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Getting started with a small herd of goats is the easy part of raising goats. Sticking with it is the hard part. Did you know that most new herds last about 3 to 5 years? There are various reasons that make people throw in the towel. I know for me when we hit the 3-year mark I was ready to call it quits. At the time I was a single mother of two young girls, working two jobs and I had limited experience in raising livestock. It would have been easy to say I can’t do it anymore, certainly a lot easier than sticking it out for the long haul.
That 3-year mark was in 2005. I am certainly glad I hung in there. What made me stick it out was my daughters Emilie and Adelaide. They LOVED the goats and while their lives were ever changing the one thing, they always could turn to was their goats. I couldn’t take that away from them. Once I changed my mind set about our small herd, I was able to work through the various issues that came with raising livestock.
As many of you know I mentor a lot of people new to dairy goats. I will be honest; a lot more give up then stick it out. Let’s look at 3 of the main reasons that people aren’t successful at raising goats. One of the first things that set you up for failure is growing too fast with out a good foundation of knowledge. I am not talking about books, YouTube or Facebook knowledge. I am talking about good old fashion hands on experience. You can read books, watch videos and learn a ton that way. I suggest you do, however realize that the more YOU experience the more You will learn.
Start out small with a couple does or maybe a doe kid and a wether or two. It seems everyone wants to get into hobby farming and sustainable living. They jump in with a doe in milk and dream of making cheese in a week. Yes, you can do that, but don’t start that way. Make that a someday-in- the future goal. Get those first few animals and learn everything you can with them. Once you kept them alive and thriving for a year or two then you can branch out more and start breeding them. Having kids is a whole other learning curve which can take years to master.
The second mistake people make is not having the right mentor. Not every breeder is a mentor. I know breeders that want nothing to do with teaching others, which is fine. It is their right to choose to mentor or not, so don’t assume just because you purchased from a reputable breeder that they will mentor you. Ask don’t assume. Second make sure the mentor you do find is someone that has similar beliefs in raising livestock. For example, I believe God gifted me these animals and it is my job to do everything reasonable in my power to save them. Ask my vet or my husband. I am positive they will tell you I love them too much. Lastly, make sure your mentor knows what they are doing. I chuckle a lot at post from experts that have been breeding goats a whopping 4 years. They are great about promoting how smart they are. I have been raising goats for 22 years and still learn stuff all the time. When someone comes to me with a problem I haven’t encountered before I tell them to let me know what they did so I can learn too.
This brings us to the third thing that burns people out fast. It is one simple thing. Failure. Failure picking out the right breeder to purchase from, failure in the show ring, failure that ends in death of an animal, or failure in breeding a better animal. It will happen. Ask any experienced breeder that has been raising goats for at least 10 years and I am pretty sure they have experienced all those failures. Once you grasp that there will be failures the better you will be. I have cried buckets of tears and prayed thousands of prayers over failures, but every failure is a learning experience. The more I fail the more I learn and the better I do. It is a hard life lesson, but it makes me better and the herd better and over time your failures will lessen and you will find more and more blessings in your herd and in your work. So, get started, get those cute little goats, find a great mentor and know that the journey is going to be hard, but boy what a journey it will be!
That 3-year mark was in 2005. I am certainly glad I hung in there. What made me stick it out was my daughters Emilie and Adelaide. They LOVED the goats and while their lives were ever changing the one thing, they always could turn to was their goats. I couldn’t take that away from them. Once I changed my mind set about our small herd, I was able to work through the various issues that came with raising livestock.
As many of you know I mentor a lot of people new to dairy goats. I will be honest; a lot more give up then stick it out. Let’s look at 3 of the main reasons that people aren’t successful at raising goats. One of the first things that set you up for failure is growing too fast with out a good foundation of knowledge. I am not talking about books, YouTube or Facebook knowledge. I am talking about good old fashion hands on experience. You can read books, watch videos and learn a ton that way. I suggest you do, however realize that the more YOU experience the more You will learn.
Start out small with a couple does or maybe a doe kid and a wether or two. It seems everyone wants to get into hobby farming and sustainable living. They jump in with a doe in milk and dream of making cheese in a week. Yes, you can do that, but don’t start that way. Make that a someday-in- the future goal. Get those first few animals and learn everything you can with them. Once you kept them alive and thriving for a year or two then you can branch out more and start breeding them. Having kids is a whole other learning curve which can take years to master.
The second mistake people make is not having the right mentor. Not every breeder is a mentor. I know breeders that want nothing to do with teaching others, which is fine. It is their right to choose to mentor or not, so don’t assume just because you purchased from a reputable breeder that they will mentor you. Ask don’t assume. Second make sure the mentor you do find is someone that has similar beliefs in raising livestock. For example, I believe God gifted me these animals and it is my job to do everything reasonable in my power to save them. Ask my vet or my husband. I am positive they will tell you I love them too much. Lastly, make sure your mentor knows what they are doing. I chuckle a lot at post from experts that have been breeding goats a whopping 4 years. They are great about promoting how smart they are. I have been raising goats for 22 years and still learn stuff all the time. When someone comes to me with a problem I haven’t encountered before I tell them to let me know what they did so I can learn too.
This brings us to the third thing that burns people out fast. It is one simple thing. Failure. Failure picking out the right breeder to purchase from, failure in the show ring, failure that ends in death of an animal, or failure in breeding a better animal. It will happen. Ask any experienced breeder that has been raising goats for at least 10 years and I am pretty sure they have experienced all those failures. Once you grasp that there will be failures the better you will be. I have cried buckets of tears and prayed thousands of prayers over failures, but every failure is a learning experience. The more I fail the more I learn and the better I do. It is a hard life lesson, but it makes me better and the herd better and over time your failures will lessen and you will find more and more blessings in your herd and in your work. So, get started, get those cute little goats, find a great mentor and know that the journey is going to be hard, but boy what a journey it will be!
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