# Mini Herd



## Daven12 (Feb 1, 2018)

Hello, I am new to this forum, though i've read many articles and posts on topics here before.

Currently I have a small herd of basically unidentifiable breed goats, just generic ones bought from a local livestock auction about 5 years ago. The 8 of them live with a 18 year old Tennessee Walker Mare named Bunny, who is quite big and feisty. Occasionally she ends up stepping on their feet but mainly they live peacefully and will even sleep next to her in her stall or play on her back as she suns.

To give a little background, we bought 3 medium sized 2 yr old goats, probably some grade milk breed, all with floppy ears. One is longer haired, pure white, and has one black horn and one blonde. Shes a beautiful doe but very unfriendly. The 4th goat we purchased is short, has erect ears, and white, and unknown to us she was very pregnant. One night we went to check on them and she had delivered a white doeling, then 20 minutes later she had 3 more. A black doeling with white ears and a forehead spot, and 2 others just like it but brown. All survived and grew up to be healthy, friendly, and very very short like their mother.

4 years later we have decided to breed her again, and her quadruplets, to a mini buck. From breed descriptions we believe the buck sire of the quadruplets was a nigerian dwarf, and the buck we've picked out is also of very small stature. This week we have closed the goat stall in our barn, and sectioned off the barn hallway where we used to keep the tractor and trailer for the buck and his does to stay for a few weeks and breed. We know how determined even the smallest of breeders can be so we knew this was the best way to keep him from testing the 3 large does.

My intentions with this project is to sell the kids, and the going rate for mini does/bucks in my area is $150-300 each, and keep one out of the whole group to train as a therapy animal. I am a 4-H equine club president, animal science and horticulture student at our highschool, and very involved in FFA. In 5 months when they are born i'd like to choose just one, a male, to castrate, dehorn, and hopefully bottle feed if my schedule is not busy this summer. My goal is to halter train, as well as teach it to walk in a dog-type harness, and be a friendly people person goat. Register the animal with a therapy program and take it to visit places. Once i leave for college id hope to sell it to someone who does this as their job or is a volunteer with that sort of thing. 

Let me know what you think, what i should try or do, and if you have any helpful pygmy goat breeding tips. : )


----------



## Kath G. (Jul 13, 2017)

Favorite mini breed: Mini Nubians!

Best of luck! Sounds like a great project!

ETA all of the standard dairy breeds have a Miniature counterpart: Miniature Nubian, Miniature Alpine, Mini Sable, Mini Guernsey, etc, etc. LOL, nothing's easy!


----------



## Daven12 (Feb 1, 2018)

Kath G. said:


> Favorite mini breed: Mini Nubians!
> 
> Best of luck! Sounds like a great project!


Thank You! I've never bred my goats before, or done any therapy training so this should be a learning experience!


----------



## SalteyLove (Jun 18, 2011)

Just out of curiosity - how come you have chosen to breed the doe and her quadruplet doelings (wow!) and not the 3 larger size goats to the mini buck?

I think it may be difficult to sell a trained therapy goat to a working therapy home but I"m sure you will be able to find him a happy home as a wether pet when you leave for college!

Be sure to disbud all the kids at the appropriate time, and wether all the male kids - they will be much easier to sell as pets that way


----------



## Kath G. (Jul 13, 2017)

SalteyLove said:


> Be sure to disbud all the kids at the appropriate time, and wether all the male kids - they will be much easier to sell as pets that way


Yes, yes, yes. I used to have goats with horns... only takes one time for a friendly goat to completely accidentally hurt a child of mine, for me to see that horns aren't ideal for a backyard/family placement.


----------



## Daven12 (Feb 1, 2018)

SalteyLove said:


> Just out of curiosity - how come you have chosen to breed the doe and her quadruplet doelings (wow!) and not the 3 larger size goats to the mini buck?
> 
> I think it may be difficult to sell a trained therapy goat to a working therapy home but I"m sure you will be able to find him a happy home as a wether pet when you leave for college!
> 
> Be sure to disbud all the kids at the appropriate time, and wether all the male kids - they will be much easier to sell as pets that way


The buck we are borrowing is almost 3 times smaller than the three larger does, and one of the larger ones are very very unfriendly and i don't want to breed more of that, as well as one of the does has extra nipples and that's also something i don't want. The goat i sell will make a great pet, but more than likely ill get way too attached and try to keep him


----------



## Daven12 (Feb 1, 2018)

Kath G. said:


> Yes, yes, yes. I used to have goats with horns... only takes one time for a friendly goat to completely accidentally hurt a child of mine, for me to see that horns aren't ideal for a backyard/family placement.


All of ours have horns, due to the fact that my aunt and uncle whose farm they live on are very adamant that its wrong because "god made them that way". Though i've tried to explain why we need to disbud them, i probably can't accomplish getting all of them done sadly. Ive been scratched by horns and its very very painful haha


----------

