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There are many different ways to raise dairy goat kids; from fully hands-off & letting the dams do all the work, to fully hands-on and doing it all ourselves. Because we’re paranoid about diseases, our management style is the latter: we currently pull all kids at birth. CAE is one of the biggest diseases that this protocol prevents – it is one of the Big Three (CAE, CL, Johne’s) that most herds watch out for. We have never tested positive, but have brought in a few new goats over the past couple years and WANT to trust the breeders, but you can never be too careful. After we’ve had at least a few years of clean tests, we might try letting the dams keep their kids, but for now, we will continue to pull them into a separate area at birth. We keep kids separate from adults until our non-keepers are gone, then merge the herd together. If we had space, we’d probably keep different age groups on separate pastures full-time.
After Birth: Feeding Vitamins (Optional)
After pulling each kid at birth, making sure their airways are clear, and drying them off, we spray their umbilical cord & feet with iodine or Vetericyn, weigh them, and give them a dose of ADE vitamin supplements – we like Survive! (external link). Vitamins are not really needed for kids as long as the does have had access to high quality minerals & feed through pregnancy, but our girls almost always give birth when temps are below zero or in the middle of a blizzard & we’ve found that that little boost helps. Again, totally optional, though!
First 24 Hours: Checking Temps & Feeding Colostrum (Critical)
NOTE: It’s important to make sure that kids are always about 102F degrees before feeding them or they will not be able to digest properly. The colostrum should also be about 100-110F degrees. Most kids can regulate their own temperatures, but sometimes weaker ones might be chilled & need our help. Check out our section about warming weak kids below.
During the first 24 hours of a kid’s life, we give them as much maternal colostrum (that we first heat treat) and/or colostrum replacer as they will eat, providing 1-4 ounces every 1-4 hours (depending on kid size and eagerness to eat). We sometimes have to tube feed, but it is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL that each kid get a minimum of 10% of their body weight in colostrum within 24 hours of birth (ideally within 12 hours).
Just like humans, every goat produces a different quality & quantity of colostrum & milk. The best case scenario is to test each batch of maternal colostrum and give only that if it proves to be high quality, but we’re usually frazzled and half asleep during kidding and just want to get the newborns fed before it’s too late. The easiest way to test colostrum quality is with a refractometer – the BRIX value should be 22 or higher. If it’s lower, the colostrum is considered poor quality and needs to be supplemented.
We like doing half colostrum replacer and half maternal colostrum because the replacer might cover something the maternal is lacking, and the maternal colostrum will have antibodies to local pathogens. The colostrum replacer we use is Shepherd’s Choice (external link) – it has the highest IgG we could find and the kids like it.
3-14 Days: Disbudding (Optional)
At 3-14 days of age, we have the vet disbud each non-polled kid. Why do we disbud? We have one horned goat – he has accidentally half-gored two of his pasture mates, just lazily waving his head to get them out of his way. If he had done it on purpose, they would have died. He’s almost done it to us, too, especially when we have to catch him for meds or hoof care. There are a zillion similar stories, and also ones about horned goats getting stuck and dying. Keeping goats locked in a pasture or barn together is not a natural scenario – in the wild, they can spread out and get away from each other. So, for everyone’s safety, we disbud.
Most breeders do it themselves and we still do if the vet is busy, but we like that he uses injectable painkillers and/or knocks them out. Does that make us soft? I guess, but our goats are more than just livestock to us and we do everything we can to make their lives as pain-free as possible. The ideal scenario is to leave horns on, but it’s just too risky with fencing and unnatural herd dynamics, with members forced together when they’d normally go off on their own. Plus, if we want to show our goats, they can’t have horns. Even after disbudding carefully, some goats still end up with some scurs – especially the Oberhasli bucklings – but it happens to everyone we know, even top breeders around the country.
Until 8+ Weeks: Feeding Milk & Hay (Mandatory)
After that first critical colostrum day, we bottle feed goat milk that we first pasteurize, or Shepherd’s Choice replacer (external link) if the girls aren’t producing enough in the beginning. We start by feeding about 4-5 small meals per day for the first couple weeks, then switch to bigger meals twice per day because we have jobs and can’t do more than that long-term. For the first feeding of the day, we add a pinch of baking soda per kid and for the last feeding, we add Probios (external link) probiotic powder to help populate their digestive systems with good bacteria.
NOTE: Some people online will immediately freak out about how bad goat milk replacer is. Not all replacers are made the same – some are not great and are made with soy, which many kids have trouble digesting. The one we use, Shepherd’s Choice, is made with real milk and has been used by top commercial & show breeders for years. Just make sure to carefully prepare all replacers according to the instructions – IT MUST BE CORRECTLY MEASURED & THOROUGHLY STIRRED – if it’s too watery or thick or clumpy, it can make kids very, very sick. If that is too complicated or seems too risky, a safer alternative is plain whole cow milk from the grocery store. In our opinion, the order of milk from best to worst is: milk from the dam & home herd > milk from another local health tested goat herd > correctly mixed, high quality replacer > milk from a local health tested cow herd > grocery store whole cow milk. Grocery store goat milk is another option, but is usually gross and super expensive, as you probably know!
As the kids grow older and more able to tolerate larger amounts without gorging, we introduce willing ones to a lambar, aka bucket feeder – usually at about 3-4 weeks of age. A bucket feeder is NOT just an open bucket, it has nipples attached – you want to maintain the suck reflex to make sure that milk gets into the right stomach. Pan/bucket feeding isn’t 100% deadly like some people believe, but it’s still not ideal & why tempt fate if not needed? Every now and then, a kid refuses to use our buckets. We’re pushovers, so we have a whole bottle/bucket wall for picky ones to choose from. All free-fed milk is COLD and refilled a couple times per day to help prevent overeating.
During this time, we also introduce the kids to hay and water to get their rumens up & running. Goats need unlimited 24/7 good quality hay, sometimes called dairy hay or horse hay. They CANNOT tolerate mold, contrary to popular belief. It’s also very important to keep a goat’s feed off the ground & to TRY to keep their feet out of it – their feet might have poop on them, and you don’t want them ingesting poop or the germs or parasites that live in poop.
We tried horse bag hay flake feeders for a while, but kids would occasionally get stuck in them and we’ve heard horror stories about broken limbs or even death. We switched to these super robust ones (external link) for kids & quarantined goats a while back, but there are plenty of other options out there. Some people even use wire laundry baskets (external link). The big thing is to look for one with a small square grid pattern instead of just horizontal or vertical lines – those ones are easier for bouncy baby goats to get caught in. Once they’re older, accidents like that are less likely.
At Weaning or Sooner: Feeding Grain (Optional)
We usually only provide grain to kids during weaning to help them keep weight on, but we’re considering offering it to them shortly after birth in 2025, just to see how they do.
We used a custom organic feed from one of our favorite local mills for years until their pelletizer broke. They still haven’t repaired it, so we’ve had to switch to Blue Seal 16% (or sometimes Purina Grower if we run out). Both of these feeds do contain a coccidistat. Studies go back and forth on whether kids eat enough to actually prevent coccidiosis, but we figure it couldn’t hurt.
We wean bucklings at 10-14 weeks, depending how they’re growing, and we let the girls stay on bottles until we start drying off the does for the next kidding season. We can’t legally sell milk and are too busy to make stuff with it, so it’s just easier to keep giving it to the kids. It’s a win-win! For 2025, we might let the bucklings stay on milk longer, too.
12+ Weeks: Wethering Bucklings (Optional)
We usually don’t bother castrating our bucks because the ethnic market here prefers them intact. But for buyers who prefer wethers, we band the boys at or after 12 weeks of age. This age is hotly debated – some people prefer to do it a couple weeks after birth – but some studies indicate that banding later allows the urethra to grow larger and helps to prevent urinary calculi, a painful and often fatal blockage of urinary crystals.
