My Mom's Page and Thoughts. (because I don't like her changing my stuff and this page will hopefully keep her from doing so, it is really weird when one is previewing and sees something they have never seen or heard before on their website)
Above left: Hazel consulting with Junior Sire, Ninja Above right: Hazel, post kidding.
Notes from Mom:
HEY! In my defense, I mostly go through and just correct spelling, and glaring grammatical errors, and maybe enlarge pictures and maybe post pictures that I have been after the girl to post. HOWEVER, she is right - 98% of this website is Hazel's brainchild and Hazel's work and my role varies from cheerleader to photographer to editor. And I AM giving up my computer, so my kid can steal that (and my cat), and most of the time, my chair...
In reality, I am so proud of my kid, and what she has done, that I'm sure she's sick of my bragging on her, but... My kid is super, and she really IS passionate about her goats.
Left: Athena's daughter Cybele, racing through the backyard. Cybele now lives with a wonderful giant family in Waddel, Arizona.
In reality, I am so proud of my kid, and what she has done, that I'm sure she's sick of my bragging on her, but... My kid is super, and she really IS passionate about her goats.
Left: Athena's daughter Cybele, racing through the backyard. Cybele now lives with a wonderful giant family in Waddel, Arizona.
Purpose of this page -
Right: Hazel introduces 'Blanca' to Athena while Sarina looks on. Sarina was the model for Blanca, and we used Blanca for our 4H club's demo at the Navajo County Fair.
My purpose in asking for a webpage link on Hazel's page, is really for other parents like me, who feel that it is important to let their kid find their own passion and follow it (thus getting dragged along into it).
Back in 2008, I was dimly aware of what a goat looked like, but if pressed, probably could not have told anyone the difference between a goat and a sheep. Then we met Norma, and Norma shared her love of goats with Hazel (being willing to house Hazel's first goat Annie), and Hazel became goat-crazy. Since then, we have been involved in goat births, goat deaths, sick goats, healthy goats, clipping goats, vaccinating goats, transporting goats, burying goats, milking goats, kidding out goats, disbudding goats (THIS TOTALLY SUCKS), tattooing goats and drawing blood from goats. If someone had told me, in 2007, that I would be head-over-heels in love with my kid's GOATS, I would have thought them mad. My husband and I have become lost in Hazel's whirlpool of goats, and now my husband, Mr. 'We will NOT have goats at our house', now milks goats, makes milk-stands, yogurt and Greek yogurt (mmmn!), and feeds goats. Goats have changed Hazel's outlook on so many things, and she has had some rough times, some real ups and downs, with goats. She at first decided that she will become an Exotic Animal Vet, because many vets up here won't see goats, and has now moved laterally into 'Animal Psychologist'. She is called upon fairly regularly by other 'goat people' to help them with maintenance or care of their goats - she is becoming the Mistress of the Hoof Nippers and now has her own business, 'Happy Hooves', where she helps out other folks with their goat-maintenance needs. Hazel is the manager of her goat herd and the ultimate decision maker, though her father and I weigh in our sometimes STRONG opinions ("You're going to sell HER??! Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND??!?). Our house is not the sterotypical scenario of the kid's begging for the animal and the parents end up taking care of it. Here, I help Hazel out, but she is the one, at the end of the day, that initiates stall-cleaning, foot-trimming, milking chores, and does the so many other things that are necessary to take care of a high-maintenance animal like a dairy goat. The girl is amazing. And no, she is NOT for sale!
After Annie's death, we decided that we wanted to do the next set of goats at home - mostly because with Annie at Norma's, we never saw our daughter. She was at Norma's all the time. And it became evident that for Hazel, goats was not a passing fad. She was hooked, and we had the choices to not let her do goats, or to help her do it. If I had read what I think I will write below, before we REALLY got into goats, I think I might have had serious second thoughts. But, so far, I have not had any regrets.
FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK... your world with dairy goats ... I SALUTE YOU!
The Pros and Cons of Dairy Goats
Cons: Above: Hazel & Menolly & Blaze
COST: Goats will cost you in money and in time. Meat goats, or pet goats, or wethers, are the relatively maintenance-free variety of goats. Dairy goats are for the goat-masochists out there who are willing to arrange their schedules around their goats' needs.
