raising goats Archives - Redeeming Home

Baby goats were born on our farm! Ah, I can hardly believe it. I feel like we are actually (kind of) goat farmers now!

We brought lamancha goats onto our homestead a little over a year ago while on the quest for more self sufficiency. Now, I was not for purchasing goats at first. Goats were not my favorite animal of all time. I heard that they could be quite the troublemakers, which wasn’t super exciting. Also, I wasn’t quite sure that I wanted to try goats milk!

At this point in time, I do not drink dairy milk at all, but my children do. I thought after going without milk at times during the pandemic, purchasing goats would be a good idea. Hopefully they would like the milk, right?

Over time, the does have really grown on me. They are dear little creatures who love a back scratch and a special treat. The bucks however, are a different story. If they didn’t have a vital role to fill, I could take them or leave them!

We bred our doe Nora in late fall, and she was due to deliver in April. I was quite nervous. I realized that most of the time goat deliveries went smoothly, but what if it didn’t?

I had no reason to be alarmed, because the birth went off without a hitch. She actually went a few days earlier than expected, which caught us off guard. My husband and I were actually walking our property, trying to figure out the exact lines so we could build a fence. When we got to the goat area, Nora was not with the others. We asked the goat girls, “Where is your sister?,” before continuing on our way. Well, she had walked into a stall to give birth!

We found her later that afternoon, with two babies standing on wobbly legs! She gave birth to a buckling and a doeling. The buckling is an adorable with brown, black, and white coloring. The doeling is whitish-tan, and looks a lot like her mama.

We gave Nora molasses water to help boost her energy, and added extra grain and sunflower seeds to her feed ration. We also helped clean her off, which she seemed to appreciate greatly!

We kept them in the stall for about 48 hours before letting them out. The kids love to jump and skip around! As I’m writing this, they are four days old and are doing fabulously well. My husband is taking them to get dis-budded this evening, which breaks my heart. At the same time, I feel like it is necessary for dairy goats.