sounds wonderful and I'm glad you got the chance to wear your short sleved pully 


I used to milk Toggs, Anglo Nubian and Saanen, but havent handled boer or GGs. I was hoping that one of you would tell me that they are great at clearing pasture between sheep and pigs or brilliant for keeping my solitary rams company but I guess that would be geese not goats.    I have just had a look on preloved and they seem to fetch far more than sheep would for castrated males at least. £140 for a pygmy wether is more than I could get for a meat ram lamb.

Looks like they will have to stay on my wish list untill I can keep them purely for pleasure as I dont want to add milking to my list of smallholding chores and my sheep give me all the meat that I need.

[cuckoo]

If you want a pair to raise for meat then I might be able to help you out - I wont be bottle feeding male kids due to time so unless they are exceptional I will be selling them at 4 days old. They are due feb - April

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Oh Cuckoo!


          when you say "helping".......   That's not really helping when a person would really like some but cant justify them financially is it 


 And then your gona tell me that they will be really cute wont they....? and free to a good home.....? and local, though no doubt you would probably be passing this way and offer to drop them off.......?


Ooow now look what you have done........

[clydesdaleclopper]

Buffy Pygmy goats are always really expensive - much more so than dairy goats if you are after castrated boys

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Why is that CC?


 Do pygmies have a purpose other than being terribly cute?

[cuckoo]

I am afraid they wouldn't be free and probably not considered cheap at £50 for a few day old kid but the herd is CAE / CLA / Johnes tested, lambivacced, wormed and foot trimmed regularly and bred for quality and health so might offer a good start. 

They are very local and taste very good!

[Buffy the eggs layer]

I'm glad that they are not free Cuckoo...I would have been powerless to resist. I'm a sucker for toothless gift horses


I'm guessing that you take them off in order to milk their mums then or are these the boers kids? So they need to be bottle fed to about 5 weeks ish and then fed concentrates and grass? Am I right in thinking that it costs more to raise a goat for meat than a sheep? Is that why its not viable for you cuckoo?


Do you castate them or leave them intact?


I have never located the goat farm at Seaton Ross but have come across lots of people who have worked there.I will have to google it.

[Anke]

Why is that CC?


 Do pygmies have a purpose other than being terribly cute?

No, none whatsoever, is the short answer... but that answer has landed me in the bad books with a few pygmy breeders...

[Buffy the eggs layer]

So do Pygmy breeders feel that the breed do have a practical purpose Anke?


Perhaps when you are that cute you dont need to have a practical purpose.....? Paris Hilton seems to have traded on that principle very successfully......

[Rupert the bear]

Blasted wast of time !!
will engage you in meaningless conversation, never lie to you , never make unfulfilled promises and give unconditional love ( as long as there are carrots involved )

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Hmmmmmn   Sounds like a vegetarian I once dated Rupert 

[Anke]

So do Pygmy breeders feel that the breed do have a practical purpose Anke?


Perhaps when you are that cute you dont need to have a practical purpose.....? Paris Hilton seems to have traded on that principle very successfully......

Well I just think that to qualify as a "smallholding/farm type animal" they would have to have a purpose additional to being cute.... but it seems a lot of "smallholdings" just keep them for what exactly I cannot think of..... because - "proper" goats are as cute/friendly/people-orientated as pygmies AND give milk/meat into the bargain as well (and before anyone asks how can I eat such cuties - they should come and visit my 10 months-old wethers at the moment, horrible teenagers may be the best word to describe them (the girls can be just as bad and they try and get sex all the time  , but they have names, the boys don't).

[Buffy the eggs layer]

I think eating any of them is hard. Well it's not really the eating I find difficult I suppose, Its knowing that no matter how trusting, friendly, intelligent or characterful they are ( yeah ok and how cute). I know that I cant justify keeping them as pets. So no matter how much I would love to keep them they have to go.


My ram lambs are the the friendliest, confident, responsive, cuddly chaps that you could hope to find and continue that way into adult hood but I end up selling them or butchering them because I cant have fields full of rams who spend all their times cracking each others skulls. 


One day though I will have one of those smallholdings that has lots of cute but non productive pets and that will definitely include some pointless pygmies.