Cost - Time: Dairy goats have to be milked twice a day, if you are going for production titles like 'Elite Doe Status' or 'Milking Stars' on your goats. It also makes more sense to have fewer goats produce more milk because they are fed well and milked twice a day, rather than milked just once a day. A gallon-a-day goat, when milked twice a day, will become a half-gallon-a-day goat when milked once a day, and you are still feeding a goat. We have been on DHIA milk testing and will do this again. This is an expensive, time-consuming program that actually gives you REAL data on your goats' milk production. I routinely meet many people who tell me that their Nubians are gallon-and-a-half day milkers, but they don't have the data to back them up. We have an outside tester come in and observe Hazel's milking and verify our tests. If we say Athena averaged 11 pounds a day, and sometimes made it to 12... WE have a tester to back that up. Better, we get data back from the lab to whom we send our milk samples - you can log onto ADGA and search our goats for their milk's butterfat content, protein content, volume... This, in itself, is a lesson to a kid - don't believe everything you hear. Evidence, evidence, evidence - ask for evidence.
Before we got goats, I used to play on the computer a couple hours a day. Now, my computer time involves reading about goats, ordering stuff for goats, cropping photographs of goats, editing films of goats, and now, writing about goats. I can bore ANYONE, these days, with dubious details about goat breeding, gestation, skin conditions, and nutrition requirements and I have taught myself all sorts of tricks with art programs, on ease of handling goat images. Goats have impacted my life, time-wise, rather like having my first and only child did... I sometimes wonder what I did with all the time I think I must have had, before the goats came. As well, it has become imperative to make friends with other goat people (4H is a great thing!) so that if you leave on a family vacation, someone IS there to take care of your goats.
Cost - Labor: Milking isn't just popping the goat up there on the milking stand while the milk drains out of her into the bucket. Learning to milk, and milk efficiently and well, takes time. The doe has to be trained to get on the milk stand, her grain needs to be prepared. Further, the doe's udder needs to be wiped down with a sterilizing solution, her first milk needs to be stripped out and checked visually in a strip cup, and then the doe is milked out, the milk is filtered, weighed and amount recorded. Then the doe's udder is sprayed again, to protect her from bacterial incursions and potential mastitis. You have to wait for the doe to finish her grain (Hazel is a fast milker!), and then you need to clean your milking stand and keep your parlor tidy. Then the milk has to go inside and be cooled to the right temperature, or pasteurized, bottled and put somewhere in the overcrowded 'fridge. We had to learn to make cheese and yogurt just to maintain some refrigerator space. All the milking equipment then has to be cleaned and stored for the next milking time. Hazel does all the milk handling; her father and I have had to learn the cheese and yogurt-making. And consider, when her college roommates are talking about TV programs and trying to figure out how to toast bread, Hazel will be able to share stories of delivering baby goats, milking and showing her does, and the different bacterial cultures and temperatures to make different types of cheese - pretty neat!!
Cost - Labor, Continued... When everyone in the household has a full-time job or full-time school (plus band plus orchestra plus 4H plus AcaDec), this requires a clear division of labor and a lot of willingness to cooperate. Anytime you have a large animal that eats vegetable matter, you will end up with a lot of waste, and a lot of opportunities to collect bedding and manure and remove them to the compost bin. This labor easily takes a couple hours each week. Happy dairy goats are social, friendly animals who also demand THEIR time - they want scratches and pets and to be played with. They love going on 'weed walks', and their fencing and enclosure needs to be scrupulously maintained so that they can't hurt themselves or get stuck in something. Goats require hoof-trimming and if you're concerned about zoonotic diseases, they need their blood drawn, packaged and sent off to numerous labs to have various tests done on them. Then, of course, there's the cheese-making, which is the bonus of having all that milk. If you get a good dairy goat, go ahead and just buy the extra refrigerator, too.
Cost - Money: Goats are not cheap. Good goats are REALLY not cheap. There's some very strong reasons behind getting good goats, rather than the backyard bargain goats, or 'free' goats routinely offered on Craigslist. There's saying in the horse world, that the price you pay for your horse is the least amount of money you'll end up paying for your horse. This holds true for goats as well. A dairy goat is an animal that is producing milk, presumably for human consumption. Dairy goats have zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that can be passed to humans. An internet search for 'raw milk' will bring up countless horror stories of kids who were rendered sick, permanent injured or who died of disease they got from raw milk. If you are planning on feeding raw milk to your family, then you have a massive responsibility to them or anyone who drinks that milk, to make sure your goats don't have any diseases.
