DZA Goats

10/15/2026

Understanding disbudding before deciding on the method

There are disbudding issues that every owner should consider. We do not have as much trepidation on even the subject of neutering as with disbudding. To leave those horns to grow or to destroy them before they are a peril for man and beast. Let’s weigh the disbudding issues good and bad.

Pros for Horns:
Horns are a natural way that the creator gave the animal for protection. Their horns are the means of settling arguments between the members of the herds’ hierarchy. Kids often test their mettle by jousting with other youngsters. Even does related or not recognize their need to do this and will gently train them to use their horns. Watch your doe, when a baby buck challenges her she puts her head down and gently allows him to win or lose the battle he picks with his horns. Only the herd-queen will not let an unrelated youngster win!

If a challenger arises from the ranks to take on the herd-queen or top sire, they do it with their horns. I’ve witnessed two does go at it for days; before one actually won and became the new herd-queen. Yes I said days! The senior sire discipline younger bucks with his horns, and should the youth actually decide he has a chance of winning the distinction of the new sire; they will fight until one is defeated. This many times ends with one of the bucks being severely injured! Sometimes broken legs, dislocated limbs, or just battered they will limp away, I’ve had one sire disable and kill the younger buck. Another broke his juvenile son's back, and the junior buck had to be dispatched.

Those horns can be very beautiful. There are few things that make your sires as majestic as their lovely horns. My senior breeding buck has magnificent horns of about 27” that match his 270-pound frame awesomely. I’m very fortunate to have a DOCILE buck, because with his size comes grave danger. The herd uses their horns to scratch their backs and sides. Hey, who doesn’t enjoy a good back scratch? They use horns to help drag brush down for eating. And horns in an arid area are a real plus, because they help the goats to cool off and regulate their body temperature.

Now the Cons of horns:
They are a danger to humans and other livestock. The goat's horns can withstand tremendous force. That’s why people have found that hitting a goat that is ramming on the horns, even at the base of them, does no good! It signals to the goat that you want to challenge him and fight. Even a 150 lb lightweight buck can ram a perceived threat at 800 pounds of force per square inch!!! Now add his body weight to that. That would mean my 270 pound buck would hit with a collective body force of over 1000 lbs being hurled at the threat. Of course, the opponent usually has his own force, and each of them has four strong legs that act like a stalwart frame. Your animal buddy does not see things like you his owner does. To one of my bucks, my leading his doe away from him was considered a threat, thus he came from 50 feet behind and rammed me. My son carted me out of the enclosure. Let's look at the instant that that force is directed at you or the dog, a real danger! Now I would have been hit from behind with the same situation, but without the horns it would not have done as much damage. Those hard impenetrable horns of 10-20 lbs each can do damage.

Injury to other livestock or to your furry LDG or another dog. I have a 5-yr old LDG. She was raised with the herd and has seen at lease 5- sire bucks, she is no longer with the goats. One of my bucks took a dislike to the fact that she looked as big as his largest doe and could be a competitor for mates. He rammed her and knocked her a good 7-feet away, twice. Both of her back legs were severely damaged. She is no longer with the flock. If a buck can knock a four legged 165 lb dog that far what could he do with a human with two legs, our center of gravity is not a match for him?

Property damage is a real consideration. Even a small goat will warp and damage fencing and gates (I've gone through at least 6-gates that were totally destroyed. Damage doesn't matter how, by thrusting with horns or rubbing down it to relieve them of shedding hair. The only fence safe from most goats no matter the size is an electric fence, and even it can be damaged if the charge stops for whatever reason. My goats chewed it when the power went out.

Tangling in wire and dangers to the goat are real. The NAHMS lists “goat horn entanglement” is a separate category for goat mortality. In their 2009 report 119,000 goat and kids deaths out of 554,000 was reported for the 1 year period. This report is broken down by category. Since we are talking about horns I won’t get into predators, disease etc. But, in the “other category” is ”entanglements” showing it to be a real threat. I can’t even put a number on the amount of time I have spent removing a goat’s head from “cattle panel wires”. They push their heads through to get at a bunch of leaves, a patch of grass or tasty weeds. However the goats do not know that their horns are narrow at the base and widen out at the tips. Caught, stuck and unable to free themselves. They need a pair of hands and sometimes wire cutters to free them.