Breeding
Some people prefer to breed their goat kids during their first fall season and we might if one is big enough, but we usually wait and let them just grow and be kids until their second season. Either way is totally fine, as long as they’re at least 75% of their estimated adult weight.
When it’s time, we hand breed our goats – when a doe is in standing heat, we bring her & the buck together and then separate them after seeing them connect a couple times. Doing this allows us to know a rough due date for kidding.
Month Before Kidding
About a month before most of the does are due to kid, we transition them from the stemmy 1st/2nd crop hay we used while drying them off to more nutritious & delicious 3rd/4th crop. We try to find 100% alfalfa because our girls have so many multiples and need that calcium, but it can be scarce here, so we usually settle for mixed bales of grass/alfalfa.
During this time, we also start reintroducing the girls to small amounts of grain to get their systems ready for the large amounts they consume while in milk. It’s also a great way to reintroduce them to the stand after their break. One day, about a month before each doe’s due date, while they’re on the stand happily eating, we also give them their CDT vaccine boosters.
Kidding
About a week before their due dates, we start watching the does very closely for signs that they will kid soon. They might start leaking mucus, their udders might start to fill, their ligaments at the base of their tail will disappear & their tails will sort of curve at a weird angle, their bellies will very visibly drop, and they’ll start isolating and nesting. Once we see most of these signs, we pull the expecting mother into a kidding pen and check on her every couple hours, either in person or via camera.
We try our best to be present for every birth so that we can pull kids before they start suckling. We let dams lick some afterbirth off our hands to help convince them to adopt us as their kids, and MOST gladly allow us to milk them without too much fight afterwards. After gently milking as much colostrum as we can, we offer the doe warm water with added molasses & YMCP (external link) to help provide energy and prepare the doe for milking. We also give a dose of oral CPMK (external link) – they absolutely hate it, but it helps strengthen contractions to remove the placenta.
Milking
After kidding, we immediately start milking 2x per day roughly every 12 hours, keeping the new dam’s colostrum-rich milk separate from the other does’ normal milk for about a week, because colostrum tastes gross. Every now and then, a doe decides to be a butthead about milking for a while because it’s weird and confusing and uncomfortable at first, but they all calm down within a few weeks after they realize that milking relieves pressure & that they get tasty snacks.
A milk stand isn’t really required, especially if you hand-milk and are lucky enough to have a well-behaved goat. But since we use a milk machine, it’s important that the girls stay still so that they don’t hurt themselves pulling the inflations off their teats. A stand is also great for holding goats still during exams, hoof trims, and shots. You can build one or just tie them to something, but we are lucky enough to live near one of the most beloved stand makers in the show community, John’s Fabrication & Repair (external link). We’ve bought two stands from him so far – he also makes really nice feeder baskets, larger multi-goat stands, kidding pens – you name it! He has a booth at most big shows and he also ships.
Learn more about how we milk in our Milk Handling section below.
Feeding
While on the milk stand, does get as much grain as they want. We usually order a custom organic blend of oats, cracked corn, barley, and sometimes we also add beet pulp and black oil sunflower seeds. It comes out to about 16-18% protein. Sometimes a doe needs a little extra fat and we’ll remove the beet pulp and add Triple Crown Equine Senior Gold (external link) or Calf Manna. They’re both very highly regarded in the show community.
In 2025, we’re trying a custom mix (unfortunately not organic) created by Shawn Quinn. He’s one of the top goat nutritionists in the country and his blends are sold by a number of large retailers & used by commercial dairies and small herds all over the US.
And of course, the girls also get 24/7 access to grass and/or alfalfa hay – we try to give them 100% alfalfa while in milk, but sometimes have trouble finding supply. In those times, we provide alfalfa pellets on the milk stand. As mentioned previously, goats need unlimited 24/7 good quality hay, sometimes called dairy hay or horse hay. They CANNOT tolerate mold, contrary to popular belief. We use these hay feeders (external link) in our main herds and this year we’re hoping to add lids for them, to prevent some of the does and one buck from hopping inside and sleeping in them. If we can save enough funds, we REALLY want to switch to fenceline feeders (external link) from Sydell!
Drying Off
About 2 months before a doe is due to kid, we start to dry her off. We drop her grain to lower protein levels and switch to 1st/2nd crop hay, which is more stemmy and less densely nutritious. People dry their does in a lot of different ways, but what works for us is a gradual decrease, where we drop our 2x daily milkings to one full milking and then for the second milking, only half emptying the udder, then dropping to just once per day, then only milking enough to relieve pressure for a couple days, and then quitting. It takes about a week for most of our does. Some of our high producers might take closer to 2-3 weeks.
Bucks and dry does get unlimited grass and/or alfalfa hay – a lot of people think that alfalfa will cause urinary calculi in wethers. That is outdated info and is not the case, as long as they’re also give appropriate loose minerals. Top herds all over the country feed their boys 100% alfalfa with zero UC issues. As mentioned previously, goats need unlimited 24/7 good quality hay, sometimes called dairy hay or horse hay. They CANNOT tolerate mold, contrary to popular belief. We use these hay feeders (external link) in our main herds and this year we’re hoping to add lids for them, to prevent some of the does and one buck from hopping inside and sleeping in them. If we can save enough funds, we REALLY want to switch to fenceline feeders (external link) from Sydell!
Our bucks don’t get grain most of the time, but we do provide it during rut to help keep them somewhat conditioned. We usually give them the same one that we provide to kids, maybe topped with some wheat germ oil or flax seed oil to add a little more healthy fat.
We ALWAYS quarantine new goats for at least 3 weeks – even though they may seem healthy, they might have a stress-related condition brewing or could have new parasites that we don’t want on our main pastures. We don’t have a ton of space, so we quarantine in a little otherwise-unused corner of our pastures, separated from our herds by about 6ft but still visible so they can see and talk to each other. We usually try to bring in two new goats at a time so they have company and are less freaked out, but if that’s not possible, we put in a calm & healthy buddy from our herd.
While they’re in quarantine, we mostly try to leave them alone to get settled for the first few days. We don’t try to touch them if they seem nervous and just calmly talk to them and offer treats to get them used to our presence while we check for signs of illness 1-2 times per day.
Stress from travel & moving can bring on a lot of dangerous issues, so we watch them closely. The first thing to show up might be diarrhea – it’s usually just nerves and we offer probiotics or flat dark beer to help settle their stomachs & rumens. If it doesn’t stop within a day or so, we run a fecal for coccidiosis or worms and treat as needed.
We’re also on high alert for respiratory conditions – shipping fever & pneumonia are VERY common in transported goats.
After about 10-14 days, we run a fecal. Even if a goat has a low parasite count at home, the stress of moving can lower immunity to the point that parasites increase rapidly – it’s called a worm bloom. If there is a high count or a species we haven’t seen on our property, we give the new goat a course of dewormers and/or coccidia treatment.
While in quarantine, we slowly transition our new goats to our feed (if we’ve been provided with their old feed for the switch). Keeping feed off the ground is important to help prevent illness & parasites, as mentioned in other sections. We use these super robust flake hay feeders (external link) for quarantined goats, but there are plenty of other options out there. Some people use wire laundry baskets (external link). The big thing is to look for one with a small square grid pattern instead of just horizontal or vertical lines – those ones are easier for bouncy baby goats to get caught in.
One of the most important parts of keeping goats healthy is finding a quality loose mineral and NOT blocks – goats have trouble consuming enough minerals off blocks and often wear down their teeth prematurely when nomming on them. We bounce between Crafts-Min Goat (external link) and Sweetlix, depending on availability. The high copper in Crafts-Min helps us to avoid bolusing except as parasite prevention. Sweetlix has two popular versions: Magnum Milk (external link) and Meat Maker (external link). Magnum Milk is meant for goats fed primarily alfalfa and helps to balance the CA:P ratio. Meat Maker is for goats fed primarily grass. Another we’d love to try is Duraferm Concept Aid (external link).
