I grew up with a couple of goats when I was middle school/high school age. They were just pets that wondered around and ate whatever they wanted.
Jason and I have had goats about since our beginning....some friends told him they would be great. I tried to tell him that we were not set up or prepared for goats, but hey, who listens to me? (very few). When we got these goats we also had horses. The hay stack became the goats favorite place to live, not in the fence where they were supposed to be.
We mostly had mut goats: mix breeds or whatever showed up. Since then I can't even count how many goats we've had. We have had lots and lots of kids born on our "mini farm" as I like to call it. We've had Nubians, Alpines, Boar mixes, and now we've settled on Nigerian Dwarfs.
Two years ago I bought my first pair of registered Nigerian Dwarf nannies. They also came with their five kids that had been born earlier that year. We sold off the babies and bred them to our ND buck, Wilbur. The first winter (can I say we were fully prepared or set up for breeding, all our goats free ranged in our fields together so they had kids any time of year. Often, even as a surprise to us!) Buttercup had one baby on a cold November evening. We found her and her sweet new baby the next morning. Then moved her and Salt, our other expecting nanny, into our green house made birthing shed. Plenty of hay, water and heat lamps were all set up for the extreme cold weather to come: -20 degrees. Wyoming winters can be very harsh at times!
Salt had her babies very early that morning. By the time we went out and checked on them that morning 4 of her 5 babies were frozen, and the 5th wasn't too far behind. We were able to save the last one, and those nannies and kids became house goats for the next month or two to survive.
Four goats living inside our house in an unfinished room (thankfully!!), four kids, 2 indoor/outdoor cats, not sure how many dogs we had at that time. It always a full house and never a dull moment!!
So many lessons learned along the way. One of the easiest is collars! Ones with bells for sure. Most importantly it helps bring your goats back when they aren't where they're supposed to be, secondly, with the bells you can hear them as they roam around too. (There a link at the end of this post with my favorite goat collars.) Another tip I learned this year: if it's under 40 degrees newborn goats can get hypothermia. This years babies were born in a very warm shed, locked in every night and cozy and warm!
<a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&tag=burnsboys4-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=d6b26b7e7b962b3aa55d414de1363748&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=pets&keywords=collors with bells">Goat collars</a>
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