My Nubian dairy goats are supposed to produce milk. Instead my goats are expensive pets.
This isn’t entirely their fault. If a goat doesn’t have kids, she doesn’t produce milk. And I didn’t get some of them bred on time.
My herd has started and ended my days for fifty years as of next June. These last thirteen goats are the last of my herd. As they age, many retire and my goats become expensive pets still ordering my days, but producing nothing more than work.
Schedule Adjustments
One of the advantages of Nubian dairy goats is their flexibility. When I worked swing shift, they happily showed up for meals at 2 p.m. and 2 a.m. When I was teaching, they adjusted to 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
With many of the does dry, their schedule is moving to 9 a.m. and a half hour before dark. I’m older and don’t really want to stand out in the cold and dark feeding goats. Besides, they are older too and go to bed when it gets dark.
Times Have Changed
When I first had goats, few veterinarians had any experience with them. I ended up learning to do most easy veterinary work myself. Things like deworming, pulling kids, giving shots when needed and knowing when they were needed.
Feed didn’t cost that much. A hundred pounds of oats was seven dollars. Honest!
Now a veterinarian has to check over and prescribe antibiotics. None of the local ones come out to the place so the goat, all hundred plus p[ounds of goat, must be lifted up waist high into my truck and taken to town. Physically that does not happen for me any more.
Feed has moved to fifteen dollars for fifty pounds. This doesn’t count the extras like sunflower seeds. Since I go through a hundred to a hundred fifty pounds a week, my goats are expensive pets.
Future Plans
My goats will stay. One by one they will retire and die. I will not replace them and so will no longer milk in a few years. However, the work will continue as long as they do. My goats are expensive pets for possibly another ten years.