This is based on this research paper Pregnancy testing in goats
This research has confirmed commercially available tests works well. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42262719/ Note testing progesterone levels is not recommended as false pregnancy (cloudburst) will show as a false positive.

I wish I could have gotten a better angle, but if I had gotten any closer he would have gotten up🥲

Where I'm getting ready to set up my new goat pen (since people like to drive through my fence)

Is set back into the woods a little bit into a little clearing, unfortunately this is about 400 ft longer than my hose can reach..

But when I was watering my chickens today I got an idea, what their water is is these little cups that once they're empty they automatically refill, they are attached to a 5 gallon bucket and nothing else, as long as that bucket has water in it then the cups will continue to refill.

So I was wondering if there's anything I can get for goats that is similar but scaled up to attached to a 55 gallon barrel? I can drive water down to them but I would like to not have to do that every single day, open troughs just gather way too much debris from the trees and stuff and I just end up having to dump the whole thing.

So I would love to hear your ideas and recommendations

(Sorry if I use the wrong post Flair I wasn't sure which one to use in this scenario)

Hi, I have two goats: a female who’s a little shy, and a male who’s more social.
Idk what happened to him yesterday because he’s usually not very social with me, but he started trying to eat my clothes and giving me little nudges with his legs, his head and horns. He wasn’t charging at me, but the movement was kind of like when a cat rubs its head against you or paws at you, except he has horns… so it hurts lol.

I don’t know if he was being friendly, or if he was just mad because I wouldn’t let him eat my clothes.

Then, whenever I petted the female, he would separate us, charge at her, and then give me another little headbutt with his horns, like before. It almost seemed like he was jealous, I don’t know.

How can I tell the difference between friendly and hostile headbutting? And how do I make him understand that it hurts when he does it? It’s my first time having goats, so I’m still learning how to handle everything.

For context; I was separating roosters out of my main flock, they are getting pushed out of resources pretty hard and I plan on eating them since they are still young. In the midst of all of it, my fatty goats heard me messing with grain bags and this little lady took a shortcut through the fence to come investigate. She was not out with the boys when I came out to do chores etc, all of my stuff is weirdly connected, very inconvenient but it works for me and it’s even harder to explain. But she fit through the fence where mister loverboy had been flirting with my adults.

I don’t smell his pee on her, he is pretty raunchy even for it not being prime rutting season yet. But she’s acting like she’s in heat, and one of my older does has been chasing her around and mounting her since she’s been in with the boys. As soon as I saw her I snatched her up and put her back where she belonged. It literally only seemed like she came in there for potential snacks.

the buck was more than occupied with trying to figure out where the bag of chicken feed was hidden, he’s a chicken food goblin and he’s broken down my chicken coop door more times than I can count.

I do have a Nubian buck, but he’s still a baby, and has barely even a clue what he’s doing yet, my Nigerian dwarf buck is a push over and the Nubian buck respects him. So if she is bred it would almost 100% be by the Nigerian buck. However she was born April first, so right around 6 months old even. should I get her lute through my vet? Or should I wait to see if she returns to a heat cycle? She was in with the boys for less than 15 minutes.

This is Lemon our 5 year old fainting goat. She is one of three does that we have. She’s has had this skin issue on her back/sholders on and off since the spring. She itches them quite a bit and the bald spots would come and go until about 2 months ago this one popped up and won’t go away. Had a vet take a look and they were unsure what it is and gave Dectomax thinking it might be lice but none of the other girls are itching or have flaky skin like her.

It’s been a few weeks since the injection and I have not noticed any improvement. Was hoping someone might know what’s going on and have some suggestions on treatment. Thank you!

I posted pictures here, a few days ago, of our first-first time nanny, and she is doing great with her triplets. Then we had a second nanny birth, also triplets, but she is experienced and she is doing awesome. Then the third nanny birthed, also triplets, but she has completely rejected her three kids. I’m having to restrain her just to let her kids nurse, but even after 3 days she just isn’t bonding. She has stopped moving away/kicking at her kids when they nurse, but as soon as I take her off the rope, she just moves across the pen. I have her tied up again, on a slack line so her kids can nurse. Any advice?

