The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Weaning a goat

Giving a goat a shot

Punkin got his followup CD&T injection this week, which means he's now ready to become the stud at a nearby friend's farm. We're Goat feederjust waiting on that friend to recover from eye surgery so he can take on the handful that is our 11.5-week old buckling.

(No, Punkin, the mineral feeders were not intended to be eaten out of in that manner.)

Punkin is the first goat I've ever weaned, and after watching him I'd say that eight weeks old probably is too young to go off milk for most goats. Our buckling came out of his weaning at a perfect, svelte 3.0 on the body-condition chart...but that's only because he began with rolls of fat around his shoulders and because I let him nurse at slowly lengthening intervals for the first two weeks. A skinnier goat or the recipient of a cold-turkey weaning would have had a much harder time making the transition to grass.

Buckling

In the meantime, Punkin has gotten used to being in a neighboring pasture rather than being a true member of the herd, and he seems even more affectionate toward humans as a result of his ostracism from goat-kind. In fact, he's the most dog-like goat I've ever met. He definitely inherited all of Artemesia's sweetness and added a level of charm all his own.

In other words --- Punkin's new owner had better pick him up soon before Mark and I fall any further in love!



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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The photo of the goat standing in his food boxes is so cute!
Comment by Shanda Sat Jul 16 07:34:49 2016





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