As of this morning, we have cut our final tie with the Nigerian Dwarf goat series of our life (aka the milk stand). Whew. That was a bad one. I mean, not BAD bad, but, perhaps “reconsider your whole life’s path” bad? We re-homed our little dairy herd back in July, so it’s been a bit, but I’m just now realizing how truly WRONG goats were for us. We read all the homesteading books, you know, the ones that say “dairy goats and chickens will make your every dream come true!” Yeah. Those. Sorry, but soooo not our experience.
I’ll break it down for you. But first, lemme say, I’m not AGAINST goats. I’m just against them HERE. And I’ll admit, we probably got goats in the most goofy, unprepared way possible.
Here’s how our goat story went down.
New friends leaving area, had two Nigerian Dwarf goat wethers (aka neutered males, so pets) and two Katahdin ewes (aka pets if you aren’t breeding them).
We were newly arrived and just ITCHING to get animals…so we said, “SURE, we’ll take ‘em!”
We didn’t have the right fence from the get go, although with goats, I’m not sure there is EVER a right fence. We really wanted to rotationally graze them, so we went with electric initially. That didn’t work, so then we went with welded wire fence, since our fence budget was in the negative (for new farm owners, woven wire is the way to go, welded doesn’t last at all).
Enter months of struggling to keep them in their pen, only to give up and let them freely range our yard and acreage.
It worked pretty well, except for when UPS would show up with a package, and the whole herd would gallop down the driveway, trying to follow the truck out. Fun stuff!
Then, I had the bright idea to add to the madness with two pedigreed Nigerian Dwarf does (aka expensive female goats) to try and get milk out of our so-far pet herd. One goat was bred, the other not…and not due for months. So no milk there, but you gotta have patience, right?
We were also preparing to move to our new yurt, from our rental house, and I heard our new location had TONS of coyotes. Enough that our neighbor wouldn’t leave his Great Dane out at night because the coyotes would kill him. YIKES.
So we brought in a livestock guardian puppy, Max. 
Of course, then I was worried the coyotes were going to get HIM. But no adult livestock guardians (LGDs) were to be found.
So at this point, we had moments of giddy “we have goats and sheep and an LGD!!” happiness, followed by dark “we have useless goats and sheep and a puppy” depression.
Enter the move. 4 goats, 2 sheep and one fluff ball of a puppy. In a white van. Lots of mud.
Fun.
Shortly thereafter, with the goats nonstop bullying the sheep out of shelter and food, we realized having two huge pet sheep didn’t make much sense if we were getting into the goat biz.
Luckily we happened upon someone who LOVED sheep, and happily took them off our hands.
Things were better then. There was peace(ish) in the herd, and hope…hope that when Katie had her babies, we would be swimming in fresh, raw goat milk.
Five.months.later, the miracle of a goat birth happened on the farm. It was amazing and magical, and some of you followed along on Facebook.
Her name was Tallulah, and she was (is) beautiful. And we had GOAT MILK.
Oh wait.
Since Katie only had one kid, that meant separating her was pretty difficult with no goat kids for Tallulah to buddy up with (and stay warm with).
So we left Tallulah with Katie 24/7.
Which meant, every morning after I cleaned and sterilized my equipment and went out to milk our dairy goat (yay!)….there was MAYBE half a cup of delicious, rich goat milk left for us.
It became a…joke? It was enough for Mike’s coffee, and that was it.
No cheese, no soap making, nothing.
Sigh.
The other goats tried to give Mike a stroke by consistently getting out of their fencing (even though we moved it far more than it was meant to be moved AND gave them hand cut brush/daily walks/plenty of hay), usually while he was on a conference call with work, and stampeding around and around the yurt deck.
Funny the first twenty times, not so much the next few hundred.
They also have an insane appetite for chicken food. And, since our chickens free range, their goat crack was pretty easily accessible.
Enter broken chicken coop and lots of McGuyver-esque attempts to fix the situation.
Double sigh.
Things finally came to a head when we realized we didn’t have any interest in getting a buck (male goat) to breed our does, and no close neighbors with goats to breed our girls. We were also looking at $500+ for winter hay.