My attitude is, if my kid is going to drink this milk, it's going to be VERY clean milk. It's cleanly handled, and we make sure Hazel has the udder wipes and the strip cup and the Fight Bac mastitis spray, and excellent milk filters and all stainless steel handling equipment, and that all that equipment is washed well and promptly, so that our milk is safe to drink. We don't consider this an option, so we test annually. We don't have the money for hospital bills, or the time to be sick, so we opted to start with goats who didn't have any diseases, and we have made every effort to keep them that way. Likewise, our goats get any vaccinations that we can give them, to keep them safe from diseases: Tetanus and CD&T, Lysigin and J-vac as well, both mastitis vaccines. Healthy goats produce good milk, so we have spent as much money on medications for 'just in case', as we have, on the goats themselves. We have all sorts of emergency equipment on hand as well, and none of this comes cheap. Also, given the price of a single vet bill, it makes absolute sense to start with very healthy goats. THINK ABOUT THIS - The difference between an 'expensive' goat and a 'free' or 'cheap' goat is often a vet bill -- or worse, a doctor bill. And how much are THOSE? I cannot emphasize this enough: BUY GOOD GOATS FROM REPUTABLE BREEDERS and discuss the implications of their bloodtesting results with them.
Cost: Feed. Goats do NOT 'just eat anything' - a good producing doe has to be fed quality food that is very high in calcium to support her milk production, and a variety of foods to suit her taste as a 'browser' (Goats prefer leaves over grass, and are often used to improve horse pastures, because the last thing they'll eat is a blade of grass, if anything else is on the menu). Ours are 'gourmet' goats have fresh grass hay and alfalfa hay, and clean straw to munch on, whenever. They are fed good grain, carrots, sunflower seeds, with free-choice baking soda and free choice goat minerals. The goats' bedding needs to be changed regularly in small barns. If you are showing, there's the cost of keeping the goats somewhere that isn't home, getting the equipment and signage for your goats, and transporting them safely, and of course being there or arranging someone else to milk your goats.
Cost: Vet bills... 'Nuff said. We try to avoid them, and most goat owners become proficient handling basic issues. The best cure is prevention, so we throw a lot more money and time and effort and thought at keeping our goats safe, so we don't have to pay vet bills later. BUY HEALTHY GOATS to begin with. Do NOT bring a goat into your herd without knowing its health status.
Cost: Space and shelter - Goats like space, and they need shelter and water and feed containers and water-bowls and water bowl de-icers and collars and they like to play on and scratch themselves against. If you don't happen to own a backhoe to create landscape features, you can venture into the realm of 'I hope the neighbors can't see this' as you stack up all kinds of objects, bricks, stones, spools, for your goats to play on.
PROs:
Family bonding, learning, fun - On the upside, and this is REALLY a huge upside... I do the goats with one of my favorite people in the world. Daily, my admiration for my daughter grows. Goats has been a venue for us to do something together, to share a goal and many laughs, and to still have something to talk about as my child heads into her teens, and I, into my mid-40s. Life is judged best by quality and not quantity; I would do the goats again in a heartbeat. For the goats, my daughter and I (and Dad and Columbian son Arnold) renovated a trailer, did the ceiling, walls and flooring, painted the trailer, built fences, windbreaks and goat shelters. I got to teach my daughter a lot about research, design, about building, about running power tools, and we developed a lot of confidence in each other and our abilities. She is the person I depend on the most, with respect to any animal-related emergency, and I often defer to her judgement and common sense. Goats have helped her mature into an incredible, responsible, thoughtful and very appreciative person.
Goats have not just been a chapter in our lives together, but a major plot device that has really enabled us to grow together as a family - they are a great deal of hard work that we all enjoy doing together. Since the goat experiment started, Hazel and I have also built a fully functional septic system together, put up nearly a half mile of fence, possibly more, dug all kinds of trenches for the NEXT goat barn, and we're looking at collaborating on together building the house that Hazel will eventually inherit.
Family bonding, learning, fun - On the upside, and this is REALLY a huge upside... I do the goats with one of my favorite people in the world. Daily, my admiration for my daughter grows. Goats has been a venue for us to do something together, to share a goal and many laughs, and to still have something to talk about as my child heads into her teens, and I, into my mid-40s. Life is judged best by quality and not quantity; I would do the goats again in a heartbeat. For the goats, my daughter and I (and Dad and Columbian son Arnold) renovated a trailer, did the ceiling, walls and flooring, painted the trailer, built fences, windbreaks and goat shelters. I got to teach my daughter a lot about research, design, about building, about running power tools, and we developed a lot of confidence in each other and our abilities. She is the person I depend on the most, with respect to any animal-related emergency, and I often defer to her judgement and common sense. Goats have helped her mature into an incredible, responsible, thoughtful and very appreciative person.
