Debbie is a friend on our Facebook Farm page and she sent me the cutest story that I wanted to share with you all. Thanks Debbie for sharing!
Our first goat
My name is Delilah and my family and I currently own 2 Nigerian Dwarf goats and are expecting babies this spring. But before the Dwarfs, we have owned several different full-sized dairy and meat breeds, made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot about goats. One of our more humorous goat ventures was the time when we bought our first goat.
When we finally moved to a place with enough land for farm animals, we decided that we wanted to get a dairy goat or two. Nothing fancy, just healthy animals that would produce enough milk for our family. We knew almost nothing about goats, so we read "Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats" front to back several times, as well as the goat and dairy sections of Carla Emery's "The Encyclopedia of Country Living". We bought a milk bucket, and had a space in the barn all cleared out and bedded down with straw.
After months of watching in the papers and on bulletin boards, we still hadn't found any dairy goats for sale, so we decided we'd try the local livestock auction.
One Friday morning we all got up and got ready (and this was no easy matter because at the time we had a 2-year-old and a 10-month-old, besides myself, then 11, and my sister, who was 9) and headed to the stockyard.
When we got there, we could only see a few goats down in the pens on the floor, and people weren't allowed down on the floor to look at the animals. (probably a good idea, judging by the size of some of the bulls in the pens down there!) So we went back outside and around to a pen of goats that could be seen from the parking lot. There were a couple of bucks in the pen, and several little white does with cute brown floppy ears. One of the little does came right up to us and let us pet her, and we decided right then that this was the one we would buy. We were SO excited that we had finally found a nubian doe!
In the auction room, there were signs that said "Yellow tag=bred, Green tag=mother with baby..." etc. Well, our goat's tag was yellow, so we started wondering if she was maybe a miniature nubian and was bred. So then we got REALLY excited!
We watched the animals be sold, waiting very impatiently for "our goat" to come through the ring. Finally, they brought her in, and we bought her for $35.00
We went to the office and got our receipt, then around to the holding pens to retreive our little goat. We slipped a lead around her neck and brought her to the back of our van which we had covered with plastic for the occasion. The trip home was relatively uneventful other than a few passersby exclaiming upon realizing that "there's a GOAT in that car!" After we got home was when the action started, as immediately after being placed on solid ground, our little goat urinated... FROM THE MIDDLE OF ITS BELLY! This led to frantic searching of goat books, checking the goat over multiple times, and many repititions of "but I didn't... see... anything 'back there'..." We had purchased, not a nubian doe, but a 3-month-old boer wether!
Furthermore, after discovering this, I then recalled the man who was selling the goat saying something about a wether and thinking he was talking about the weather...
I guess you learn something new every day, huh?
So we sold the little goat to our Grandparents to clear brush off their land and decided that next time we'd look before we bought.
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And today's Featured Farmer is Hannah Young from Oklahoma:
My name is Hannah and I am the 1st of 5 kids. Me and my family live out in Northeast Oklahoma, away from the city thankfully! Here’s a little more about us….
For as long as I can remember, we’ve been “City Folk”. I’ve lived in California since I was 6 years old (now I’m 16). When Suriyah, my friend (GoodGoats) got her goats in 2004, that was very interesting to me! In about 2007, when we would go to visit her and her family, I would watch how she milked, of course at that time, it was just for fun!
Anyway, after being in Southern California for about 9 years, my family and I decided to pick up and move out of California. We chose Oklahoma as our new homeland! About 5 months after we decided to move to OK, we were on the road! To make a long story short, we arrived in OK, and lodged in a rental cabin on the river. There, we stayed until 6 months later, God provided 7 acres of land, out in the country for us! It was hard work cleaning up the property and burning brush, but we got it done!
When that was pretty much done, I started to get serious about getting into dairy goats. When we would go over to the Fishes house (GoodGoats), Suriyah would teach me hands on, how to milk the goats. My dad built a goat barn, pen and milk stand. About 6 months after moving into our property (2009), I bought my first 2 dairy goats. I was SO excited! All of my hard research had finally paid off and I was livin’ the “farmy” life.
We now have 12 dairy goats and 1 LaMancha buck. I mainly raise registered LaMancha goats, but we do have some Nubian and Alpine does. This year is gonna be a bigger one than last year, since I’ll be kidding out 5 does instead of 1 :) Of course, we are still “newbies” at this goat stuff.
I’m kinda the “goat girl” of the family, but my Sister and the rest of my family do help out a bunch. We also have Californian meat rabbits, chickens, dogs, barn cats and a garden…even in the fall & winter!
We have 5 does due in late winter/early spring of this year. We’re taking numbers for people who would like to get on the waiting list for 2011 kids.
I hope you liked reading about our “micro” farm! I have a blog where I write updates on our ranch here.
