I'm trying to find a one night stand for my goat. Do you know how crazy this can make a person? I have two choices in bucks, they are both of good stock and I think I have my pick. Now enter dilemma of the possibility of bringing home second bred doe. Now I have to find two matches, or match them to the same. So my thought is to have them each bred to a different buck, so if they each have a buckling I can breed each other's buckling to the other doe next year. Then I can put off trying to find a buck next summer.
You see the problem with keeping a dairy goat is, that you have to keep breeding her if you want to continue the milk supply. I could just breed her to any old buck if I was going for just milk but we are also hoping for meat to come of this breeding and maybe a doeling to raise for additional milk and meat. Can you see how this can become an addiction fast!
I think what we have to do is look at the long term picture and figure out just what we want. Eventually, I think we'd like to have 4 does in milk total to cover our milk and cheese needs plus feed goat kids as they are born. After a while, we'd probably want to keep a buck to breed our does to every year. So 5 goats year round, with burst of goat kids in the spring. If each doe has twins (common in goats) then we are talking as few as 13 and as many as 17 goats in the spring. Boy, I hope we end up liking goat meat!
You see the problem with keeping a dairy goat is, that you have to keep breeding her if you want to continue the milk supply. I could just breed her to any old buck if I was going for just milk but we are also hoping for meat to come of this breeding and maybe a doeling to raise for additional milk and meat. Can you see how this can become an addiction fast!
I think what we have to do is look at the long term picture and figure out just what we want. Eventually, I think we'd like to have 4 does in milk total to cover our milk and cheese needs plus feed goat kids as they are born. After a while, we'd probably want to keep a buck to breed our does to every year. So 5 goats year round, with burst of goat kids in the spring. If each doe has twins (common in goats) then we are talking as few as 13 and as many as 17 goats in the spring. Boy, I hope we end up liking goat meat!
There's a very popular new restaurant headed by Stephanie Izarro, I think it's like "A Girl and a Goat" or something. I bet she'll put a cookbook out soon. :)
ReplyDeleteI found her page http://www.girlandthegoat.com/menu.html. Interesting, I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for a book from her.
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