Small injuries; Black eyes and twisted or broken glasses are a real thing. Even when dealing with horned does. You will bend down to retrieve something and she dips her head to see what you are doing, bang you collide with those horns. “A younger me” wasn't faced with as many small injuries as my older self. What do I mean by that? When I simply catch a doe they often toss their heads or turn the horns sideways which catch my arms, hips and legs. For a young person that will result in bruises but for elderly or those whose skin is thinning this results in bigger bruises and rips, big gouges in their skin on their arms and sometimes severe bleeding. I wear large bruises and gouges like battle scars all year.

A best practice when you get a male goat kid is to start his training early, like three weeks old. If your little buckling challenges you it is a danger later on when he is grown. Use methods to correct it at the baby stage and not when he is too big to handle. Using a sq**rt bottle or hose will work for a little while but they get used to it and then will ignore it. One of the methods is the “flipping correction”, it represents a more reliable method in the long run. When he is a baby he will restrain better, be careful not to hurt him with unnecessary force. As the little beggar reaches two or three months old be sure to do it EVERY time he butts you or challenges you. At that age he will butt your legs especially from behind. Our aim is not to hurt him, just to correct him and show him you are the head of the herd. This will save a great deal of problems and correction needs when he is too big for you to flip him. If you want more information on this method of correction, see my Nov 26, 2005 post on "That nasty..."
I hope I have helped you with your decisions, “horns or no horns”.

My next article will cover your options of disbudding if you decide that horns are not for you and your family. 🐐

09/14/2026

How to tell if your goat is pregnant
Sometimes, it is up and down of checking a doe. Maybe you saw the coupling, maybe not. Again, you wonder if she could be pregnant. My first does were both sold as pregnant does. I waited and waited, and finally I know without a doubt that they were not pregnant! So I decided to buy a buck. All I could think of was adding a stinky ill-tempered buck! Yuck, but the only way to get a kid is with both sexes. Of course, there again, if you're new to homesteading and have never had a male, it doesn’t mean he is a viable buck. Some are neutered; then they become wethers and no longer can produce. On top of that, you might be buying a noticeably intact male, or so it seems: that can be wetered too, because, he is neutered with a crusher or chemical castration; both methods leave the male parts on but sterilizes the buck. The last two will result in smaller go**ds especially on a grown buck. Get your buck purchase in writing! We hope for honesty but, unfortunately not everyone is honest.
So now you have both the male and female, you are sure she has been mated. What should you watch for to see if she is pregnant? I was the sort of person that wanted to know early so, I bought a goat pregnancy test kit (no you can’t use the one for humans it won't work). The test kit was pretty darn expensive and after the these 6 was used, I didn’t buy it again. Instead, I looked for signs. Anyone can tell a pregnant doe in late pregnancy, but it is a little harder when they are in months 1-3. There are notable signs; I can tell when they are pregnant by the 2nd month, even on an older doe that has kidded several times. Gestation in smaller goats is 5 months; in the larger goat breeds, 6 mo.
Let’s get down to business.

Gestation periods for goats.
1st Month/is conception or breeding
2nd Month/ is early development of the kid
3rd Month/ she is gaining weight, belly growth
4th Month/ is her udder development and quick kid growth
5th Month/ she starts nesting, hollows ground to fit her stomach, harder for her to rise to a stand, she starts getting up and turning a lot
Late 5th or 6th Month (depends on goat size)/ pawing ground for a nest & birth, mucus draining, she shows signs of labor which is panting, grunting and belly heaving.

If your doe is a standard or large girl go to the 6th mo scale. Here are photos depiction to make this easier. 🐐

08/29/2026

Data Centers?

