It is a given that God created varieties of animals, because people are fickle. God enjoys different varieties of creatures within a genus, but for people they are not so bright as if there was only one variety they would not think beyond the variety, but when shown multiple varieties, they lust after one and the other, and find faults instead of strengths.
For this blog's part, there is only one variety of goat and that is the hybrid Angle Nubian, a cross between the English nanny goat and the Nubian goat. Logic dictates the English nanny was of high butterfat content, but of low yield and the Nubian was of high production and low butterfat, so crossing the two, a goat was produced of high production and high butterfat.
Butterfat is important if one is cold and requires food, or if one likes things like butter and ice cream.
Anglo Nubians are strong personalities and quite vocal. They are characters and just deserve their status as the heirarchy of goats.
Some are drawn to the high production Europeans in the Saanens, but I have no more use for them than the German Holstein cow, as it is like having a hen laying large eggs every day, in there comes a time in what in the hell is one going to do with hundreds of eggs or gallons of milk.
There is not enough market share to sell high cost milk or eggs, and recycling them back into hogs means one has to have more animals to keep.
The reason for this blog is the reality of something which is taking place when "experts" get ahold of any variety in ruining them. The AKC destroyed the Irish Setter and is in the process of ruining various breeds, including the Labs in too much line breeding causes hip problems.
In the late 1960's the America Quarterhorse had a breeding attack made upon it. Horses were bred down to these "POA" types of ponies that were light and absolutely worthless. This was then overtaken by the bulldog type of QH, the race horse type of QH and a combination type as the breed splintered to what it is today in a roping type, cutting type and a racing type.
America was much better when it had the old American type of brown frosted muzzles of horses which came out of the late 1800's America in draft and riding horses.
This is the warning for the Anglo Nubian as they are splintering in the ADGA into the Goldthwaite Bulldog types compared to the other types which are light boned and becoming structured in these awful loud pattern types of narrow chests.
The head of the Nubian is being fractured into the short Roman nose, the long Roman nose and the slimline head.
A milk goat requires a muzzle and head capable of digesting large amounts of food. That means a goat with a non pretty head, but a head capable of consuming large volumes of browse.
A goat is a browser, meaning like a turkey, requires leafy plants, wood plants, grasses, weeds and grains.
Body type means a large intestinal area to digest those plant products and turn them into milk.
It requires large bones also to keep them from breaking and to endure years of taking calcium out of the body and into the milk.
For the milk production, one must decide if one wants teats which are short for mechanical milking or long teats for hand milking. Homesteaders require long tits on any females they are milking, and the current "milk cows" in America have been ruined in their teats are short and impossible for males to milk by hand.
There are plusses in cattle in smaller teats in beef is necessary for calves to feed themselves easily. Too large of teats mean a cow will step on them or have them stepped on in winters and slicing them off, ruining the udder quarter.
For goats though it is important, that the teats be long in the 4 inch measure, for easy of milking. Milk goats should milk easy and not be like pulling teeth.
Nubians require constant feed, in grain rationing of about 1 quart per milking twice a day. This must be followed up on what I have found in browse "hay" which is a mixture of grasses, weeds and browse, as goats are always hungry and need to be eating with food before them in correct measures, so they do not over eat which causes problems in diarreah.
Water must be warm in winter to have them drink and always available.
Hooves must be trimmed correctly by hand 4 times per year.
Worming with Ivomec in triple dose to pound weight for the animals, in the spring and the autumn. Milk of course is not consumed during this time, which can range from 4 days, to 14 days in England to 30 some days in America.
One does not want worms as lung worms will have the goat coughing and kill them dead on their feet. The same is for the deer brain worm in a goat will go down and never recover.
Dead goats are no fun, so worm them and be happy as goats will last over 10 years easily with correct feed, shelter and maintenance.
The goatikins are fed 4 times a day with human contact as much as possible. I raise mine in my living room and put up with normal baby things, and wild goats at times. It starts out at perhaps a half cup on a small glass pop bottle with sheep nipple attached to a full bottle, but no more than a quart per day as a milk goiter will develop in Nubians, so feed will be available to them after two weeks in their picking what they desire.
The use of cattle and horse panels is the correct shelter with a hutch open to the south in winter. Panels keep goats in and predators out.