We also sometimes provide Zinpro 40 (external link) and/or kelp, depending on the time of year and how our goats are looking. We do NOT offer baking soda unless we are opening a new pasture or know that a goat is unwell. Goats naturally create their own sodium bicarbonate in their rumens and having free access to an external supply can throw off that balance.
In 2024, we’re trying the FCE Mineral Buffet (external link) for the does because two of them seemed to be missing something on the commercial blends & we’re not sure what. We tried to give it to the bucks, too, but the big dummies made it their mission to break each of the little trays every time we set them up, so we finally gave up. Some people love the buffet concept and some are firmly against it – we figure we’ll give it a year or two and switch back to something else if it doesn’t work for us! We bought our supply directly from FCE because we live near them, but if you’re interested and don’t have a need for a bunch of 25lb bags, Little Avalon Farm (external link) has made a business of repackaging the FCE minerals into smaller portions.
After almost a year on the buffet, we’re about to enter our first kidding season with it and we’re excited/terrified to see how it goes. The girls’ top consumed minerals have been copper, boron, and cobalt all year. As their pregnancies have progressed, they’ve been hitting vitamins CB, potassium, iodine, and selenium more. If you google them, you’ll find that those are some of the top minerals needed for a healthy pregnancy. It’s pretty cool to see! So far, one of the two does who had trouble in 2023 is looking a zillion times better. The other has definitely improved, but still isn’t quite 100% there yet. Most of her flakiness has subsided, but she’s still missing fur around her eyes and nose.
We use these mineral feeders (external link) for the does and just started using this awesome mineral feeder from Sydell (external link) for the bucks – they’ve busted countless others within minutes, but this one is still going strong!
As noted in more detail in our blog and the Bloat and Pneumonia sections below, we have made the decision to vaccinate our keepers for CDT and Pneumonia. We tried avoiding it, but every single year, we’ve had to fight to keep herd members alive and haven’t always been successful. Because it’s a personal choice and a touchy subject, we ONLY vaccinate our keepers and NOT kids intended for sale, unless the buyer requests it.
CDT
There are a ton of different CDT vaccine brands out there – the most important thing is to make sure the one being used has T in there, for Tetanus. No matter which brand is used or how big the goat is, the dose is always 2cc injected subcutaneously. If a goat has NOT previously been vaccinated, the schedule consists of one injection and then a booster about 21-28 days later. If a goat HAS previously been vaccinated, they receive an annual booster. Some farms that have a high clostridium load or that feed a lot of grain will do boosters every 3-6 months instead of just annually. We’re considering switching to semiannual doses, but haven’t decided yet.
When we used Bar-Vac, our herd experienced a lot of injection site lumps & abscesses. Reading about it online, it seems to be a common complaint. We switched to Durvet in 2024, but had two goats die of suspected clostridium about a month after their boosters. After talking about it with one of our heroes, Brandi at Vanjust Oberhasli, we decided to try Cavalry 9 starting in 2025.
Bred does: The recommended window of time for vaccinating bred does is 3-6 weeks before kidding. Any earlier, and antibodies will have decreased too much for their kids to benefit. Any later, and antibodies won’t have time to develop enough to cover their kids. If we’ve bought a new doe and don’t know her vaccination status, we give her an initial shot about 7 weeks before her due date, then a booster about 3 weeks after that, which is about 4 weeks before her due date. If our doe has already received her vaccines in previous years, we just do one booster about 4 weeks before her due date.
Bucks & Dry Yearlings: We give bucks & dry yearlings their annual CDT boosters when the bred does get theirs. Each vial of the vaccine holds about 10-50 doses, depending which we get. Since our kiddings are spaced out, we boost a couple bucks & yearlings with whatever doses are left in the vial after vaccinating each group of bred does.
Kids: After kids are born, they’re protected by their mothers’ antibodies for a few weeks. We vaccinate our keepers at about 6-8 weeks, with a booster about 3-4 weeks afterwards, and then they’re set to go on the annual schedule with everyone else.
Pneumonia
There are a few pneumonia vaccines out there, and the one our vet recommends is Nasalgen 3 PMH. It covers a variety of common bacterial and viral causes of pneumonia and is an easy 2cc squirt up the nose . It has been shown to protect goats for only a few months, so we vaccinate everyone twice per year, right before the common pneumonia seasons (for us, it’s early spring and early fall).
Because we don’t live in dry, rocky mountain regions that goats are native to, we need to help our goats maintain their hooves. When we had fewer goats, we did them all ourselves; now, we cheat and hire someone haha. Every 3-4 months, they come out and do the whole herd for us.
We are working to breed goats that don’t need a ton of hoof maintenance, but we have a few that need touch-ups between their scheduled trimmings – especially the Guernseys, which are a work in progress. For light work, we love our Hoof Boss (external link) – it’s basically a goat-specific dremel and has different grinder plates based on level of trim needed. The company offers both a plug-in version and one powered by Dewalt batteries. For more corrective work, we’ve tried a bunch of different trimmers and always reach for our Silverline (external link).
We’ll try to remember to look for a diagram of what hooves should look like & add it here, but in the meantime, this FB group is incredibly helpful: Goat Hoof Maintenance 101 (external link).
The top two killers of goats are pneumonia and internal parasites. There isn’t an easy way to predict pneumonia in a herd, but for parasites, we can do fecals. Most vets will be willing to do them, even if they don’t see goats. Our livestock vet is far away, so for a long time, we took samples to our small animal vet. Some labs will also accept mailed samples for a low price – MeadowMist (external link) is a popular one.
With the amount of fecals we do, we decided that it was in our best interest to just do them ourselves. It sounds intimidating, but it’s super easy! There are a few procedures for doing them, but we do one of the most common: a Modified McMaster technique recommended by the University of Minnesota (external link). They have a useful video on their site that goes through the steps.
Supplies (with External Links)
Collecting Samples
Collecting a fecal sample is usually easy, since goats seem to always be pooping. Usually, right when they wake up, they get up, stretch, pee, and then poop. When we need a sample, we’re there with a baggie to catch it as it falls. If we’re too late but see it right as it hits the ground, we still grab some of the cleanest looking pieces. If we’re desperate, we will lube up our fingers and gently remove what we need from the goat’s rectum – this is not safe to do on goat kids.
We want around 4 grams, which is about 10 kid pellets or 5 adult ones, depending on goat size. If we’re not immediately going to do a fecal, we label and refrigerate the sample. Samples last in the fridge for up to a week; any longer, and the eggs will degrade too much.
Performing the Procedure
Guidelines for Use
Wormx (external link) currently recommends that a fecal egg count be used to identify the worm species and to determine a dewormer’s effectiveness, but NOT as a guideline for starting treatment. A goat should generally only be treated if it shows signs of overload; although honestly, if we see a count over 500 EPG for kids or over 1000 for adults, we’re probably going to treat them for worms or coccidiosis before it becomes a bigger issue.
To test a dewormer, a fecal is taken before treatment, then another 10-14 days later. If the fecal egg count has not been reduced by at least 70%, then that dewormer is probably not effective.
It’s generally considered best practice to keep bucks and does separate because bucks relentlessly pester does and can hurt them or their kids. It’s also important to let a doe rest without being bred too soon after kidding. With that in mind, we keep our does and bucks in separate lots that share one side. This lets us more easily keep track of does in heat – when they start standing at the fence and yelling for the bucks, we know!