🐐Garbage! They don't tell you that they have ALREADY signed non-disclosure agreements that say "We the people" do not have the right to full disclosure. "We the people" can't read enough to know that our land millage will be going UP in the land evaluation they do every 4 years! "We the people" are not smart enough to know that the water is already being drawn off with huge underground wells that are pulling from our household sources without them even paying for it as we do! "We the people" are not supposed to feel cheated and used because our ancestral lands are taken from us if we don't agree to the sales. And yes, they are doing it right now under the guise of eminent domain rights. It doesn't matter if your people and family have owned it for 500 years; they are taking it!!! "We the people" have no rights to know that they are not paying ANY TAXES on it at all, and we are going to pay extra on every bill to cover it after it is completed for the next 70 years. Oh, by the way, they say it will create jobs; that sounds good, doesn't it? "Well, we the people" are not to know that it will be almost all high-tech data jobs, and there will be a lot fewer jobs than they are leading you to believe! Please do your own research if you don't believe me. Why have they sealed the mouths of government officials, police departments, contracted suppliers, etc., all with NON-Disclosure agreements? That is not transparency; that is not honesty, and then they want us to vote the same individuals that have done it back into the same government jobs they are hiding things in! I'm technology-savvy after working 20 years in the field with constant higher learning and field updates. If it was so good for us, Why are they afraid of giving us the data? Why make it so hush-hush so we can't even read the white papers, or their legal agreements as with every other business here in the USA? Ohh, it must be because we are gullible and can't understand any of their issues. Wise up, people don't listen to the whitewashed trash they are selling.

Send a message to learn more

07/10/2026

It's summer, and we want to cook as little as possible! So, I've some quick small meals for you today. Let's start with breakfast. Personally, I hate sweet sausage, so here is my own breakfast sausage mix. If you like sweet sausage, add a little of your own sweetener to it, honey, maple, or sugar. Or use stevia or allulose to keep calories down and keep your blood pressure in check. Need a smaller amount cut the recipe in half for only 1 lb. of meat. Let's have a goat meat day!

Breakfast Sausage
2 lbs ground goat meat (900 grams)
1 Tablespoon salt (10 grams)
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke (3 grams)
1/2 teaspoon ground sage (3 grams)
1/2 teaspoon ground rosemary (3 grams)
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper (1.5 grams)
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper (1.5 grams)

*Mix it all and roll into balls, flatten each ball and fry.

and for lunch or dinner;

Sloppy Joes
1 lb. of ground goat meat (450 grams) fried
1 large can (or 1 quart of homemade tomato sauce) (1 liter)
1 Tablespoon liquid smoke (15 grams)
1 teaspoon minced onion (4 grams)
1 teaspoon ground cumin (2.8 grams)
1 teaspoon ground chili powder (3 grams)
1 teaspoon ground garlic (2.8 grams) or 1 Tablespoon minced
1 Tablespoon mustard (13.4 grams)
2 Tablespoons vinegar (29 grams)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (14 grams)

* Fry meat and separate pieces while cooking. Mix the sauce and add it to the cooked meat in the skillet. Heat and serve it while hot inside split buns/rolls top with a slice of cheese if desired.

Happy eating. 🐐

06/05/2026

Well, instead of dreary news today, I have something to cheer up someone. Working with my does this last week I found two had mastitis. Their udders were hard, hot and swollen. And when I tied them off so I could express the milk to give them relief. I couldn't express any milk. Groaning I knew exactly what I had to do. 1st to treat mastitis, you must express all the milk or as much as is possible.

Anyone who has had to do this knows how frustrating for the owner and the doe this will be because of the length of time it will take you. Every time you try to press the milk out, the teat clogs with the "cottage cheese" clabbered milk. Fortunately, I have to say, some of you can still buy Today's brand of Mastitis Medicine that was stocked at the farm stores. I cannot buy it due to the USDA's new farm regs. So you will have to get the mastitis medicine from a veterinarian. What I'm about to say will help greatly with the necessary "Milk Out" which must be done 5-6 times.

October 19, 2024, I posted instructions on making a hand milker. It only cost about $17 and it will greatly reduce your treatment times.
I have literally spent up to 3-hours milking out a doe with mastitis. You will have to do a "stop & go" action.

Do not pump your HAND Pump up more than 12-squeezed pumps. You WILL have to stop constantly, release the pressure valve and pull the curds from your does teat. Seal the valve and again pump the machine up, put the pump on your doe and repeat. Stopping to pull the curds from her teat every time it clogs, which will be a lot.

Uncap the mastitis treatment and gently insert the treatment syringe into your doe's infected teat and express all of the medicine.

(DO NOT TOSS THE PLASTIC SYRINGE AWAY!!!" This syringe is perfect for what we will be doing for the rest of her treatment, and hard to find a replacement with such a tiny, blunt plastic tip.

