Who out there has Nigerian Dwarf goats?
How many do you have?
How much land do they graze on?
How much hay do you use per year?
How much grain?
How much milk do you get?
So many questions.
We want a smaller property. Or at least a smaller amount of pasture. But how small can we go?
We've raised Nubian & Boer goats, so I have a feel for goats in general. I'd love to keep maybe 3-4 Nigerian dwarf goats, but I haven't gotten a good sense of how much room to set aside for them. I'd love to hear some real world examples.
We don't want them sitting in a muddy paddock eating hay year round. We want to have reasonable forage during the growing season and only feed hay in winter.
Of course by only posting once a month I've lost most of my visitors, but hopefully somebody out there will have a little to share.
Thanks!
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Labels: goats
posted by e4 @ 1/12/2010 09:24:00 PM
5
comments
5 Comments:
still reading, but no 'goat experience', unless i can count a rather tenacious 65 year old dude that thinks i'm a 'damn fine sexy woman'...
Welcome back to blogland :).
Wish I could help you with the goat question, but we still don't have the goats I've been wishing for ... but when we do, I'm sure I'll have lots to share ;).
Hi, I'm Buffalo Creek Farm in Germanton, NC. I have approximately 30 AGS registered Nigerian Dwarf goats along with full size Nubians. We use their milk for our family and I make goat's milk soap too. We get about a quart of milk from the Nigerians without feeding them a high protein alfala hay. Check out my website www.BuffaloCreekFarmNC.com. I think it has lots of good information about goats. We feed our girls approximately 1 to 2 pounds of grain per day depending on if they are dry or in milk. They forage in the Spring/Summer months with free choice hay in the Fall/Winter. We use round bales instead of the squares because we make our own fescue/grass hay. These little goats don't need much room. In North Carolina, you can put 6 Boer type goats per acre which means you can use about 12 plus Nigerians per acre. If you are just wanting a few goats, they couldn't even keep a back yard mowed for you. You'll have to help them out with with a lawn mower once in a while. Good luck when you get your goats, you'll love them. PS-Check out my new kids that have just been born in the past 1 to 3 weeks.
Hi there, just hopped over from Crunchy Chicken. We have goats, 5 Nigerians and 4 Nubians. We can't believe how many more Nigerians we can have than the Nubians, they really don't take up much space at all! We have all 5 Nigies in a 12x12 stall, very comfortably, at night, and then they go out into a medium pen in the day. (a standard size horse run.) In the summer we open up a smallish pasture for them, they love it and wander all around, but compared to the horses who have 3 acres, the goat pen is very small. We use field fence, and they are easily contained and very happy.
I have Nigerians.
** We have two males, four females, and two babies (one of each).
** They don't graze. They're penned in chain link fencing.
** We go thru about six bales every two or three months (hay). About three bales of straw a year.
** We do two bags of grain per month. I think.
** No milk yet - the babies get it all at this point.
Our pens are very small - the boys is about 8x22 and the girls is 22x34? We have a kiddie plastic house (free on side of road) for the boys, and a lean-to/barn of steel siding and landscape timbers for the girls. We have forage areas, but don't use them, yet. We're really still pretty green when it comes to this, but so far, so good.
To me, you start controlled and lax from there. If you start lax (roaming beasts, lots of space), you get overwhelmed too quickly. But then, that's my take.
-aNNa
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