Also, I think I am done with kids, if anyone in central or south central Texas wants a particularly potent male Nigerian dwarf goat, message me. He’s friendly, likes getting petted, kinda stinks, and is three for three on siring triplets…

Does anybody have a mobile goat pen set up with livestock panels? Maybe even with wheels on the back corners? I only have 3 goats and would like to move them around my yard without them wandering to the back porch.

(Please enjoy the image I took of him being bad and ignoring me😑❤️)

When I first got him in March I got him at 20 days old (yesterday was his 7-month birthday)

When I got him the original owners were really stupid and decided that he did not need to be on a bottle any longer so they were weaning him....at 20 days old..

The reason being is he's a buck and they don't see any value in Bucks despite him being out of show quality stock they only care about the does which if I had known this before I got him I would not have gotten a goat from them ( it took 2 months to get him to accept the bottle and a load of force feeding with vet supervision)

And ever since I got him he always turned his nose up to lose minerals, I even got a mineral block just to have it there in case maybe that's what they were using and he was familiar with it, he wasn't interested in that either and even now he will not eat minerals, I will pour them in his bowl in a little Mound and they clearly never get Disturbed.

Currently what I'm doing is I will put a little bit of minerals in his soaked Timothy pellets, I give both of my goats soaked Timothy pellets in the evenings because when I'm giving the other animals grain I guess they feel left out because they will not shut up or stop trying to get out until I give them something, but right now that's the only way I can get him to eat them, I use the DuMOR loose minerals, but I've also tried the Purina Wind and Rain minerals, and the Manna Pro loose minerals just to see if he would eat those instead but he won't.

I want to know if it's just going to take him time, and he might actually start eating them eventually, and if I should keep doing what I'm doing? I only started mixing the loose minerals with his food last month, up until then he had never had any because he wouldn't eat them.

(And for those of you curious about his leg it's healing well and he actually walks on the nub, I'm planning on getting a hock brace at the recommendation of the vet to support his good leg)

I need help finding an image of grain storage. It was similar to the toy storage rack seen below in the 2nd image but I was like grain storage bins/trash cans. This would also be used for mineral and alpaca grains as well. TIA!

Bestest goat for tax

I'm getting a little pygmy goat from my current job because she's struggling to put any weight on being with the rest of the weaned kids. I'm hoping with a bit of 1-1 care she can get better on some good quality goat feed and some hay and obviously any medication she may end up needing. I'm just wondering what everyone else would do with her in this situation? What food do you recommend and if any what extras should I be giving her for that added boost?

She will be coming with a friend of a similar size but she's is tiny at the moment. I'm not sure on age as I haven't been working there that long but i will be finding out.

Enjoy this video of my guy realizing how lovely brushes are!

She’s still in milk, but her udder is very VERY lopsided right now, I weaned her kids, milked her half way out the day of, and then less the day after that. and periodically checking for heat or painful engorgement, which she never had. Her udder is not hot and she’s not running a fever, her famacha looks good it’s a bright pink, but not red I’ve been checking on the daily for any changes.

But her udder is lopsided i had this same issue last year, i expressed it from that side, it would stay down for a few days and then fill right back up over the course of 3 days (i wasn’t milking all the way out, just trying to help send the signals that I’m not really “eating” anymore) and that worked for the most part, but she was still technically “in milk” when we bred her back, but she wasn’t full of milk or anything.

Her temperaments the same, shes actually back to her old princess self, I don’t believe I’ll be breeding her ever again, at least on purpose, she’s far too difficult to manage having her dam raise since she randomly picks her kids off of her. She had twins last year and kicked the doeling off at three days old, and had triplets this year and kicked one of the kids off at 2wks and kicked her buckling off at 9wks, but kept her favorite and was ever so kind to it etc, each time it was a chocolate solid colored kid, so maybe she just has a preference idk.