Things just seemed far too stressful, and expensive (good hay is pricey, dontcha know)…especially considering I had only wanted to test goats to see if I liked having a dairy animal.
My dream has always been a dairy cow (I’m a cow and sheep girl from way back), but instead we spent who-knows-how-much on goats, AND I got rid of my pet sheep for those darn goats!
It wasn’t ALL bad though…check it out.
So that, my friends, is how we went from being innocent, impressionable city folk to being battle hardened homesteaders.
In short, if you like chaos…get a GOAT. But before you do, visit people with the breed and setup you want to emulate…talk to them, and really ask some hard questions.
::steps off of soap box::
PS. For those of you that followed along on the Max journey, I still miss him like crazy…but his new home is awesome, and we visited him for the first time this past weekend. He remembered us, and was super excited to show off his new digs. We’re planning to go back in April when he’s surrounded by baby goats.
I don’t miss THIS though.
And finally, because I don’t want to give goats a bad rap, AND I know lots of people are happy with theirs…I’m working on a collaborative ebook project, all about goats, with some pretty awesome goat tenders.
Check out the cover below. Like it?
Should be available via Amazon by mid-March.
This blog post is included in Simple Lives Thursday blog hop the Homestead Barn Hop and the Homestead Abundance blog hop.
Oh my, thankfully our girls haven’t figured out where we keep the Kubota yet
Dairy goats are a LOT of work, so thank you for being honest about your experience. It is especially important now, during kidding season, when many others may be about to be swayed by all the cute baby goat photos buzzing around the web and Facebook! It’s important for anyone considering goats to see, and read about, experiences, both good and bad. I often hear people talk about adding a goat or two to their farmstead, like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal. For one, goats are smart, sneaky, and determined. We had to build the caprine equivalent of Fort Knox just to keep our girls secure, and safe from Mountain Lions, coyotes, and bobcats, and they’ll be paying that enclosure off for years to come! I’m sorry your Nigerians didn’t work out for you, but goats aren’t for everyone, or appropriate for all homestead/farmstead situations. Max is a cutie though, both as a pup, and now he’s grown. That’s our next step, sourcing an LGD. We’d like to move somewhere with more acreage, but will need help to patrol it when we do, and we know it takes time to raise a good LGD before they can be left alone with the herd.
Love it – “goats are smart, sneaky, and determined.” Definitely them in a nutshell!!
I still love goats, from afar.
Max was an awesome LGD from day one, so we got really lucky with him and his new owners are beyond happy we re-homed him with their goats. I hear some people say LGDs are even better at getting out of fence than goats, so you’ll be well prepared for your next challenge!
PS. There are definitely “goat people”, that can handle the chaos with a laugh. Sounds like you’re one of them!
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud more than once while reading this post. But I feel your frustrations! haha My limited experience with goats has not been that great, but I want a dairy doe so bad I’m still trying to work things out. One day I hope to have a little herd of sheep in one pasture and a small herd of goats in another. And perhaps it’s at this point that I should re-read your post! Thanks for being so candid.
Ha, glad I’m not alone here. When I was working on the “Must Love Goats” book, I definitely was eyeballing some of the alpine does, and then I saw the photo of a goat with her head stuck in a chicken feeder. Snapped me right out of it!
We fumbled a bit by getting Nigerian Dwarfs, in my opinion, because full size really does give a lot more milk (and are a lot easier to milk re: teat size). Mike actually physically couldn’t milk Katie, his hands couldn’t grip without getting some udder in there.
It was good in that I actually really enjoyed the milking process…it’s so peaceful. So now I’m moving forward with my cow dream! Don’t let go of your goat/sheep dream…it could very well be perfect for you.
Christina,
Just reading your dream and I have to say…it sounds lovely.
And, just so you know, you can most likely pasture your goats and sheep together. We do 95% of the year with absolutely no issues (we only have a Ram though, no Bucks).
Rachael,
I wish I had had you as a mentor back in our sheep vs goat battle days!
I specifically remember one rainy, cold night having to go out and put a camping shelter up because the two wethers (this was before the does came along) had kicked the sheep out of their shelters.
