Goats a Go Go

[allensylves]

Crizzy,
If "John Deere" won't work and the goat is a Saanen, Toggenberg, Nubian, etc., how about "International Harvester", "Harve" for short.

Allen
Baton Rouge, LA & HPP

[jade]

Jerry,

Do you have to watch out for poisons plants or do goats know to stay away from them. I have a kukui tree and I don't know if I have to get rid of it or not.
Mahalo,
Jade

[sansei]

jade,
Thanks for posting your fiascofarm.com link. I have been looking at goats for a long time and I learned more from that site. You may have missed it but there is a page on toxic plants here: http://fiascofarm.com/goats/poisonousplants.htm

The page contains the usually suspects but I saw one that caught my attention. I am a fan of avocados and I have eaten many Hass and Fuerte in my life. My mother used to also wrap steamed Japanese sweets in avocado leaves when I was growing up. This caught my curiosity and did some further research. I found the following on some university web site:
"Unripe avocados are said to be toxic. Two resins derived from the skin of the fruit are toxic to guinea pigs by subcutaneous and peritoneal injection. Dopamine has been found in the leaves. The leaf oil contains methyl chavicol. Not all varieties are equally toxic. Rabbits fed on leaves of 'Fuerte' and 'Nabal' died within 24 hours. Those fed on leaves of 'Mexicola' showed no adverse reactions. Ingestion of avocado leaves and/or bark has caused mastitis in cattle, horses, rabbits and goats. Large doses have been fatal to goats. Craigmill et al. at Davis, California, have confirmed deleterious effects on lactating goats which were allowed to graze on leaves of 'Anaheim' avocado an hour each day for 2 days. Milk was curdled and not milkable, the animals ground their teeth, necks were swollen and they coughed, but the animals would still accept the leaves on the 4th day of the experiment. By the 10th day, all but one goat were on the road to recovery. All abnormal signs had disappeared 20 days later. In another test, leaves of a Guatemalan variety were stored for 2 weeks in plastic bags and then given to 2 Nubian goats in addition to regular feed over a period of 2 days. Both suffered mastitis for 48 hours. Avocado leaves in a pool have killed the fish. Canaries have died from eating the ripe fruit. The seeds, ground and mixed with cheese or cornmeal, have been used to poison rodents. However, tests in Hawaii did not show any ill effect on a mouse even at the rate of 1/4 oz (7 g) per each 2.2 lbs (1 kg) of body weight, though the mouse refused to eat the dried, grated seed material until it was blended with cornmeal. Avocado seed extracts injected into guinea pigs have caused only a few days of hyperexcitability and anorexia. At Davis, mice given 10 to 14 g of half-and-half normal ration and either fresh or dried avocado seed died in 2 or 3 days, though one mouse given 4 times the dose of the others survived for 2 weeks."

It turns out that there are three strains of avocado. Mexican, Guatemalan and West Indies. Hass and Fuerte are Mexican-Guatemalan hybrids. According to an article on the CTAHR site that says most of the avocados grown in Hawaii are Guatemalan or Guatemalan-West Indian hybrids. I did not run across any references to West Indian toxicity.

Anyway, here is another goat oriented web site I have visited in the past that has an article that addresses your question about whether goats are smart enough to stay away from something bad for them: http://www.goatworld.com/

The article is under the Poisonous Plants link on the left side of the Home Page.

One more thought. You probably won't let your goats into the garden anyway, but plants in the Solanaceae family that includes tomato, potato, pepper, tobacco and egg plant are all in the same family as nightshade (belladonna).

[tada]

who sells dwarf nigerians? Is it twin Oaks farm? and how you avoid the strong "goat" flavor? unfortunately it'll be at least 4 years before I raise goats.

Others want to make friends- I just want to make money.
James Cramer

[jade]

Mahalo for the information Sansei. I do have two avocado tree on my property. Luckily not next to the pen. I will have to make sure the no leaves get blown near there. I have a sharwil and Yamagata. Which I don't know the origin of the Yamagata. Also I did read the info. on posionous plants. I mostly wanted to know if it is okay to let them graze on undeveloped property. I am in HPP. I have a pen for them but nothing is growing in it due to I have chickens roaming around eating any foliage. So I am looking to see for addition food source other than hay,sweet feed and goat food. I know that they like the albezia trees which is good for me. We seem to have plenty. Finally a use for albezia. I guess I will just bring them food instead of letting them graze.
Jade

[JerryCarr]

When I was growing up on a ranch in Texas, we had 300 Angora goats and 1200 cattle. The goats were not only good money makers (mohair sweaters,) but we used them for the occasional barbecue and mainly for range conservation. After the cattle had eaten most of the grass in a pasture, we would move them to another pasture that had not been grazed for some time and had nice grass. We would then turn the goats into the area the cows had just finished to control the brush seedlings that tend to come up when the grass cover starts getting thin. After the brush was controlled, the pasture would not be grazed at all for six months to as much as a year to regenerate grass cover.

Well, the real point of this ramble is that the goats seemed to have an uncanny sense of what they should or should not eat. They tended to avoid certain toxic plants and shrubs that a hungry cow would eat, resulting in sickness for the unwise cow. I don't know if this sense is unique to Angoras, but we never worried about them eating the wrong thing. My cousins and I had the job of walking through the pastures after the goats were done and chopping out the things they would not eat.

Cheers,
Jerry

[Hotzcatz]

Baby goats are sooo cute! So far my friends have two baby does, but they are from their best milker, so I think they will be keeping the pair. However, they have three others who are due to kid soon and they can't keep them all.

Their herd is all pure bred Nubian goats which they milk. They said a young male goat if you were willing to bottle feed it would sell for around $50. The girl goats go for $200, particularly since these are a milking breed.

If you are looking for a lawn mower, sheep or geese might be an answer. They eat the grass and don't browse shrubbery as much as goats do.

[keaaukizzau]

Jerry,

Hi, there. Just wanted to introduce myself - my husband and I just got a couple of Nigerian Dwarf goats from Amy at Silver Oaks and she mentioned that you guys had a few. We are kind of your neighbors... :o)

Anyway, nothing really except a hello, I figured it might be nice to know some other goat people in the area. We've had our two little goaties for a couple of weeks now and completely adore them! Maybe one day we'll have to have a goatie party....

Kelli