My husband and I are both 36, with two children. I’m itching to make money again (I’ve been a stay at home mom for 8 years now 😱) and my husband is burned out from his tech career of ~19 years.

So tell me if our plan is ridiculous:

• I go back to school for massage therapy for a year (I have a MA in Higher Ed but I’d rather walk into the sea then work in administration again) and take over as the breadwinner for awhile after I become a LMBT

• We apply for a farming loan. This is pretty doable since we live in a farming state/area.

• We keep our home so our girls can get the same level of excellent education in the zip code we fought tooth and nail for

• We purchase 10 or more acres with the farming loan with plans to pay it off quite quickly. Thankfully both our vehicles are paid off, and the 1k massage school loan can be paid off with our current savings.

• We purchase 4 fancy Nigerian dwarf dairy goats at ~$900 per doe. Why the fancy kind? Because I want to show them. I wanna be in my 50s showing goats okay.

• We take all the milk and make brie, and then of course we sell it. As I say, our state is already a farming state so there is a robust customer base for farm fresh brie.

• During kidding we keep 6 does and sell the rest.

• We keep upping our game this way until finally we make enough to make a fig orchard. We’re lucky enough where figs grow wild here without much help. Keep in mind that I’m still keeping our family afloat by working as a massage therapist.

• Eventually we reach 24 goats. Actually now that I think of it we’re gonna need more than 10 acres for 24 goats, but let’s say we have the acreage and we bought the right amount with the loan.

• Now we’re selling brie, brie + figs, honey, massages. We got a nice lil thing going.

• What do we do with the retired female goats? My husband refuses to harm any of his animals himself, so we either sell them as pets, retire them to a petting zoo we set up so that the public can come hang out (goat yoga is crazy popular here), or rent them as weed eaters.

Obviously this will be a very gradual growth, and we’ll scale it to what my husband and I can handle. But what do you think? How insane are we?

The only thing is, I can’t let my husband kill himself at his tech job anymore. You can literally see his soul leave his body every time he thinks of work, which is all the time. The man needs a brain break.

I'm having a hard time sourcing Sweetlix Meat Maker locally. I used to buy Onyx, but my local supplier stopped carrying it. My local supplier does have access to this goat mineral tub that is manufactured locally. Thoughts on this? Does this look like a good mix or should I keep looking?

https://preview.redd.it/hb3fqtuopwxd1.png?width=846&format=png&auto=webp&s=e78eb72236a71e0e9d8af73fa0cbf1c4ea8a07a7

Edit: I finally found that our local IFA has ICBM Prime Force AF 8 mineral, which looks much better. Anyone have experience with that? https://assets.unilogcorp.com/350/ITEM/DOC/IFA_Prime_Force_AF_Mineral_ICBM_PRINT.pdf

OK so this is a picture of my little FF mama after a 12 hour fill!! came from amazing milk lines and had 2 beautiful kids on her. So I bought her thinking the small udder and teets might be ok. Id breed her again and they'd get better. But now I'm second guessing myself.

I've withheld the kids and my milk machine will not get any milk. Like seriously. Maybe a 1/4 thats it. She doesn't feel stretched out and full at all. I finish up the hand milking and can hardly get a grip to milk her and have to like strip milk her. I'm working on that and getting better but my main questions are..

A. WHY is she not filling up? I've caged her and the babies to be sure they're not getting her through the fence. I've watched her and don't see her nursing on herself. She has 24 hr access to hay and browse and minerals. She gets grain, beet pulp pellets, black sunflower seeds and alfalfa pellets while milking like my other girls. But there is no udder stretch happening.

B. Is there a specific milk machine or attachment that works better for super small teets? I have carpel tunnel and really shouldn't be hand milking much.

C. Would maybe trying to milk her 3-4 times a day with the kids on her help her supply?? Or is it just a waste of time. Sigh.

She was a big investment for me. She comes from really quality lines and I'm hoping to make her work out for my small home milking operation.

Thanks guys!

I lost track of time and it’s now been 6 weeks since I gave my goat kids their first CDT shot. Is it safe to still give the booster or do I need to start over?

We've been using reusable 100% cloths but I'm sick of the smell. Do coffee filters work?

Is it possible to change an animal's name when transferring a goat through ADGA? Or can I register them with the bill of sale without transferring and name them that way? There's no other reason than I want to lol I'll be okay if it's just an unreasonable thing to do either socially or financially. Just wondering. Thanks!