Mind you, we had two HUGE shelters for the four of them…and there was a little dwarf wether in each shelter, basically thumbing their noses at the sheep.
And the sheep, poor sweet sheep, were just standing there soaking up the cold rain. Made me SOOOOO angry at those goats!! And a little angry at the sheep for not sticking up for themselves.
The other issue I constantly worried about was the mineral topic…so knowing how you handled it would certainly have eased my concerns.
I was wondering what all happened! Great story!
The cover of the ebook looks great! I like the title too
That being said, I’m so sorry that goats didn’t work out for your farm…of all the animals we raise, they easily make it into our top favorites. Fencing is so important though…goats are notoriously smarter than we are!
I’m not sure if you looked into it or not when looking for a LGD, but there are a few LGD specific rescues out there that have older working dogs for adoption. Often their owners have had to give up their farms so they need to be re-homed to a working home as they’ve never known any other life.
Can’t wait to download the eBook. You’re a gem for putting it all together!
You know, the thing that really stands out to me is…every farm animal (both individuals, and types) has a very different personality that will appeal to each of us in different ways. So often we just think about what the output is: meat, fiber, dairy, etc
In general, I think Mike and I prefer the “easy keepers”, not that any farm animal is truly easy…especially not in the dairy realm. I’m hoping pigs will be a good first experience!!
You know, in all of my research on LGDs, I don’t think I ever happened across an LGD rescue. I know that all of the Great Pyr rescues are very up front that they rarely come across a dog that would work as an LGD.
Would you post a link here? For others who might be on the hunt for a LGD of their own?
PS. I think it’s truly inspiring that you didn’t go with the norm, and rescued a German Shepherd for your first LGD! So many little tidbits like that from all of the contributors, can’t wait for everyone to get to read the gems I’ve been getting!
Excellent post. Having observed this from the sideline I am glad you can still smile about your adventure. You don’t even want to eat goat every night so you have no anger left over. You can chalk this up to a life experience, one that I am glad I haven’t had to endure but did get to watch.
Hope you guys are well, I will say you have the chicken thing down to a science.
You know, I realized how much of a depression I went through after we re-homed the goats and Max when I was going through my photos. I have almost no pictures and there are no blog posts. I barely even went outside. I think Mike was dancing a jig about the goats, but he missed Max as well.
It really felt like we had failed in our goals to be sustainable, which feels a little melodramatic and silly now…but was pretty intense at the time. I really hope others that are on the homesteading journey and struggling read this and realize it’s a steep, intimidating, overwhelming learning curve…but totally worth it!
Ready for the next adventure!
Thanks for the chicken compliment, still learning tons there too…but now that my time isn’t fully occupied with goats, I’ve found I really enjoy chicken tending!
Oh girl you have me belly laughing. I so know that story in my own life. Only our goats (at least one of them) would climb a tree and jump off on the other side of our 8 foot fence. No joke…we finally decided enough was enough…sigh. All was peaceful again till I decided that our Red Dog needed a playmate (enter Rosey) Do you know how hard it is to potty train a huge Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy who is determined not to be potty trained (and they go alot). Your post really made me laugh more because I so get it and it just feels good to know you aren’t the only one.
Debbie
Ha! Oh, goats. Sometimes I felt like our goats were the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, always casing the fence, looking for an opening. Put a little more nicely, I read once that goats are the mathematicians of the barnyard…they sure do know their angles!
Glad you now know you aren’t alone out there in the homestead adventure!
It’s actually refreshing to hear the other side of the argument on owning goats. Not every livestock animal is the right fit for every homesteader/farmer!
Hilarious and informative post! I’ve got my homesteading dreams all afire, and my Dad keeps shaking his head when I tell him about my desire for goats. Except, your post helped me realized they hey, guess what, goats might be monsters. Definitely something to think about!
Also, I’m in Virginia, too! I’ll have to look into your area. It’s…a little bustly up here by DC.
Thanks for the great post!
Monsters that you could love.
IF, you turn out to be a goat person. Kinda like the difference between cat and dog people, ya know?
Glad you enjoyed it, and YES, come down our way. Southwest VA, near Floyd is not only beautiful, it’s perfect for those fire-y homestead dreams!