For people just starting out or with smaller herds, we recommend keeping 2-3 does in one group and then a buck and wether (neutered buck) or two bucks in a second group. Or you could even just have does and rent a buck or buy semen. Or zero does and just a couple wethers. If you plan to just have pet goats, wethers are the best! They don’t get hormonal like does do and they don’t usually go into rut and spray pee all over themselves all fall & winter like intact bucks do.
But in any case, goats NEED a dry, draft-free, ventilated shelter; especially up here where we have seemingly endless winters. Shelters can be anything from calf huts to giant barns. While we would love to have a giant barn, our current land isn’t setup for it, so we make due with smaller options.
Our does and bucks each have a 3/4-sided 10×20 livestock shelter. We set up kidding pens in a 10×16 VersaTube garage and then once everyone is done giving birth, we keep doe kids in there until they’re big enough to join the herd. Buck kids are less spoiled – their shelter is a large round calf hut. We also have assorted smaller calf huts all over our doe & buck lots for them to spread out in.
We’re planning an expansion of our main doe shelter right now, increasing the size to 16-18×20. If we magically win the lotto that we never play, we’d love to give them a second setup somewhere, too!
In the winter, we add plastic walk-in cooler door strips to the shelter doorways to help reduce drafts. The ones we bought don’t seem to be available anymore, but these door strips (external link) are similar.
Both of our lots are fenced in by 48″ tall, 2″x4″ mesh, 12 gauge, woven no-climb horse fence. For safety, we don’t use the larger squares that goats can fit their heads through. The woven fence costs more than welded, but it can handle being pushed by goats a lot better and lasts much longer. It looks like they rebranded the one we bought, but this one looks similar (external link).
To help protect our herds from predators and also to keep adventurous animals inside their designated areas, we added electric hot wire to both the inside and outside of their fencing, at about 1 ft, 2.5 ft, and along the top. We are also in the process of adding a 2ft skirt around the external perimeter to prevent predators from digging in – another option on land less filled with rocks & tree roots would have been to bury the fencing a couple feet down.
In our effort to avoid worms, we rotationally graze our pastures with 48″ tall electric netting (external link) and move it every week or two, giving each slice of land a month-ish rest before using it again. Please note that netting does not come with an energizer unless part of a package – we use this energizer (external link) that plugs into an extension cord, but there are some nice solar energizers (external link) out there.
Milk is an excellent source of protein and vitamins. We love it, you probably love it, all of our animals love it. You know what else loves it? Bacteria.
Milk can become contaminated with pathogens anywhere along the line, from inside the goat’s udder to inside the fridge. To reduce potential contamination, it is VITAL to keep milk and everything it touches as clean as possible – even if it is intended for pasteurization.
It Starts With the Udder
Milk cleanliness starts inside the goat – if a goat is infected with pathogens, her milk might also be infected. We participate in milk tests that check for protein, butterfat, and somatic cell count (SCC). We want the SCC to be as low as possible – a high SCC is an indicator that an infection might be brewing in the udder, and we do not want to drink infected milk. The doe might also have subclinical mastitis, which we do not want to increase and become clinical. We haven’t had clinical mastitis happen yet *knock on wood* but have had suspected subclinical mastitis. You can read how we treat that in our Mastitis section below. In any case, if a doe has a high SCC or signs of mastitis, we milk her into a separate bucket and discard the milk.
Milking Prep
When preparing to milk a doe, we start by putting on medical gloves. Even though we wash our hands, we want to make sure that things stay sanitary. For every doe, we swap to a new pair of gloves.
Next, we clean the doe’s udder. We keep a bucket of warm water and rags or paper towels near the stand and wipe her udder and teats. If she’s especially dirty or we suspect mastitis, once she’s clean, we spray her with a chlorhexidine solution and let it sit for a few seconds, then wipe her again with another clean rag.
NOTE: The store carries chlorhexidine and iodine products – some studies show that iodine inactivates chlorhexidine and some show that they work well together, so use at your own risk. We usually use chlorhexidine as a pre-milking cleanser as needed and then iodine at the end for all does.
We then do a couple test squirts of milk by hand into a strip cup – this is best practice for a few reasons: 1) it removes any wax plug forming, 2) bacteria counts are highest right at the opening and we want to keep them out of our milk, 3) it lets us see whether the doe might have chunky or discolored milk that would indicate mastitis & we’d want to toss.
Milking
Finally, we milk! We use a machine most of the time, but when we only have a couple does in milk, we might just do them by hand. When milking by hand, some inexperienced people tend to creep too high up and start squeezing the actual udder – doing that can ruin the membrane that passes milk through the teats and can cause a lot of problems down the road, so watch your positioning. We’ll try to find a diagram or shoot a quick video at some point.
The machine we use most is our Capralite (external link) – it can handle two goats at a time. We also have a larger one from Parts Dept (external link) that we use to clean the hoses, and we’re hoping to find a way to fit it into our milk parlor soon. It’s big, though! For inflations, we usually use the standard ones that are sold everywhere, but we’re trying these fancy antibacterial liners (external link) in 2025. We have also tried aftermarket TopFlow Z ones (external link) and they worked really well, but they have a ton of tiny parts and are a giant pain to keep clean.
As we milk, we gently massage the udder to help the doe release. Once she seems mostly empty, we remove the machine’s inflations from the doe and milk out the last bit by hand – this is best practice because the machine can hurt the doe and even permanently injure her teats if it keeps pumping after she’s empty.
Finally, we wipe any residue off the doe’s teats and then use an iodine post-milking teat dip and let it sit for about 30 seconds before letting the doe out and bringing in the next one.
Pasteurization (Heat Treating for Colostrum)
By now, we have all heard the arguments for and against raw milk. Raw milk is an excellent source of nutrients and is very healthy IF it is kept pristinely clean and IF the goats producing the milk do not have any hidden diseases. Two of the most scary goat diseases out there are CAE and Johne’s. Both of these will usually cause very painful deaths, and studies show that Johne’s might cause Crohn’s in humans. We test our herd for both diseases annually, but false negatives are common, especially in younger herd members.
After we get a few more years of disease-free tests and officially close our herd, we will probably stop pasteurizing our milk, at least for the goat kids. But for now, we will continue pasteurizing (and heat treating for colostrum). Studies show that pasteurization, if done correctly, maintains most of the nutrients while destroying most pathogens. The key is to get the timing & temperature just right.
Because colostrum is so thick, pasteurization doesn’t really work well and can ruin it. Instead, heat treating is recommended: the goal is to heat colostrum to 140F degrees for 60 minutes. We’ve tried a few tools & methods, and the best we’ve found for colostrum in small amounts has been a sous vide – we keep the machine in a water bath and add jars of colostrum to heat.
Milk can be pasteurized using a few different methods. We usually use High Temperature Short Time (HTST), aka Flash Pasteurization, at 161F for 15 seconds, but we might try a more gentle method this year – Low Temperature Low Time (LTLT), aka Vat/Batch Pasteurization, at 145F degrees for 30 minutes. Another that a lot of organic farms use is Ultra High Temperature (UHT) Pasteurization at 275-300F degrees for 2-5 seconds, but we’re definitely not set up for that.
Cooling
No matter whether it is kept raw or pasteurized, it is CRITICAL to cool milk as fast as possible. This prevents the growth of bacteria and also keeps the proteins in the milk from degrading. After milking or pasteurizing, we immediately immerse the milk in a cold water bath. Some people use ice & salt in a chest freezer to chill even more quickly. Right now, we just use a sink. For 2025, Jess is planning to swipe Ken’s immersion coil wort chiller. If we can afford it, we’d love to add a plate cooler one day, too.
After the milk is as cool as we can get it, we pour it into our little 15 gallon milk cooling tank (external link). Every week or so, we empty the tank and wash it – during that time, we keep a bunch of milk jugs in the refrigerator. One of our goals is to get a second bulk tank that we can swap to for cleaning.
