Our First Oberhasli goats

Fauna, notice her one deformed horn, a result of her previous owners disbudding her too late.

We recently added two 7-month-old Oberhasli goats to our herd; we plan on milking them in the spring and are hoping they will give a good amount of milk.

Their owners told us that her goats give around a gallon a day in the spring, one of our Nigerians, Mamie, gives close to that amount but it has been so hard to find more good milking Nigerians that we just decided to give this breed a try.

Mamie is the horned adult in the pictures above, interestingly she has almost identical markings to the Oberhasli's, the only difference being her patches of white on her side, tail and leg.

We had to get dehorned Oberhasli's since they are so rare around here that we could not find horned doelings, (one of the goats has a little deformed horn since their old owners dehorned them too late).

Flora, both of Flora's horns were successfully removed

In the spring we will be offering their babies for sale which will be 50% Nigerian 50% Oberhasli.

For some reason the two new goats will eat almost any plant in any growth stage whereas our Nigerians will not eat poison ivy, tough grass, etc. One possible explanation is that in their old home they were kept in an over grazed pen and were not fed supplemental feed (hay or grain) so they were forced to eat plants that they may have otherwise disliked. Poor pasture is also likely the reason why they are both very thin and had poor coats.

Since the grass is not growing anymore we are keeping our herd in a large wooded pen and feeding them hay, even thought this is not the best food for the new goats since they are growing they have still gained weight and hopefully will be at a good weight before the cold puts additional strain on their bodies.

Flora enjoying some vining weeds

This breed is larger than Nigerians but they are not considered a large breed, they will probably be a few inches taller than Mamie and Rose our two largest nigerians which means they will be stronger (which could make them a lot harder to handle, especially since thay don't have any horns to use as handles) but hopefully they will be good milkers and we can have a few good milking goats insted of lots of half good milkers.