Goats!

No, like seriously. Goats. My husband and I decided to throw caution and sense to the wind and purchased two bottle-fed Nigerian dwarf babies in June. What I didn’t realize at the time was that they were only 4 weeks old and thus, must remain bottle fed for another 4-6 weeks. Whew! 

Meet Phoebe and Mike:

They were so cute, however, no one really minded feeding them. Except our four-year-old. I’m afraid he inherited my lazy genes. 

For two weeks we fed them three bottles a day, then for one week two bottles a day. By the time they were seven weeks old, we were feeding them one bottle a day. And now they are fully weaned! It was a great bonding experience, feeding those little babies, but I’m glad it’s done. We still have some formula left over and will probably give them milk in a bowl or pail for a little while to use it up.

If you’re interested in learning more about goats, stick with me while I learn as I go.

What to Feed

We live in the woods, so there is no shortage of vines and weeds and baby trees for our goats to nibble on. We’ve decided to feed a mix of chopped alfalfa hay, and alfalfa pellets. I also recently purchased Chaffe hay which is a slightly fermented organic version of alfalfa hay that is supposed to have more nutrients in it. Our goats are getting a smorgasbord of feed! Ed made a couple of feeders and we settled on one like this:

They have a pail of fresh water every day and a mineral block, though I’m adding loose minerals to their diet soon.

Shelter

It’s scorching in NC right now, so the goats are in desperate need of shade. Typically, their paddock will be in the trees, but we pet sit and since we acted a bit rashly in bringing home our goats, they can’t always share Bear’s (our Pyrenees) pen. So we have a small, temporary pen in the “garden,” otherwise known as “the place tomatoes go to die.” Ed built a small house for them to shelter from sun and rain. We’ll be building a larger structure in the fall or winter, but since winters in NC are so mild, the little house will do for our babies for now.

Fencing

I haven’t yet seen evidence of this, as our babies weigh less than 20 pounds, but apparently goats are escape artists! A sturdy fence is a must. I would like our fence to be five feet high like Bear’s fence, but we lucked into some free four foot chain link fencing, so we’ll be using that. I’m hoping that by next weekend Phoebe and Mike can be in their permanent paddock, attached to Bear’s pen.

Here is a great post about fencing from my new favorite blog, Weed ’em and Reap.

So, like I said. Stick around! I love to research and write about what I learn, plus I’ll have real goat experiences to share!