Cleaning
While our milk is either pasteurizing or cooling, we clean our equipment – the buckets, hoses, and inflations need to be washed and sanitized after every milking. First, we rinse everything with not-too-warm water to remove leftover milk and prevent the proteins from sticking. Next, we use hot milk and pipeline detergent. Every week or so, we follow that with acid rinse milkstone remover, but we don’t want to do that too often because it degrades the plastic. Afterwards, we rinse everything, then soak it in sanitizer & cool water for 10 minutes, then hang it to dry.
Stores sell brushes for cleaning hoses, but those eventually leave micro abrasions that allow bacteria to collect. It’s best to use them sparingly and run water through the hoses instead – we have this fancy cleaner from Hamby (external link) that connects to our vacuum pump, but a lot of people have rigged up an equally effective setup with an 800+ GPH aquarium pump (external link).
Every 6-12 months, hoses and inflation liners should be replaced with new ones – silicone ones last longer than regular plastic, but they all eventually start to degrade.
Milk Sales
People ask us a lot about buying our milk. Unfortunately, in the State of Wisconsin, it is illegal for unlicensed/uninspected producers to sell ANY milk, whether it is pasteurized or raw. The sale of raw milk by anyone in Wisconsin is illegal (external link). Herd shares are also illegal. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are either lying or mistaken – we’ve spoken with the DATCP for clarification. There is one tiny loophole – if a licensed/inspected producer has visitors to their farm, then the “incidental” sale of raw milk is allowed. They are not allowed to advertise the sale of raw milk in any way or have regular customers.
Not saying we agree with the law – it’s there to keep sales in the hands of the giant, rich commercial lobbyist farms. But since we’re newish to the area and don’t know who we can trust, we do NOT sell milk. We first feed it to our goat kids, then use leftovers for ourselves and products that we produce. We might gift some to friends from time to time – usually after we pasteurize it, just to be safe.
A number of studies show that if raw milk is regularly consumed by people or animals who live on the farm where the milk is produced, they might build up immunity to many of the pathogens that might be found in their farm’s milk. But if someone from outside the farm were to drink the same milk, they might be more likely to develop food poisoning. It’s just super risky and we don’t want anyone getting sick and/or suing us.
Premature, Cold, and/or Weak Kids
One day, a full week before any does were due to kid, we went outside to do morning chores and heard an unfamiliar voice pitifully crying in a calf hut – a very confused First Freshener was trying to dry off a tiny buckling! When we crawled into the calf hut to check on them, there was another tiny guy half-buried in hay – he was ice-cold and barely moving. We checked the dam over real quick to make sure she was okay, then rushed the boys inside to warm them up.
The quickest way to warm cold kids is by putting them in a water-tight bag and floating them in a tub or sink full of hot water, but since these guys were still soaked, we did a popular alternative – sitting the kids sternal/not laying on their sides in a plastic tote, mostly covering the top of the tote with a towel, and blowing an air dryer into the tote. Because the boys were wet, we started by passing the dryer over them to get them dry but not letting it focus anywhere long enough to overheat them. Once they were dry, we pointed the dryer into the tote & not directly on either kid and then left it running. It took around a half hour to an hour to get them fully warmed to 102 degrees (checked with a rectal thermometer).
After they were heated up, we put the boys into one of our usual newborn bins – a plastic tote with a Premier 1 heat lamp (external link) out of reach overhead. We then gave each kid a tiny injection of B Complex (external link), a dab of Selenium & Vitamin E gel (external link), and started feeding them. Both had zero suck reflex and the one who had been coldest had no will to eat at all, so we had to tube feed them their colostrum and vitamins (the same ones we mention in the Kids section above). This tube feeder (external link) is really, really nice and easier to use with one hand than the syringe style.
The stronger of the boys caught on and started drinking & standing on his own within a couple days, and the weaker one took a full week before he was able to suckle and stand.
We asked the vet about Dexamethosone because it’s supposed to help develop preemie kids’ lungs, but he does NOT recommend it unless absolutely necessary because it can severely suppress the immune system. He said we’d be very lucky if either or both survived being born so prematurely, but they did!
Retained Placenta
The doe who kidded a week early ended up with a retained placenta, where her placenta stayed inside for 3-4 days instead of falling out within the usual 24 hours. The vet said that it’s a pretty rare occurrence in goats, but is more likely to happen when something like premature labor confuses their hormones. He said that the latest veterinary guidance recommends leaving it alone to fall out naturally and just giving a daily penicillin injection to prevent infection. He also recommended daily CPMK (external link) or Tums (external link) because calcium helps to strengthen contractions to expel the placenta.
Abnormal Heat Cycles & Cystic Does
In 2024, we had trouble breeding two does – we kept missing their heats OR they just weren’t having them! We had wanted to avoid using hormones, but finally tried them. There are many protocols out there, but this is one our vet recommended for potentially cystic does – we THINK it did the trick for one of our two abnormal girls:
Pseudohermaphroditism
The other doe we had trouble breeding in 2024 turned out to be a little different – not actually a complete doe at all! We first knew something might be off when she had almost no reaction to the hormone injections. We did a brief exam and found some suspicious things – externally, her teats were nice and long and perfectly positioned but her vulva was smaller and more puckered than any of our other does, even the kids. Internally, we tried inserting a qtip and it stopped less than half an inch inside. On a normal doe, it would go way farther, at least 2-3 inches. We then were pretty sure what we were dealing with, but had the vet come out to confirm – he felt small internal testicles. She wasn’t a full hermaphrodite because neither set of reproductive organs was complete. She wasn’t just a freemartin either because she did have reproductive organs. Since she had them but partially, she was considered a pseudohermaphrodite, or intersex.
Coccidiosis
A lot of breeders use meds to prophylactically prevent coccidia in their kids because it’s so dangerous for them. We try to avoid overloading our kids with too many drugs, but as mentioned above, we do now use a grower feed containing a preventative. We also use herbal protocols to help prevent coccidiosis. Every week, we add an herbal treatment to our kids’ milk bottles (we switch between Land of Havilah (external link) or Fir Meadows (external link)).
If a kid is diagnosed with coccidiosis & if natural remedies don’t seem to be working, we ask the vet for Albon or SMZ-TMP, a sulfa drug. If that kid becomes overloaded again, we move to Toltrazuril – NOT the scammy HorsePreRace one (google it – the owner has been arrested multiple times for having unsanitary facilities and mislabeling drugs). We use either Zuricox or Baycox brands, which are legally regulated formulations (in other countries). Toltrazuril for goats is kinda in a gray area in the US – it’s approved for goats in other countries, but not here. Most sources say it’s illegal for any food-producing animals here, so beware if you plan to raise your kids for meat. The meat withdrawal is super long – some say up to 150 days! We never use Corid/Amprolium on goats. It can cause deadly B12 deficiencies and just isn’t worth it when we’ve got better options.
Albon antibiotic dosage: 25mg/lb orally first dose, then 12.5mg/lb daily for 4 days. Can also treat some bacterial gut infections and strains of pneumonia. 7 day meat withdrawal, 60 hour milk withdrawal.
Toltrazuril 5% dosage: 1cc/5.5lbs orally once, and again in 10 days if there was a heavy load. 150 day meat withdrawal, 42 day milk withdrawal per USDA but other governments have shorter times.
Entamoeba
This one was new to us in 2024 after weeks of endless rain. When we asked our vet how to treat entamoeba, he told us to use Safeguard. Our vet clinic is filled with awesome and brilliant goat-knowledgeable vets, but this one was definitely incorrect in this case. Entamoeba is a protozoan parasite, not a worm. After a bunch of research, we found Specto-Guard Scour Halt (external link) (prescription now required), and that did the trick. This med is risky, though – some people say that it can stop GI peristalsis, which would be fatal for a goat.