In 72 hours or recommended time frame for the meds you will again start to milk her with your hand milker. This time it is usually easier because of the medication.

When you clear her teat, fill your former syringe half full with a clean cooking oil, do not use olive as the seed oil is toxic to goats; a corn oil, canola, grape seed, etc. You will inject this oil into the infected teat. Using clean oil will significantly make the next milk out easier! Fill your syringe with oil and use it after milking out each time for your mastitis treatment until you are finished and her udder is clear of the bacterial milk. Keep your syringe, you will want it if you have to milk out another mastitis doe. This oil treatment after the first milk out has save me about 2.5 hours every milk out in time!!!🐐

04/08/2026

Spring is the TIME for CD&T shots! Does are kidding. Here are the recommendations for CD&T shots.
1)Does should be vaccinated for CDT approximately 30 days prior to giving birth to provide protection to the kids through the first milk, or colostrum. If the doe has not been given a priming booster of two shots adminstered three to four weeks apart at some time in her life, the pre-kidding annual shot will not be effective. This priming set of shots is usually given when the doe is a young kid but can be done at any age.

Kids should be vaccinated at 5 to 6 weeks of age and then given a booster three to four weeks later. Important Note: Vaccination of kids from properly vaccinated does prior to 5 weeks of age may result in kids that are not protected and annual boosters may be ineffective.🐐

01/27/2026

My friend Dan Vollmer, bought several pregnant does. Dan has an Avery, and this is his first time with goats. Let's all wish him luck. Anyways, Marble gave birth less than 3 weeks ago, and he is now dealing with little escape artists. Lol. 🐐😅

01/16/2026

I truely have a love/hate relationship with Facebook posting. I can't stand how it chews up the links I post. So I'm going to try reposting the Dec. 25th posting of mixing up the wormers.

Changing up your Parasite Management on WORMING
I know that some of you guys wonder if I ever have any good news concerning your livestock. Well there is good news every once in a while I can share that, but unfortunately it's usually about something that can keep your herd safe. Well, I guess that is good news, Right? None of us have the money or care so little when a pet or herd member is lost. It can hit hard!

Here is a new article that deals with parasite safety, i.e. worming. I've seen medicine become less effective. It isn't the medicine, it is the parasites have become immuned. Much earlier in my livestock management, I was taught that you needed to switch meds at least twice a year (per the vet). But now they find that practice is still not enough.

So let's cover some basics, each of us needs to know.
Myth: I've wormed five weeks ago so now the stock are safe.
Fact: The wormers we can buy will not kill every type of parasitic worm.

Just because a wormer works for stomach and brown worms doesn't mean it will kill the poll barb worm. Each wormer kills different types of parasites; Ivermectin and Cydectin are in the macrocyclic which means they act by paralyzing the worms, which are then passed from the animal's body. Safe-Guard and Valbazen disrupt the digestive system of the worm, which kills it. If parasites are resistant to one class of drugs, it will be resistant to all drugs in the same class; if it has resistance to Ivomec, then it will also be resistant to Cydectin and so on.
We can achieve a higher efficacy and fewer resistant worms that survive the treatment, meaning less resistant worms with a combination treatment.

No, this does not mean you mix the two it means you give the animal two doses, one of each. Here is a great article that I highly recommend reading.

Before using this approach, there are a few precautions to be aware of.

1) In New Zealand and Australia, products are sold
that contain a combination of dewormers, so
only one product needs to be administered. In
contrast, in the US, no dewormers are yet sold in
this formulation, so the dewormers need to be
bought and administered separately. This increases the cost as compared to the products
available in these other countries. Additionally,
the different groups of dewormers are not chemically compatible, thus they cannot be mixed together in the same syringe. Rather, they need to
be administered separately, but can be given one
immediately after the other.
2) All dewormers should be administered at the full
recommended dose whether administered singly
or in combination.
3) When using dewormers in combination, meat
and milk withdrawal times will be equal to the
dewormer used with the longest withdrawal time
period.
4) If using dewormers in combination, it is critical to
maintain refugia; thus, one should be using a selective treatment approach based on FAMACHA©
(see FAMACHA© section of the ACSRPC website
(wormx.info) for more information on this method and for further explanations of refugia). The
presence of refugia is essential to realize the full
benefits from combinations. In fact, if refugia are
not maintained then you will not get the necessary dilution of the resistant survivors, and this
will then lead to having multiple-resistant worms
that can no longer be controlled with the combination treatment.
5) If the efficacy of your dewormers are more than
80 percent, it is possible you may not notice any
difference in the clinical response of treatments
when applied singly vs. in combination. However,
the impact on the further development of resistance could be quite large (see Table 2).
6) Any safety precautions that exist for a single dewormer will also exist when used in a combination; however, there are no known additional
risks with using more than one dewormer at the
same time.