Goats have not just been a chapter in our lives together, but a major plot device that has really enabled us to grow together as a family - they are a great deal of hard work that we all enjoy doing together. Since the goat experiment started, Hazel and I have also built a fully functional septic system together, put up nearly a half mile of fence, possibly more, dug all kinds of trenches for the NEXT goat barn, and we're looking at collaborating on together building the house that Hazel will eventually inherit.
4H Ten Commandments
I found this on the Purdue website. We live and die by these Ten Commandments:
Ten Commandments for 4-H Parents
1. Thou shalt not feed, train, and care for the animal, for thou
art trying to teach the child responsibility;
2. Thou shalt forgive a child for making mistakes in the show
ring, for thou hath made mistakes too;
3. Thou shalt not get mad when thy child forgets items in the
show box, for one day thou may forget the show box;
4. Thou shalt help the show management for they are doing
a job that thou would not want to do;
5. Thou shalt see that thy child is on time for all show
activities for thou would not want to wait on another;
6. Thou shalt be sure that thy child has the animals entered
and the registration papers in order by the designated
time;
7. Thou shalt teach the child that winning a blue ribbon is a
desirable goal, but making friends along the way is a more
worthy goal;
8. Thou shalt not complain about the judge for it is their
opinion that has been sought;
9. Thou shalt remember that livestock projects are teaching
projects, not necessarily money-making projects; and
10. Thou shalt remember that the livestock project is a family
project that shall be enjoyed and supported by the entire family.
Left & below: Hazel, cleaning out the goat trailer. ... Well, that's what she told me she was doing. :) Also pictured, Athena and Sarina.
Above, Hazel's G6S 4H demonstration. Below left, Hazel at the 4th of July parade with Blaze. Below right, Robin's helping Hazel and Jorge with cleaning out the goat pen.
Very helpful links...
THINGS I WISH I KNEW along the way... AND THINGS I AM SO GLAD SOMEONE TOLD ME...
IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING GETTING GOATS - Listen to this first: Arizona's Rosie on the House - ROLL DOWN TO Ten O' Clock Hour with Rosie and Romey Broadcasting on KTAR, KQNA, KAZM, KAFF, KNST & KGVY -- The segment is about urban farming, but is applicable to anyone considering getting a goat. The interviewers ask many of the questions that first-time goat owners need to be thinking about! And thanks to Rosie on the House for putting in a plug for my daughter's dairy! :)
For starters, I'd recommend this to anyone considering getting goats: http://www.blackmesaranchonline.com/animals/goat101/getting_started-text.htm - We own the hard-copy of this and I still refer to it constantly. Other good books are out there, and we've read a lot of them. The internet websites are very helpful, but need to be taken with a grain of salt, sometimes, and I always cross-reference one site against another.
Above and below: Sarina, the most gorgeous Nubian doe on the planet. Bred by M's Sagebrush Acres.
If you are getting Nubian goats, you must read: http://www.goatworld.com/articles/g6s.shtml - And make sure that you ONLY get goats from breeders who at least use G6S normal bucks. Save yourself heartache.
WOW! USAid to Ethiopia - http://www.esgpip.org/HandBook/Chapter9.html - This particular chapter has step-by-step instructions on how to do all kinds of health-related practices with your goats, like where to give injections, how to tube a goat, ect. The other chapters cover other topics, like feeding and products from goats. Wow!
Parasite Primer: http://www.barnonemeatgoats.com/worms.html
Gestation Calculator: http://www.gestationcalculator.com/other/goat-pregnancy-calculator
Plants poisonous to livestock, by Cornell: http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/php/plants.php?action=display&ispecies=horses
Vet Serve, Caprine Supply, Jeffers and Hoegger are great folks to work with.
A new one, really good: GoatDairyLibrary.org - wow.
Notes on Toxiplasmosis, from a vet: http://www.salecreekvet.com/747600.html
Lessons learned about showing goats....
Sarina, Reserve Champion at ADGA Casa Grande Show, 2012.