Specto-Guard Scour Halt antibiotic dosage: Under 10lbs: 2cc orally 2x/day for 3-5 days, Over 10lbs: 4cc orally 2x/day for 3-5 days. 3 day meat withdrawal, no milk withdrawal has been established.
Worms
The very best way to prevent worms is dry lotting goats, where they don’t have access to grass & only get feed that is brought in. That seems like a boring existence for these playful critters and it’s verrrry expensive to have to supply ALL feed, so we use the second best worm prevention: pasture rotation. We don’t have a whole lot of land to work with, but we still manage to split our pasture into multiple smaller sections using electric netting (external link). Every week or so, we move the net to a fresh area and give each used section a rest of 30+ days before cycling back through.
We’ve had luck preventing worms with BiteMe! Treats (external link) and also with free choice herbs from Land of Havilah (external link), Fir Meadow (external link), or Verm Oust (external link). Some people also swear by an essential oil treatment protocol:
We still have had a few breakthrough worm infestations here and there, so we started using Livamol® with BioWorma (external link) for the first time in 2024. It’s a feed additive that contains spores for a fungus that eats worm larvae. Over time, the goats will seed the pasture with this fungus and it should hopefully decrease the parasite load.
Another natural product that people swear by is Lespedeza (external link), a legume crop with high tannins. It’s not affordable for our herd size, but would be awesome for smaller groups.
Copper oxide wire particles (external link) have been shown to reduce barberpole worm loads in goats. Our usual mineral and now the buffet we’re trying have high copper content and we don’t want to overdose our herd, so we do one kid bolus per adult goat or half a kid bolus per kid twice per year.
Sometimes, we still need to resort to meds if natural treatment doesn’t work, especially in kids because herbal remedies often take longer to work and kids don’t have that time to spare before permanent damage or even death. Dewormers should be given once, then a fecal should be run about 10 days later. If the worm count has decreased, another round of the same dewormers should be given. If the count has not decreased, different dewormers should be used & another fecal & second dose of meds should be done again in 10 days.
For the most up to date info about worm prevention, check out wormx.info (external link) – they recently updated their dewormer chart (downloadable pdf) in November 2024 – we have it embedded below:
External Parasites
The goats have gotten lice from their hay a couple times in the fall/winter/early spring. Lice generally go away on their own once summer hits and we pretty much ignore them, but if we do notice that a goat has a heavy load, we sprinkle sulfur powder over their back for a few days in a row and that usually resolves the issue. If it doesn’t or if the goat seems to be having symptoms like severe hair loss or anemia, we move to a chemical treatment. But for the most part, lice are pretty easily treated.
Mites, on the other hand, suck (or bite – there are a few species)! We have one doe who has been fighting them since before she came to us – she’s definitely got something else going on to make her such a target, and we’re positive that her breeder knew something was up & sold her to us at full price anyway. We’ve hit her with every mineral we could find in case she was deficient and started the FCE buffet to try to help her, but she still has them. We know that we should probably sell her as a pet or food, but Riesling is very attached to her and she has so many other great qualities that we haven’t given up on her yet.
Cylence pour-on dosage (NOT PREMISE SPRAY): 1ml/25lbs for lice and 1ml/10lb for mites, syringed along the goat’s topline.
Eprinex pour-on dosage:
Ivermectin injectable dosage:
Dectomax injectable dosage: 1cc/75lbs for mites, 1cc/110lbs for worms injected or 1cc/35lbs for worms orally.
Pneumonia
We’ve unfortunately dealt with pneumonia for two years in a row. Goats are SO prone to it if conditions aren’t perfect, and Wisconsin is anything but perfect – constantly bouncing from wet to dry to hot to cold. We did our best to avoid vaccines, but now we vaccinate all of our keepers with an intranasal called Nasalgen 3 PMH (external link) – it’s officially labeled for cattle, but our vet says that it has done well in studies for goats and might be labeled for them soon, too. It helps develop resistance to a few common causes of pneumonia, and to us, one semiannual squirt up the nose is less bad than a week+ of antibiotics, potential permanent loss of lung function, and/or death. We realize that vaccines are a personal decision and only vaccinate our keepers unless a buyer requests that we do theirs, too.
When our goats come down with respiratory infections, we first treat them holistically with herbs and VetRX (which is basically Vicks VaporRub for livestock). We check daily and sometimes multiple times for day for fever. At the first sign of a fever, if a goat is also looking sick in other ways, we move to antibiotics because pneumonia can kill in an hour. There is a ton of conflicting info about dosages online, but this is what our vet prescribed:
Draxxin antibiotic dosage: 1.1cc/100lbs injected subcutaneously. Once per week, total of two times for 14 day coverage. This is the first one to try – if no improvement after 2 days, use another antibiotic between Draxxin doses. 18 day meat withdrawal, not to be used in milk-producing animals or within 2 months of start of milk production. Vendor recommends 48 day milk withdrawal if it has to be used in a milk-producing animal.
Banamine NSAID dosage: 2cc/100lbs injected intravenously or intramuscularly are best, subcutaneously is less effective. Once per day for no more than 3 days or can cause severe kidney damage. This is for fever & inflammation and is not an antibiotic. 4 day meat withdrawal, 36 hour milk withdrawal.
Resflor Gold antibiotic – includes banamine so DO NOT give extra – dosage: 6cc/100lbs injected subcutaneously. Once every other day for a week. An alternative dosage we’ve seen is 3cc/100lbs once per day for 5 days. 5 day meat withdrawal, 36 hour milk withdrawal. Our vet only gave us this one because he was out of Nuflor, which he prefers for goats.
Baytril 100 antibiotic – LAST RESORT – dosage: 1.1cc/45lbs injected subcutaneously. Once per day for 3 days. An alternative dosage we’ve seen is 4cc/100lbs once per day for 5 days. Last resort because this antibiotic is used in humans and doctors want to prevent resistance. 6 day meat withdrawal, 96 hour milk withdrawal.
Bloat & Clostridial Enterotoxemia
We have dealt with bloat a couple times. The absolute worst was when the bucks busted through a fence and shattered a tub of chicken feed. They all gorged themselves and ballooned up within a couple hours. They were huge and drum-tight and standing groaning uncomfortably. We called the vet out, and she stomach tubed them full of a prescription-grade version of Therabloat, activated charcoal, and water to try to flush out the toxins before acidosis caused too much damage. She injected them with massive doses of Penicillin (prescription now required) to help fight clostridium bacteria that cause enterotoxemia, and also gave Vitamin B Complex (external link) to help keep their rumens working. She instructed us to keep doing that for a few days, and also to provide Probios (external link) and electrolytes – she specified Gatorade if we didn’t have a livestock one (we used Bluelite (external link)). In the end, 4 bucks survived but our BFF Mark passed away after a week, when we thought he was safe.
We had been debating whether to use the CDT vaccine, which helps immunize against clostridial bacteria including tetanus, and that event solidified our decision. Like the Pneumonia one, we vaccinate our keepers and not kids for sale unless requested.
We started out using Bar-Vac, but it caused a lot of welts, so we switched to Durvet CDT (external link). After another fatal crisis in 2024 with what we believe to be a less common clostridium strain, we have started using Cavalry 9 (external link), which offers more coverage. Some sources indicate that multivalent vaccines are less effective because the body might not have enough resources to boost against everything, but longtime producers have used them with great success – including one of our heroes, Brandi at Vanjust Oberhasli.