Let's get year 2026 started with good practices management. 🐐

01/01/2026

This would be my New Year's resolution if I actually had one.🐐

12/11/2025

GOATS AND THE MULBERRY STUDY

You guys know I'm always looking for ways to supplement my feeds. I've just completed reading a medical white paper on using mulberry leaves to supplement your goats feed. Mulberry trees are grown all over the world. The mature mulberry trees are from 20-30 feet in height, depending on the variety. The fruit range from 1/2 inch to 4 inches long and range from 1/4 inch to 3/4 inch wide. Most of us have tried a mulberry or two. They are quite tasty and make excellent pies, tarts, jams or jellies.

I'm going to talk about feed this is not usually the berries but the leaves only. The interesting thing is the mulberry is a fast growing hardy tree that can take most winters 'in stride without even breaking a sweat' as the saying goes. If it is grazed it will put its leaves back on multiple times. With this knowledge, I wouldn't recommend planting the young tree in a goat's paddock or enclosure if you want it to live. Because goats not only eat all the leaves, they strip the bark and sharpen their horns on young trees. But I decided to plant several outside of the paddock for hand harvesting. I'm unable to climb a cherry ladder any longer, so it would be a better investment for me to plant a modern variety or a dwarf; there are several to be had. Trees are expensive but I will buy cuttings and root them. Mulberries are super easy to root, and once you have one or two it is easy to take your own cuttings and multiply the trees to ensure you have a nice grove to use as fodder. They are not an emergency feed it is a stopgap feed, used for a fill between. They recommend bushes that are used as fodder be allowed to grow the first year, pruned lightly the 2nd year (here is your new cuttings for more trees) and harvested every other month the 3rd year and thereafter. Ensure your cuttings have at least 3-4 leaf nodes.

Now, here is the breakout of the study. It concerned a broad species study; then narrowed down to 25 Xiangdong black goats. Five goats in each group, with five groups. Each group was provided the same feeds. The control group was group 1, getting no mulberry leaves. Group 2 was given the same feed with 5% mulberry leaves adjusted with the protein to be the exact same nutrient density as the controlled group 1 was receiving. Each group thereafter was given an additional 5% mulberry leaves over the last group, with their feed ratio adjustment to equal the same proteins and mineral density as the control group. The last group was receiving 20% mulberry leaves. This study tested the goats for 90 days and this is a breakdown of the study, which will interest those who show meat goats, sell them, or butcher them.

I'm going to place the white paper link on the bottom of this posting. It is a difficult read, some of you may not understand it but if you want to read the 25 pages it will be there. I highly recommend my young or sensitive readers do not tread the two (2) paragraphs after the 1st table. These are on the method of collecting the data.

Mulberry leaves added to the goats feed. The goats in groups 3 and 4 had the most improved body weight, with a higher parasite resistance caused by the mulberry leaf fodder. They gained 2.5 lbs and 3 lbs. over the controlled group and group 1 and 2. There was a glucose increase, and high-density lipoprotein went up; LDLC, low-density lipoprotein went down. Goat given 15% and 20% mulberry leaves antioxidant properties sky rocketed! The apparent digestibility of nutrients was closely related to the growth rate of animals. Meat quality showed a greater improvement and the meat odor was demenished.

I know this has been a long read but I feel it is worth it. Here is the 90-day white paper study link. This is the PMC National Library of Medicine, Animal Bioscience publication. Titled: Supplementation with mulberry leaves improves growth performance and meat quality of Xiangdong black goats. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11917434/🐐

Mulberry (Morus alba) leaf (ML) is a high-quality feed source for ruminants, while it is unclear whether it can enhance the growth performance and meat quality of Xiangdong black goats. In this study, we investigated the effects of ML ...