I have seen dis assignment of people milking with modified human breast pump. Has anyone tried this?? Wasthinking of getting the Hantop but saw you can't adjust pressure?

We have two does that have had a bit of blood in their milk for the first month or two after kidding. Have any of you seen this before? We have not had this problem in the past and are unsure how to fix it. Thank you!

We have 3 new kids we are bottle-feeding that are all about one week old. We've been tracking their weights daily and then how many oz of milk drank by each kid at each feeding, time, frequency, etc. I know there are multiple apps for parents to track breastfeeding babies now so just curious if anyone knows one out there for tracking bottle-fed animals? I may just resort to a baby app but wanted to avoid all the "extras" that many of those have i.e. diaper changes and specifically one more flexible for tracking multiples since we have three to keep track of.

My husband wants to wash the rags he uses to clean udders at home in our personal washing machine.

We have about 50 goats and learned 4 had mastitis so now he's reusing rags. We're very new to this.

My main concern is... is this sanitary to do when I'll be washing my toddlers clothes in the same washing machine? Kind of grosses me out.

Is washing them at home in an old top load even effective?

It was fun picking the right goats out to feed them.

I was wondring will my goat reduce the amount of milk if i just keep on milking it without getting it bred. After an year has passed by.

We have this Alpine (possibly French Alpine) with these weird bumps on her udder. We did a mastitis check and it came back clean. She has not kidded yet. Colostrum came out when we did the test. We read somewhere it could be milk under the skin?? Has anyone encountered this??

Hello everyone! I'm just curious how you all handle dipping your dairy goats (for pests). Do you do it while they are lactating or wait till they're done?

Edit: I mean dipping to kill and protect against pests.

Hey y’all,

So I showed a meat goat this year through my schools FFA, he lived at the barn so I had access to wash racks, blowers, razors, treadmills, etc. I’m a senior so this was my only year showing through my school.

With that being said I’m showing a dairy goat next year independently. I have found a ranch of someone who has goats to rent space out for my goat to stay while I’m at college so she’ll have a heard and shelter, I’ll be going over their twice daily to feed, water, etc.

I’m trying to figure out what supplies I need to get that I don’t already have from my other goat, and what I need that’s different from meat goats. Any info helps, I’m going in completely blind knowing nothing about dairy goats and I have no advisor to guide me.

Thanks in advance.

Here’s what’s in my kidding bag, what’s in yours? https://youtu.be/-MMeQfQSAnM?si=ASLMjMnz1eU3icIr

Hi everyone! I wanted to see why everyone chose dairy goats! What type of dairy goats do you have and do you use them for dairy or are they just pets? I raise registered Nubians for milk and show and absolutely love it! If you are ever interested in seeing how we run things in our farm we are on most social media platforms at full moon farm or full moon creamery and we are on YouTube! https://youtube.com/@fullmooncreamery?si=HaSSka3c2YevMQGv Please share your farm name with me and what platform I can find you on ♥️

I'd love to get your opinion of my video Our farm is trying to promote itself for our forthcoming kidding season and keep a high interest as we produce out cheese and lotion for the coming year. Thank you so much! https://youtu.be/BK1hygpycUA?si=kd0MlwN6QfP-zGR1

Has anyone has experience with pseudopregnancy with their goat? My female goat hasn’t been bread yet and she hasn’t been exposed to an in tact male but her utter seems to have filled up and is firm. Any advice on this? Our vet that sees goats won’t be reachable until Monday so I just want to make sure it’s not something that needs immediate attention. Thank you so much!

So we got our Great Pyrenees as a 3mo old puppy and she instantly clicked with our pure white alpine. They would snuggle and clean each other. She’s now full grown (not fixed) and our white alpine has 2 kids (4mo old) and we’re trying to wean them. Here are the warning signs that I’ve noticed -Dog is sometimes NOT hungry for days -When she doesn’t eat for a day I’ll put a very tiny amount of milk on her kibble and she’ll eat it right away -Goat was separated from her kids all day yesterday and she had a fraction of what she usually produces -I caught dog licking her teats yesterday and the goat did not mind one bit. My husband thinks I’m crazy, but I’ve got no other explanation.

Does anyone have a small business outline for starting a small herd goat dairy