We also keep a stockpile of bloat treatments handy: we give human GasX (external link) at the first sign of bloat and move to Therabloat (external link) if that doesn’t seem to be helping, plus Milk of Magnesia (external link) and activated charcoal (external link) to help prevent acidosis. We also keep at least one bottle of Clostridium CD Antitoxin (external link) in stock – if for any reason we suspect that a goat won’t recover from bloat within a couple hours, we use the antitoxin to help prevent enterotoxemia from taking hold – yes, even with the CDT vaccine, it’s a possibility.
Staph Aureus
After a really gross week of rain and mud when we couldn’t keep the goat shelter dry enough, we had two does develop staph dermatitis on their udders. First, before every milking, we thoroughly washed each of the affected does with chlorhexidine udder wash (external link). After washing, we rinsed them off, because leaving it on is very drying. We then milked the affected does last after all the others, to prevent the others from catching it. They were milked into a separate bucket, and the milk was discarded because it would still be risky to feed the babies, even after pasteurizing. After milking, we thoroughly sprayed each doe with Fight-Bac (external link) – that wasn’t super effective, so at the recommendation of another breeder, we tried the original brown Listerine (external link) instead and that seemed to help a lot more. We made sure to wear clean gloves for washing, then new ones for milking – it’s super important to do everything possible to avoid letting the staph enter the udder and become mastitis.
We also gave each of the affected does a kid-sized copper bolus (external link) – some studies indicate that copper deficiency allows staph to take hold.
The above treatments worked to resolve the staph on one of the does, but the other needed extra help. She got BAD and the infection spread over her entire belly. We started coating her whole affected area with NuStock (external link) and Desitin (external link) diaper rash ointment. After TWO weeks, she finally kicked the dermatitis!
Some people recommend VIMCO (external link), the S. Aureus vaccine. If we end up with recurring infections or with mastitis, we might try it, but we have managed to avoid it so far (*knock on wood*).
Mastitis
We’ve been lucky that we have not yet encountered clinical mastitis, but we HAVE dealt with suspected subclinical mastitis. A couple does have had abnormally high somatic cell counts, so we checked them with a paper mastitis test and it just barely turned a tiny bit more green than it should have. We gave those does supportive herbal remedies.
If a doe seems like she might have mastitis brewing, we add Vitamin C to her feed on the milk stand, either via gummies (external link) or powder (external link). We also add dolomite powder (external link) and MastoBlast (external link), a homeopathic remedy. Many people also swear by letting the doe drink a few ounces of her own milk for a few days – the thought is that sometimes bacteria are isolated in the udder and the doe’s immune system doesn’t know to fight them. By feeding her milk to her, her immune system might notice the bacteria and build a defense.
If a doe’s udder seems hot, hard, or lumpy, we first clean it well and then use the original brown Listerine (external link) – the alcohol helps to remove bacteria and the mintiness helps to reduce congestion. It’s an old trick that a big farmer showed us. Once the udder is clean and dry, we massage Dynamint (external link) into it, focusing on any knots that we feel. Some people swear by DMSO mixed with colloidal silver instead or in addition, but others are firmly against DMSO, so we want to research that more. I’m adding it here so that I remember.
We fully milk the doe 2-3 times per day or more if she seems especially uncomfortable. The goal is to keep flushing as much infected milk out of the udder as possible and to avoid her drying up while the pathogen is still inside.
So far, these steps have worked for our mild subclinical cases.
Eye Injuries
There are a couple degrees of eye injuries – one is best to bandage up & not touch, and one is best to treat with ointment and leave open. It was a few years ago that the vet explained them to us and we won’t pretend to know exactly what each entails, but we’ve only dealt with the latter.
I think it was the day or day after we brought home one of our bucklings that our neighbors decided to shoot off a bunch of impromptu fireworks. The buckling was already super nervous, and the fireworks drove him crazy – he started ramming into the walls of his quarantine pen and very badly scratched his cornea. The vet wasn’t sure if he’d even keep his eye. He checked him with that orange eyedrop stuff to see how bad the scratch was and whether the gel behind the eyes was leaking out. It wasn’t, so the vet had us treat him with 3-4x daily Terramycin antibiotic ointment on the affected eye to keep it lubricated & prevent infection and Meloxicam to reduce swelling twice per day until healed. It took about 2-3 weeks. During that time, the poor guy gradually warmed up to us – we hid the Meloxicam inside fig newton bars and he definitely became a fiend for those!
Over the years, we’ve dealt with a couple more mild corneal abrasions from goats being poked by their hay. They all cleared up with Terramycin and Meloxicam, too.
We haven’t seen pinkeye in our herd yet – *knock on wood* – but we hear that the treatment for that is also Terramycin ointment.
* Please note that these are our personal opinions and experiences, and our statements are not intended to be professional or medical advice in any way. We have added links to products that we have used. We are Amazon and CoopWorx affiliates, so if someone purchases an item on their site through one of these links, we might get a small commission at no additional charge. For all other links, we are in no way affiliated with the vendors or brands and do not receive any award or recognition for purchase.
** To see almost all products & tools that we use for all of our farm critters, feel free to check out our Super Ultra Mega Shopping List.
This weekend, we sorted most of our poultry breeding groups for the season! We still have to add the youngest pullets, but they need a little while to start & get used to laying anyway. Around March 1, as long as everyone is laying well, we’ll test for fertility and then start running through our waitlists.
We have a few pet-quality .5-2 year old hens up for grabs - mostly color flaws and a couple are a little smaller or have more narrow heads than we’re looking for. One Buckeye limps after she dove under the moving tractor when she was young.
Ken is almost done with some awesome new breeding coops for this year, too! We’re hoping that our new setup will help the Partridge Chanteclers lay better than they did in 2024 🤞
#chickens #ducks #geese #rarebreeds #rarebreedchickens #heritagebreeds #coldhardy #layingeggs #exhibitionpoultry
Feb 3
We`ve seen a few great supply charts floating around the interwebs, so we thought we`d add ours to the mix - check out our Super Ultra Mega Shopping List (link in bio) for our favorite farm-related purchases!
One is the pictured @coopworx Feed Silo - it prevents a ton of waste, plus the chickens seem to enjoy it!
#chickens #pasteuredpoultry #feedingchickens #homesteading #shoppinglist #ameraucana #wheatenameraucana #goats #dairygoats #beekeeper #farmsupplies #shopping
Feb 1
This guy is our spirit animal! All the other chickens are out scratching around, but he’s just chilling alone in his chair, quietly watching the field.
#chickens #rooster #chanteclerchickens #partridgechantecler #rarebreeds #rarebreedchickens #heritagebreed #endangeredbreed #pasturedpoultry
Jan 31
We`re gearing up to do this year`s first round of fecals and thought we`d write out our process - it sounds intimidating, but it’s super easy! We use a Modified McMaster technique recommended by the University of Minnesota.
--- Supplies ---
• TWO cups that fit at least 5oz
• Scale that measures at least .1 g
• Fecal float solution
• Large syringe or measuring cup that fits at least 28 ml
• Tongue depressor
• Gauze or tea strainer
• Pipette
• McMaster slide
• Microscope with 10x objective lens (total of 100x with eyepiece)
--- Performing a Fecal ---
1. Label both cups with animal name
2. Tare one labeled cup on the scale
3. If manure is pelleted, crush & knead to mix
4. Measure 2 g of fecal matter into the cup on the scale
5. Measure 28 ml of flotation solution & pour into the cup
6. Mix the sample & solution using a tongue depressor and let sit for 5 minutes
7. Mix again, then immediately pour it through a strainer or gauze into the second cup, using the tongue depressor to press fluid through
8. Immediately use a pipette to entirely fill both chambers of the McMaster slide with the strained fluid, taking care to avoid leaving large bubbles
9. Let the slide sit for at least 5 minutes to allow eggs to float to the surface – do not let sit for more than an hour
10. Place the slide onto the microscope and bring the grid lines into focus
11. Starting at one corner on one side of the slide, work down one grid area and back up the next until all the way through both chambers, counting all eggs that sit over halfway inside the grid & excluding any outside – "Animal Fecal Microscopy – Farm & Livestock" is an excellent group on FB for help IDing eggs
12. Multiply the count of each seen species` eggs x 50 – this is the Eggs Per Gram (EPG)
ACSRPC currently recommends that a fecal be used to ID species & determine dewormer efficacy, but NOT as a guideline for starting treatment. A goat should generally only be treated if it shows signs of overload; although honestly, if we see a count over 500 EPG for kids or over 1000 for adults, we’re probably going to treat before it becomes a bigger issue.
