If just meat goats I would just let them forage. Milk goats I would probably cut orchard grass and clover hay for them. Depending on how deep into a SHTF would be a disc mower, haybine, ground driven sickle bar and the horses or good old scythe. Benefit of goats is they take care of themselves on wild forage just fine. Drawback is some of the wild forage makes some funky milk.
Reason that they used to have goat herders, local guy let goats run loose in woods, got into some plant, a form of mountain laurel I think, and they died. While they can forage well, if TSHTF, you aren't just going to be able to get 10 goats, turn them out, and have endless meat and milk. They can forage and eat brush and other feeds that would starve a horse, but if you want a reliable food source, in the northern states, you will have to put up some form of hay and for really good milk and rapid growth, would be better off with at least some grain. While they have many advantages, I don't like them and will stick to pigs, no milk, but the pork chops, ham, bacon, etc, sure beat roast goat.
Goat milk is good if you can keep out the things that can give it a bad flavor. Eating wild onions will result in an onion flavored milk, for example. Constant close proximity to a billy can result in musk flavored milk. Mature billy goats flat out stink. They really do. On the downside, for us old farts, it's extremely high in fat content, the kind of stuff that clogs arteries. My mother used to raise them back in the 60s and 70s. Guess you could say I was just one of the herd. Today I'm simply called an old goat (along with a few other names).
Thanks for the replies. In an SHTF event, the high-fat content would be a lifesaver. cream and cheese would be a plus. Feeding the critters when the ground is covered in snow is what I am thinking about. Folks selling baled hay may not exist.
LOL I can't say I have taste tested hog milk, but I have milked hogs with a pump to feed reject pigs and ones that the sow died during birth or before a age they could wean. Not as much in them as a cow or milk goat about a quart and a half. Very high fat content. Just something in the brain says DON'T EVEN TRY IT MIKE!!!
I have been thinking lately that goats may be better to raise than cattle or pigs. Goats are great at clearing brush which helps if you live in the forest (fire mitigation). Goats seem to blat anytime someone comes around so they could be considered an alarm system of sorts. Goats milk is easier to digest than cow milk. Plus there is a growing demand for goats milk soap and lotions and you can eat them.
One draw back to goats milk is you can't separate the cream without a special tool or machines. It is a very different critter in how it bonds together than cow milk. Cows milk you can just shake it up in a big jar with a spout at the bottom of the jar and the cream floats to the top and you can drain the milk through the bottom spout and do it a couple more times maximize getting all the cream that you can. Pretty simple and straight forward. Goats milks molecular bonding requires a mechanical separator to achieve the same results. Folks very often find they are much happier with a small breed of cattle like the Irish Dexters that have a very high butterfat content and are very docile and easy to handle. Also Dexters are a lot less destructive on things you want to keep when they get out
Here in the South, we use peanut hay to get thru the winter. A little Goes a long way. Bucks have been moved to a different section of the back forty while the ladies spend their days sunning around the barn.
Jerseys and Guernseys are the same and a less to feed for the same milk .. Im a Jerseyman from the cow island , NOT USA !! Jersey Occupied in WW2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Irish Dexters are the smallest true breed of cattle without getting into the minis. LOL Jersey and Guernseys are giants in comparison to short Irish Dexters. Not my picture but an accurate comparison of a short Dexter. Tall Dexters are about equal in size to a Jersey. I keep both a small short herd and a tall herd and breed the short bulls to the tall cows and get something inbetween that finishes out at around 500 pounds on the hook for steers. LOL I have 2 year old Hereford Boars that are bigger than my 3-4 year old Short Dexter Bulls. Zeke a Tall Registered Bull and Happy a Short Registered Bull Born 3 days apart and at 5 years old. One 600 pound round bale last the 3 bulls 6-7 weeks Another Zeke and Happy Curly my oldest Papered Short bull at 11 years old and Happy's Sire. 34" at the top of the shoulders. Weighs in at 620 pounds. Milk production on a good cow is about 1.5 gallons per day if yer sharing with a calf and 4.5 gallons if not sharing. 1 acre of decent pasture will support 3-4 head and they eat almost everything short of thistle and red palmer amaranth. Total Feed and hay intake is about the same as a boer goat. I also finish out 16-18 Holstein Steers that I pick up at 6 months old and mostly weaned for $100-$150 per head. LOL they come in bigger at 6 Months than any of my short cows. Hey I got nothing against Holstein Beef. But they take about 3x more feed and hay to finish out than the Mid Size dexter steers. I really like the Holsteins though for their ease of handling damn things follow you around like puppies from day 1. Have zero interest in Holstein cows as a milk cow though, the sheer volume of milk would drown me out. I did try keeping 6 at one time and feeding the milk mixed with cornmeal to finish the hogs. Got real old real fast milking 6 of them twice a day plus my Dexter Milk cow. Hands down the best pork I ever produced and the finishers hit my 350 pound butcher weight 6 weeks before the grain and pasture finishers. As good as the pork was it was a huge time investment making not really a worthwhile endeavor. We put 20-22 Dexter Calves on the ground every year and have a 3 year waiting list for weaned heifers. $1,100 per without papers and $1,250 papered per head. Usually run 12-14 heifers out of 22 calves. And as a bonus I halter train all of them and desensatize them on the under side and get the cow kick all worked out of them. All of the heifers except one I retain to replace retiring cows go to small acreage homestead types places to be the family milk cow. Friend down in KY sells them discounted semen straws from decent Dexter bulls to get them in milk the first time and regular price after the first. It makes a nice little chunk of change every fall going into winter and I have almost no labor into the calves and nothing but pasture and 5-6 small square bales and maybe 150 pounds of ground corn. Highlanders and Devons are about the closest breeds comparable to Dexters and I would give the Highlanders the edge in foraging and turning stuff no other cattle would eat into beef and I would give Devons the edge in Milk Quality even if Devons have a bit less butterfat than the Dexters. Dexters on the beef quality though are hard to beat, smaller cuts than a Angus or other Commercial beef breed obviously but a much higher quality and flavor. Belted Galloways usually beat the Dexters out in contest of quality of beef though. But in my opinion I would have a farm full of rabid chipmunks before I would ever allow another goat to step hoof on my land So anything Bovine is better than a goat IMO
I'll get pictures ,,Harvest time now m Up @ 5 , out @ 6am home by 7-8 . Sloth ,, Were doing it right TR5