A daytime pasture enclosure is necessary as goats love to browse, loaf in the shade and enjoy themselves.
Goats will expire in too much heat so give them shade always.
Breeding is a matter of the does will rub on panels and wage their tail, along with an appropriate amount of clear discharge and swelling.
A buck will get the job done the first time and keep at it all day. They are quite animal in nature.
In most cases, the doe will within a few days have a white frothy discharge signaling they have been impregnated.
A nylon dog collar is the correct way to handle goats. Do not tie them up ever.
It is mandatory to have milking stanchion and a kid chute. In order to trim hooves, milk and handle necessary operations, as in the most trying in dehorning kids at one week old, in which one trims the hair from the nubs, then with a dehorning iron, one burns off the nerves in the first application of the screaming kid of no more than 3 seconds. One goes to the next horn and repeats.
One returns to the first horn and burns again for not more than 4 seconds, and attempts to prouduce a copper ring, and repeats on the other horn.
At this point one touches up the spots necessary for a few seconds of burning to gain the copper ring around the nub.
Then turning the iron on it's side one burns off the top of nub. Failure to do so will create a horn or a scur or horn fragment growing.
Do not ever put the hot dehorner for more than 5 seconds on the goatikin or you will burn the brain under that 1/16 inch of skull and kill the kid. Be patient and move from horn to horn to allow cooling and this traumatic time will be something not remembered.
Petting the goat on their back by another person and talking to them will distract them and keep the memory from being horrid for all.
Goats are pretty easy to work with and keep. I though have never met a goat breeder who did not think they were Einstein crossed with Obama in believing they were God's answer to knowledge.
One just needs a pen, as goats love to be in their pens in their little world. Shelter as goats hate to be wet and cold. Food to be available as they love to eat and warm water as they are fussy and the correct equipment to handle them, so they stay put and behave.
Goats also know they are smarter than you and in these times most goats are.
Some notes in I was told for scours that Knox Geletin in bottle milk of 1/3rd to 1/4 packet in two feedings cures them, providing of course it is not coccidious, which requires specific antibiotics to treat.
Goats love treats, and respond better to them. I use apple and carrot treats for horses, as it is easier to bait them with a treat than to chase them.
Get a dairy bell, a small one, so you do not lose your goats.
Nubians demand association. They will raise hell as they know how much time you should be affording them. Put them onto a schedule and a pattern and they will behave.
Use grain buckets on stanchions to get them into them. I have a cup hook on top of the milking platform I built in a rubber bucket I feed in, and I usually in having oats there, can not keep up with the goats as they load themselves.
Do not force a goat to do things, or they will remember you and make your life hell. Give them treats and they will figure it out and do things themselves.
My brother had a dog which decided it would be fun to bark and chase my does. My doe decided she hated that dog forever and promptly would head butt it, much to my brother's problem in thinking it was cute his dogs were misbehaving.
Dogs and goats are fine, if the dogs behave. Goats remember things and will never forget things. They do carry grudges to specific animals.
I would prefer that all goat owners were as me in knowing what breeding and care should take place, as I cringe in this Age of Obama in witnessing the destruction of the Anglo Nubian in the types now coming out.
The tells in Nubians are that white patch on the stomach and left side. The white flecked ears. The doe browns. The blacks, the Jacob's cattle patterns, the tans and the California camoflauge along with the spots which are disappearing as the new breeders are ridding the population of the different types, as Anglo Nubians should be like Jacob's Cattle in all types and colors.
That is too much information and not enough, but you children should have been learning all of this the past decade in gardens, horses, cattle, sheep, chickens and building fires when you had the luxury of making a mistake in it not costing you your lives.
Get a stainless steel milk bucket with a cover and guard it with your life. If you had sense, you would have two.
Goats are ugly and take some getting used to, but once one does, they tend to be a pet among livestock one ponders why they have not been utilized more as they produce a great deal of milk (my doe in full production will milk 1 gallong a day, twice a day.) and with stock panels they are easy to keep out of one's garden and orchards.
For the survivalist in the post Age of Obama and the homesteader, the goat is remarkable animal in providing more in life than what it costs.
You better get this right as time is running out.
nuff said
agtG