#fecaltesting #herdhealth #ParasiteControl #goats #deworming #chickens
Jan 29
FINALLY! After months and months of nothing, we have a few eggs again! We found out the other night that part of the reason for the dearth was a family of opossums that we caught yolk-handed. They’ve been booted from that part of our pasture into a hopefully safer area!
#eggs #pasturedeggs #farmfresh #chickeneggs #backyardpoultry #chickens
Jan 26
It’s time to replace our milk machine hoses & liners, and we couldn’t resist trying these ones from Parts Dept! Definitely *not* because they’re purple and match our milk stand mats 💜
Okay, maybe that’s part of it, but not the only reason - They’re also antibacterial! It might be a gimmick, but they’re only a couple bucks more than the standard clear silicone, and we’ll take whatever extra help we can get.
#milking #milkmachine #goats #dairygoats #goatmilk
Jan 23
Aha! Mystery solved - DNA has now confirmed that Diana is the daughter of Ober-Ridge Gatsby’s Arrogance, who has sired a whole bunch of consistently nice goats; including the 2024 ADGA National Premier Sire, Ober-Boerd T Vance (who is the sire of our young dude, Sublime OBV Son of a Sinner) 😍
Diana and her daughter Moonie’s pedigrees will be corrected soon, and we’re now set for her to kick off our kidding season in a couple weeks - fingers crossed that we get allllll doe kids 😅
#goats #dairygoats #performanceherd #oberhasli #oberhasligoats #guernseygoats #mininubians #kiddingseason #goatmilk
Jan 23
Diana is our first doe due in just a couple weeks, with our true love Maui’s kids! We had created a nice ad buuuuut we ran DNA on a bunch of the goats to see their aS1-casein & threw in parentage since we get 3 freebies per year, and yesterday we learned that Diana here may not be who she seems 🧐
Oopsies happen, even for the best of us 😅 We’ll keep the folks who are interested in her kids posted. Her breeder narrowed it down to 2-3 possible sires, and they’re all equally amazing! We’ve already seen that Diana has one of the nicest udders in our herd AND we now know that her milk & that of her kids might be helpful for people with milk sensitivities - her genetic markers indicate low/no aS1-casein.
#goats #dairygoats #itsalwayssomething #performanceherd #oberhasligoats #goatmilk
Jan 21
We’re down to -22°F with windchill right now, with temps decreasing through tomorrow 🥶 The goats are all snuggled and warm in their shelters, and the chickens are making short food & sunlight excursions before heading back to their shelters. A few keep trying to camp out next to the house’s furnace vent, which probably isn’t the best thing, so we’ll have to put up a little fence around that today!
#chickens #coldhardy #peacomb #cushioncomb #rarebreedchickens #heritagebreed #ameraucana #chantecler #buckeyechicken #svarthona
Jan 20
Gertie says, “Brrrrr!”
Today, we’re scrambling to get everyone ready for the 70 degree temperature swing we’re about to get! It’s about 35°F today and will be dropping to potentially -35 or colder (with windchill) over the next couple days 🥶
#winter #midwestwinter #polarvortex #dairygoats #goats #pasturedpoultry
Jan 18
We did it! Rowena, Dolly, Swiss, and Candy have all officially earned their MDGA stars 🎉 Riesling produced enough in all three categories to earn her full ADGA AR star, but Lord only knows when that`ll show up in their system!
#goats #dairygoats #performanceherd #milkstars #mininubians #oberhasligoats #guernseygoats #goatmilk
Jan 13
Soooo funny story, Jess now has to have surgery 3 days before a bunch of does are due to kid in February, including our senior Vivi here. The surgery might be easy ooor might involve a giant abdominal cut and a balloon being placed for a week or so & severely limiting movement during that time.
We hate to have to ask, but would anyone local with small hands be interested in helping Ken with kidding emergencies around 2/23 ish? Odds are very high that it’ll be in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snowstorm 😅 We do have vets on call for emergencies, too, but they sometimes take 45+ minutes to make it here.
#localhelpinglocal #kiddingseason #babygoats #goatpeople #goats #manitowoc #mishicot
Jan 11
We present to you Chinese Skullcap, an herb used in traditional Chinese Medicine (photo shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia).
We’ve seen a zillion frantic posts about Avian Influenza again lately, so we thought we’d bring up this plant. It’s one that we have in our arsenal of herbs that we might give to the critters during times of stress or if they just seem off. We’re not at all against Western Medicine, but it can sometimes use a boost from the Eastern side!
A few years ago, during the last big Avian Influenza scare in Europe, a sanctuary based in England & Wales (The Waterfowl Sanctuary) found research on this herb and used it to save many of their intakes.
Numerous studies show that Chinese Skullcap has natural antibacterial & antiviral properties, and bunch of those studies are referenced on PoultryDVM. That site also includes recommended dosages.
It does NOT fully eliminate the virus and probably won’t work if an animal is too far gone, but it might stall the spread long enough that the immune system can have a chance to learn and do its job. It also might be effective against other notoriously hard to treat poultry viruses & bacteria, including Marek’s and Mycoplasma.
#plantmedicine #naturalmedicine #themoreyouknow #chineseskullcap #birdflu #avianinfluenza #backyardpoultry #pasturedpoultry
Jan 9
In a little over a month, we’ll be meeting our first batch of 2025 goat kids! To feed them, we usually use the Caprine Supply bucket with the freaking awful little hoses that need to be pulled out and cleaned individually. This year, we’re trying out this bad boy and are hoping it’ll save us some time!
#goatkids #bottlebabies #milkbar #dairygoats #showgoats #performanceherd #oberhasligoats #mininubian #guernseygoats
Jan 9
We at JK Herd It All wish you all a Happy New Year 🎉 Here`s to hoping that 2025 turns out to be as calm as Dexalicious (pictured) is right now!
2024 has been filled with tons of ups and downs for us here - an awesome kidding season, an awful hatching season, a productive milking season with lots of pending stars, a war with poultry predators, our first unexplained goat loss, a job loss due to a company closure, trying goat AI for the first time, and four allllll-consuming human IVF cycles that only gave us three euploid embyos (which is the statistical average needed for one live birth). So yeah, 2024 was definitely a LOT!
In 2025, we`re hoping to bring our Obers and maybe CrazyTrain to Linear Appraisal, give Riesling a chance to compete for a TopTen Milk award, bring in some new birds from our parent lines to prevent inbreeding but maintain consistency, find someone to collect our bucks, and see whether any of our embryos will stick before Jess hits the big 4-0 in October 😱
Our kidding season this year starts at the end of February, so feel free to reach out if you`re interested in some really nice milkers, bucks, or bottle babies - and of course poultry, too! Our Partridge Chantecler & Pilgrim waitlists are maxed out and Buckeyes are close, but we`ve got plenty of space on the others!
#happynewyear #newyear2025 #farmdog #dog #rescuedog #shepherdmix #supermutt #fluffydog #goats #dairygoats #chickens #heritagebreeds #rarebreeds #exhibitionpoultry #showgoats #performanceherd #herdreduction #farmlife #homesteading #infertilitysucks
Jan 1