Custom Goat Milk Soap

My herd's health is the most important thing for me. All of my goats are fed free choice high quality grass hay mix as well as Western alfalfa or Perennial Peanut hay. They are also provided Sericea Lespedeza when I'm able to find it.

Bucks: The boys are fed a high quality alfalfa, they also are rotated among pastures in summer for parasite management. Those who want will get a goat feed with added ammonium chloride during and before rut to help keep weight on them. They are fed free choice minerals... Sweetlix Magnum Milk, Duraferm, Baking Soda, Redmond Salt Mix, and I will be adding Kelp as well! Hooves are kept trimmed, CD&T boosters once a year, and copper boluses once a year. They also get Molly's Herbal dewormer weekly.

Dry Does: When my girls are not milking for whatever reason, they just get free choice hay (like above), and during summer are rotated among pastures to help prevent an overload of parasites. They get free choice minerals (Sweetlix Magnum Milk, Duraferm, Redmond salt mix, Baking Soda, and I will be adding kelp and an herbal mix). Hooves are trimmed periodically, they get CD&T boosters twice per year, and they are copper bolused once per year.

Milking Does: Milkers receive my goat feed mix of ADM dairy goat pellets, Tucker Milling Dairy Goat Feed, Alfalfa Pellets, Oats, Calf Manna, BOSS, a little corn, beet pulp, food grade DE, and molasses to blend. I top the feed with Manna Pro Skin & Coat, Pumpkin seeds, a bit of my herb mix, and goat balancer. Thin does will also get Senior horse feed. They get milked twice a day and are fed this mix during milkings. After milkings they will be offered a bit of chaffeye. They are rotated among pastures in the spring and summer for parasite management. CD&T Boosters are given twice a year and they are copper bolused once per year. They are offered the same minerals free choice as the dry does.

Late Pregnancy: About four weeks before the does are due I will start feeding them. I start with a little at a time and increase a little each week. Does also get one more hoof trim at this time before kidding, and I start giving them weekly Selenium & Vitamin E gel and Replamin. About one week before kidding I will shave the udder, tail and back legs of the goat. Does are put into the kidding stall and 150 days and have a baby monitor on them so I can constantly watch them. On day 149 I will give CD&T. I attend all births.

Post Kidding: I give my girls a bucket of YMCP water and my grain mix as soon as they are finished kidding. I will only chemically worm if fecal shows they need it. They do get a dose of Molly's Herbal dewormer!

Kid Raising:

Birth: Starting in 2024 I will be pulling kids and bottle raising them. They will be fed UltraStart 150 powdered colostrum if I do not have any heat treated colostrum available. They are cleaned off and naval cords are trimmed and dipped in iodine, hooves are dipped in Chlorohexidine. I make sure to feed at least 15% of the kids body weight in colostrum.

1st week: As soon as kids are finished with colostrum, I will keep kids on bottle and feed up to 20oz of pasteurized goat milk four times daily. They will be given CD&T and disbudded as soon as I can feel the horn buds.

2-16 weeks old: Kids are given CD&T boosters ate 1 week, 3 weeks, 6 weeks, and 15 weeks old. At the second week of the kids life they are trained to the lambar.. which makes life so easy with bottle kids! They are fed free choice pasteurized goat milk, kept cool with ice packs. Starting at three weeks old I add ProBac to the milk for a coccidia pevention. They get tattoed at three weeks old. Grain is offered free choice at two weeks old so they can figure out how to eat it. At 10 weeks old I will start them on my herbal dewormer program.

16 weeks- 1 year ols: Starting at 16 weeks old kids start their weaning process... less and less milk per day. I start offering lespedeza at this time. They start going out to pasture at this age as well. They will get free choice grain until they are really scarfing it down. They will then be fed twice a day until six months old. They will then be considered an adult. They are copper bolused at five months old.

Parasite Management: We perform our own fecals on our goats to check if they are in need of worming and what exactly we are treating. We only deworm using the two classes of chemical dewormer IF the fecals show that they need it. We also check FAMACHA and BCS to make sure everyone looks good and healthy. During the growing season (Spring, Summer, and fall) all of my goats are rotated among pastures of no longer than 2 weeks per area (usually from 9am-4pm) with a very LONG resting period for pastures (4-6 weeks) is extremely crucial. We use electric netting from Premier 1 with a solar charger for ease of movement. SOOO helpful! I plant several different seeds in the pasture each winter. Sericea Lespedeza is fed to them when I am able to source it. I also deworm weekly with Molly's Herbal dewormer #2. I drench i using a mix of the herbs, water, Dyne, Probios powder, clove, wild orange, and oregano essential oils. I will also use formula #1 every six to eight weeks for three days (without using #2). I will also give a treat of 1 garlic clove mixed with applesauce and a pinch of slippery elm powder. Prevention is key and after dealing with terrible parasites in my second year of raising goats, I never want to have to deal with it again! In winter all goats are dry lotted to let the pastures rest.

Disease Prevention: I test my entire herd every year for Johnes and CAE... we are clean again in 2023/2024!! We make sure to practice good biosecurity at shows and have never had an issue with bringing home any sicknesses.

Vaccinations: Since we live in Alabama (very unpredictable weather), we vaccinate with Mannheimia Haemolytica Pasteurella once a year (in fall before breeding), and kids ate 2 months, 3 months, and once more at 6 months, in addition to twice yearly CD&T vaccinations.