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Category: Goats

Selenium Supplementation For Goats

Selenium Supplementation For Goats

Selenium is an essential trace mineral for goats and for livestock in general (“trace” means required in small amounts).   If you are raising goats in areas where the soils are deficient in selenium, you need to provide it to goats via supplements.  Why?  Selenium (Se) is important for growth, reproduction and immune function.   Symptoms of selenium deficiency include failure to gain weight, growth depression, decreased twins/triplets, reduced fertility, reduced kid weights, reduced kid vigor, and increases in susceptibility to bacterial…

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Bottle Feeding Baby Goats

Bottle Feeding Baby Goats

When the kids are born, it is important that they suckle from their mother as soon as possible.  The first milk produced after birth is called colostrum and it contains high quantities of antibodies, vitamins and minerals that are essential for newborn kids. In most cases, the doe will raise the kids herself and you will get to enjoy watching them grow and play.  Kids will nurse for 3 months or longer (every kid is different).  Nigerian Dwarf kids may…

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Deworming Goats

Deworming Goats

There are already articles on our website pertaining to goat health and goat nutrition.  However, because deworming goats is essential to the health of our goats, we decided to write a separate article pertaining to deworming them. _____________________________________________________ There is no getting around it.  Goats, in general, are very susceptible to internal parasites, especially stomach and intestinal worms.  These worms feed on blood and if left untreated cause anemia and death.  Infection typically reaches highest levels in summer when most…

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Goat Health

Goat Health

The “Goat Nutrition” post was dedicated to feed-stuffs that are essential forproper nutrition of your herd. But there is so much more to keeping your goats healthy. No matter how well you care for your goats you will not be able to protect them from all diseases, parasites, and other problems. At some point in time they will likely be exposed to some issue or problem. By acting proactively you can minimize exposure by preventing problems anddiseases versus trying to…

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Goat Nutrition

Goat Nutrition

The most essential piece of knowledge you need to be armed with to properly raise Nigerian Dwarf goats pertains to their nutritional needs that ensures they are healthy, strong, maintain production, and birth healthy kids.  Proper goat nutrition isn’t something you can really “experiment” with either. These small goats are tough and often times first begin to show nutritional issues when it is too late.  So, take notes!  Let’s start with the basics. In general, this is what every Nigerian…

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Polled vs Horned Goats

Polled vs Horned Goats

A customer called a little while ago wanting to purchase a few goats and asked about our polled first freshener.  His question was specifically regarding whether the polled trait would be carried through the male or the female.  Well, good question! For those of you who have not completed a college genetics class, let me answer this as simply as possible – traits (carried in the DNA of chromosomes) come from both parents.  It is the combining of those traits…

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Testing Goats for Pregnancy and Disease

Testing Goats for Pregnancy and Disease

The results are in. All of our goats are verified happily pregnant and the herd is disease free! When we send in blood samples to test our goats for pregnancy we additionally request tests for disease. While we have never had a sick goat, getting them tested every year for Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis (CAE), Johnes Disease, and Caseous Lymphadenitis (CL), provides some satisfaction that our goats are healthy and pregnant. TestingEach year after we send our service buck home with…

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Building a Goat Milking Stand

Building a Goat Milking Stand

We looked into buying a ready-made goat milking stand when we first started milking goats.  Depending upon the materials the stand was made of and what options (wheels, ramp, portable…) were included, you could expect to dish out anywhere from $250-$350 just for a basic unit.  So, of course, my DIY “I can do that cheaper and better” brain kicked in.   The fun part about making your own equipment is that you can make it any dimension you want…

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