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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On 10/21/06, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> Instructive that you feel that way while Bev did not.

Not really. I won't put words in her mouth, but I will say that she's
a nicer person than I am. I've reached an advanced enough age that
when I think someone is saying stupid stuff, I'll comment on it.

> If you feed a "good producer" and an ordinary flugle goat an artificial and
> expensive dairy diet, then yes, it costs the same to feed them but you get 
> more
> milk from the former.   But that difference disappears when the goats are
> managed on a natural diet, and many times the results are reversed with the 
> high
> strung goats becoming ill and wan without the artificial diet they've been
> bred to expect.

Obviously you haven't done the experiment. I have. Goats do fine on
pasture. Plus, if you want to raise butterfat, you have to feed more
pasture or hay. It's biochemistry, which I know you understand.
.
> The bottom line I'd propose is that in a proper natural environment for
> goats, it costs nothing to feed an ordinary milk goat.

Depending on how much pasture you have, it costs about the same to
feed a well-bred one.


That's some milk for
> nothing.  But an over bred high strung goat in that environment would give no 
> more
> milk than the flugle goat and possibly give none while needing to have it's
> purchased feed habit indulged.  Some expense for no milk.    No contest there.

I don't have any over-bred, high-strung goats and never have had.
You're doing a strawman here. A commercial dairy with those kinds of
goats is on its way out. You and I might have a common argument in
opposition to people who only show (and in some cases -- the horror,
the horror -- throw the milk out), but I have never owned a goat that
was a high-strung goat. I never got into showing either. I shipped the
low-producers and used good bucks and what I have now are pretty much
mutts but capable of making milk.


> The statement that CAE will (that's WILL) reduce milk production to zip is
> unfounded.  It is like the exortation from the goatateracist that you cannot,
> must not, cannot, ever even remotely contemplate having goats with horns.

I have way too much experience with CAE to agree with you. It reduces
milk production, sometimes to nothing at all. I hope you at least
believe in the germ theory of disease -- it's useful. It seems that
some goats are more resistant to it, and you can develop your own line
that doesn't succumb to it if you are willing to ship or shoot the
ones that do. The person who has only a couple of goats might find it
emotionally easier to find CAE-free goats or to buy from a herd that
has been heavily culled -- same difference.

Most of my goats have horns though I wish I'd burned them off this
year's kids because they do get themselves hung up at the most
inconvenient times. OTOH, goats having horns does force me to walk the
pastures to make sure no one has gotten caught.

You
> will be maimed, killed, or worse, and you goats will gore each other on a 
> daily
> basis and die with their horns trapped in fences and branches.  Not if, not
> maybe, WILL happen.  One frothing goatateracist near here raises kids for sale
> at six weeks and if the prospective buyer wants the kids to not be disbudded,
> there is a hefty extra fee.  Why?  Because she must keep the goats separate
> from the 'normal' disbudded goats so that the nasty horned beasties won't harm
> the others.  Raving idiot.  Goats don't have horns at six weeks!

I've always had goats with horns and goats without and haven't had any
problem except with fences on occasion. If I would just get a hot wire
up that little problem would be taken care of. I have a feeling that
your rage at things goatie is not with me but with some other entity,
this mythic goatateracist that you're ranting about.

> Like that is the old saw that if a goat has CAE, its milk production will go
> to nearly zero.  Posh!   Although CAE has only been recently identified, it
> has been around for centuries.  SOME goats are affected by it, and most of 
> those
> only get arthritic in old age when they are pretty far past milking anyway.

You haven't had enough goats. I would have agreed with you at one
time. I've seen too much evidence to the contrary.
> The proof is in results.  We (and a great deal of other goat raisers I know)
> ignore the minutia of goatiana advice and don't supplement our goats with rare
> minerals, don't dehorn them, don't medicate them in any way whatever, don't
> carefully inspect medical records and milking records, etc.  and yet we get 
> all
> the milk we can use, nearly 100% live births, and nearly all those raised to
> maturity with no problems whatever.

I don't suppose you have all that many goats. As soon as you have a
larger herd, regardless of the management, you are going to see some
problems -- statistics, ya know, which I know you understand.

I don't supplement my goats with rare minerals either, but I do have
minerals on offer. I am in a low-copper, low-selenium area and would
be remiss in not making sure the herd had adequate minerals. It
wouldn't be a concern at all if I lived on the coast of Ireland or
Scotland, but I don't.


> That's why the emotional reaction, I suppose.

Get a grip, James. My goats do just fine with little in the way of
amenities. However, like everything that a homesteader does,
husbanding goats requires some attention to management. Obviously, you
would not be successful if you didn't manage your resources, so I
suspect you don't keep the pint-a-day milkers around.

Marie