When you fill out the form (or when your kid fills out the form) there's a series of boxes entitled Ring 1, Ring 2, ect... Check ALL the rings; Hazel thought she had to just check one, for each goat, and we didn't figure out what was going on until a nice man named Gary, explained to us: There are 4 different judges, and each judge has a ring. Each judge will judge each set of goats. So, you want to sign up for ALL four judges - check ALL the boxes.
Each judge has different tastes in what they think is the best dairy goat, so do not be surprised if Judge Harvey's lineup of #1, #2, and #3 is Judge Jason's lineup of #3, #2 and #1. In our case, one judge completely canned our goats, and another judge had all three of our goats in the Grand Champion lineup. Of course I agreed with Judge #2. :)
The way it works is thus: Each goat is judged against her competitors in her class; Yearling senior does, 2 year old senior does, 3 year old senior does, and then 5+ senior does. The top goat is 'Best of Class'. Then each Best of Class goat goes into the Grand Champion lineup for that goat breed. The judge then picks the Grand Champion from that lineup. If the judge picks the 3 year old doe, then the #2 3 year old doe comes to replace her, and the judge then picks the Reserve Champion from the remaining goats. We were thrilled to have our Robin win Best of Class for one judge, and come in second for the other judge who saw her, and Sarina was Best of Class for one judge, second for another judge, and at the end of the line for another judge. I am told - and agree - that each judge has their own idea of the perfect dairy goat. We were introduced into goats with Marshall Losey's gorgeous goats, and to us, they are the most beautiful. We got to hang out with both Marshall Losey of M's Sagebrush Acres, and with Debbie Emholtz of Jacob's Pride in our first ADGA show, and we have to admit that Debbie's goats were also absolutely breathtaking. But there were also goats there that would win Best of Class, and we really were not sure why, though the judges always justify their choices. Really, it is the personal taste of very experienced goat judges, and you have to respect what they have to say. We really, really enjoyed our first ADGA show and we feel like we learned SO much. We also got to see some absolutely gorgeous dairy goats!
On getting a Championship on your goat... There are three 'legs' to a championship, and you have to have three DIFFERENT judges pick your goat as a Grand Champion to earn that championship.
Each judge has different tastes in what they think is the best dairy goat, so do not be surprised if Judge Harvey's lineup of #1, #2, and #3 is Judge Jason's lineup of #3, #2 and #1. In our case, one judge completely canned our goats, and another judge had all three of our goats in the Grand Champion lineup. Of course I agreed with Judge #2. :)
The way it works is thus: Each goat is judged against her competitors in her class; Yearling senior does, 2 year old senior does, 3 year old senior does, and then 5+ senior does. The top goat is 'Best of Class'. Then each Best of Class goat goes into the Grand Champion lineup for that goat breed. The judge then picks the Grand Champion from that lineup. If the judge picks the 3 year old doe, then the #2 3 year old doe comes to replace her, and the judge then picks the Reserve Champion from the remaining goats. We were thrilled to have our Robin win Best of Class for one judge, and come in second for the other judge who saw her, and Sarina was Best of Class for one judge, second for another judge, and at the end of the line for another judge. I am told - and agree - that each judge has their own idea of the perfect dairy goat. We were introduced into goats with Marshall Losey's gorgeous goats, and to us, they are the most beautiful. We got to hang out with both Marshall Losey of M's Sagebrush Acres, and with Debbie Emholtz of Jacob's Pride in our first ADGA show, and we have to admit that Debbie's goats were also absolutely breathtaking. But there were also goats there that would win Best of Class, and we really were not sure why, though the judges always justify their choices. Really, it is the personal taste of very experienced goat judges, and you have to respect what they have to say. We really, really enjoyed our first ADGA show and we feel like we learned SO much. We also got to see some absolutely gorgeous dairy goats!
On getting a Championship on your goat... There are three 'legs' to a championship, and you have to have three DIFFERENT judges pick your goat as a Grand Champion to earn that championship.
Hero Goats!
So a family emailed us about possibly buying wethers for their children to ride. Our first reaction was... You're kidding (no pun intended) right? Then we looked it up - try it: 'riding goats' - image search. Rock and Roll! ANOTHER use for goats. In this search, we ran across all sorts of other articles, such as the goat who had commit armed robbery (being held by the police) and hero goats who served in the military, like William de Goat: http://www.hobbyfarms.com/hobby-farms-editorial-blogs/sue-weaver/william-de-goat.aspx :)