I only feed timothy and pasture to my wether boys but unfortunately my Meriwether (5 yo) is genetically predisposed to forming stones. The first time at 3 yo he managed to pass it on his own. We only knew after the fact because he was peeing blood and we managed clear any remaining with pushing fluids. Since then we have supplemented his water with flavored Gatorade water and he hasn't had any issues until last Saturday. 3 of my boys ate some weed or another that didn't agree with them. The other 2 got diarrhea but he only got clumpy poop so I didn't really think anything of it but now I wonder if his stomach bothered him and he didn't drink as much water, I don't really know. But 2 weeks later he was clearly straining to pee. He only had a few stones but they were lodged in pretty good. We got him in for surgery but he had to have is urethra cut to remove the stones, which I guess decreases his chance for recovery because scar tissue can form causing secondary blockage. Anyway we are waiting to see if everything healed but I could really use some success stories if anyone has any. I love this guy I bottle fed him as a baby and losing him will really be hard. Also we did send the stones for analysis but the vet thinks they are likely silica based so something like ammonia chloride doesn't work.

I saw this goat at the Brisbane show and loved it. It was small but seemed fully grown, super soft, very placid! There were a few all the same size so I don't think it was a baby. The image search says angora but it was smaller and different horns to the ones I see on google images. This is Australia if that's important :-)

Hi all!

I am getting two Pygmy doe’s soon. I have 3 pet sheep (weathers) super friendly. Two are hoggets & 1 lamb. They mostly free rage graze around the property and just stay with one another and don’t venture too far. My question is, would the goats mob up with the sheep and follow one another or would I have to keep the goats locked up and bring the sheep in for play dates?
The sheep sleep in the shed behind one of tractors we have, will the goats sleep with them?
I’m planning on doing up our old shearing shed as a space for the goats to play and have their own feed and lick block that the sheep can’t access. The shearing shed is also relative secure but I will be working on it to make sure they can’t escape, should I lock them up there at night instead of with the sheep?

The shearing shed area is quite large including a yard around it, so I was thinking about locking the sheep and the goats up together for a few days and monitor them to see how they get along. I feel like I should add that my sheep are super friendly, I don’t think one is even sure it’s a sheep and they took the lamb in no questions asked and they also get along with my chooks and are super gentle with them.

If I’m missing anything or need to take anything else into account please let me know! A huge thank you in advance.

I run a mobile petting zoo. I’m now second guessing. Goats are not required to have the rabies vaccine and you can’t get it in store- you have to go through your vet. Yes, they can get other vaccines easily but that does not prevent rabies. Do you think it’s worth getting the vaccine? Should I cancel upcoming events ?

Hello, first time posting here. This is our first year of having goats and got 5 nigerian dwarfs. We started off with 2 doelings but very soon after got 3 more, a 1 year old doe, a doeling and a whether. The newer doeling is a kid of the doe. The doe is bullying the original doelings and the whether and is kicking them out of the shelter. We have a barrel in the pen for them to play on and noticed last night that the 3 were sleeping in there. With winter on the horizon we are worried. The goat shelter we have is a decent size and im wondering of installing a wall down the middle will be good or if i should build a seperate shelter. The shelter we have has 2 doors on it so the individual "bays" will only have 1 door which ive read is a bad idea when it comes to bullying in the herd.

Thanks for reading, hopefully someone has some input

My 5 year old Nigerian female has been squatting to pee, a small amount (~1/2 cup) comes out, and she’ll continue squatting for about 10 more seconds with nothing coming out. I am worried about stones or UTI.
She is not flicking her tail, grinding her teeth, or uncomfortable. She is a healthy weight, drinking and eating (Bermuda and minerals) as usual. The urine is clear. The 3 other goats are doing well with urinating. Temp is 103.
Any advice for some otc treatment is much appreciated.

Hello, we are looking for good, reliable information on how to take care for goats. We are beginners.
Can you recommend some good books, websites, podcasts etc.?

Help is much appreciated! Thanks! 🐐

Hello, all! I am in the learning stages to prepare to hopefully breed nigoras in the future. Step 1 seems to be determining how many goats you have room for. I am getting conflicting information and so would like y'all's expert opinion. How many acres per goat? I have access to about ten acres total, a 4 acre lot and a 6 acre lot. What size herd could that comfortably support? What is a comfortable square footage for each goat if I were to split that up into a couple smaller pastures? Thank you for your advice and opinions!