Goat Wise | Meat Goats, Feeding Goats, Goat Fencing, Livestock Management

Back in Episode 105 I talked about why people quit goats, and genetics was one of the two big reasons. Today is the follow-up: not why genetics matter, but what to actually do about it. I want to walk through the two phases nearly every goat herd goes through, three different strategies depending on your situation and goals, and why the math people use to project herd growth is almost never realistic. Let's get to it.

Episode Mentions:

105 | Two Reasons Why People Quit Goats: Fence and Genetics

11 | Should I Tag My Goats? What You Need to Know About Government Requirements and How to Use Tagging to Benefit Your Herd

50 | Get Ready for Kidding: Order Your Tags in 4 Easy Steps

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Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

I know this is a goat podcast. But I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you what we're doing with our cattle herd, because it's part of the same system, and the philosophy behind the decision is exactly the same philosophy that shaped our goat herd. Today I want to talk about why we're switching to Dexter cattle, how we got here, what we were actually evaluating when we looked at breeds, and why multispecies grazing is central to what we're building at Dry Creek. Let's get to it.

Episode Mentions:

107 | Goats vs. Cattle: The Financial Comparison Nobody's Doing

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts + grab your free Kidding Due Date Chart: https://www.goatwise.com/kidding-chart

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

Yesterday I was watering the goats in town, put fresh water in the trough, one of the does took a drink, and right after she drank, she did the flehmen response. That funny lip curl. No bucks around. Middle of July. Not breeding season. And I realized I didn't actually know what was going on. I thought I did. So, I looked it up. Today I want to tell you what the flehmen response actually is, because it turns out it's a lot more interesting than most of us think. Let's get to it.

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts + grab your free Kidding Due Date Chart: https://www.goatwise.com/kidding-chart

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

A couple of weeks ago in Episode 117 I talked about how our market evolved away from the sale barn. Today I want to talk about why the auction can be a great place for meat goat producers to start selling their goats, and for a lot of producers it's the right long-term market. Today I want to talk about how to use the sale barn well, the research, the timing, the relationship building, what to do when you pull in, and what I learned over several years selling this way. Let's get to it.

Episode Mentions:

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

Today we're talking about heat management in goats, the basics that actually matter, what I learned during one brutal kidding season, some coat science that surprised me, and a practical tool I wish I'd had sooner. I’m also going to tell you about the time I dunked a kid in a water trough. Let's get to it.

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts + grab your free Kidding Due Date Chart: https://www.goatwise.com/kidding-chart

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

Today I want to tell you how our goat market evolved from sale barn auctions to direct-to-consumer meat sales to something I stumbled into sort of by accident that turned out to be a much better fit for the goats we've been raising. There's a mental block I had to work through in there too, and I think a lot of producers run into the same one. Let's get to it.

Mentions:

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

Back in Episode 46, I talked about early versus late banding of buck kids. We went through the full debate, the urinary calculi argument, the research, all of it, and I reported on a small test group we'd banded at birth. I said I'd follow up when we did it at scale. We've now done it at scale, and this is that follow-up. Let's get to it.

Episode Mentions:

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts + grab your free Kidding Due Date Chart: https://www.goatwise.com/kidding-chart

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

This is a question I get asked a lot, and honestly, one I've wondered about myself for a long time. Freemartinism is something every cattle producer knows about, a female born twin to a male that ends up sterile. But you almost never hear about it in goats. Today I want to get to the bottom of why that is, because the answer isn't that goats are immune to it. It comes down to anatomy, and it's actually pretty interesting once you understand what's happening. Let's get to it.

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts + grab your free Kidding Due Date Chart: https://www.goatwise.com/kidding-chart

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

Our NoFence collars showed up on Friday, shipped all the way from Norway, and they've been sitting in boxes since they got here. Today I want to talk about why we finally pulled the trigger on virtual fence after years of waiting, what it opens up for us, including over two hundred acres of brush ground we've barely been able to touch with goats, and how it fits alongside the electric netting we've relied on for years. This isn't a replacement story. It's the next piece of the system. Let's get to it.

Episode Mentions:

109 | Electric Netting in Freeze Country: The Afternoon Teardown Fix

13 | Using Electric Fence with Goats? What You Need to Know to Keep Your Goats Contained and Alive with Electric Netting

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts + grab your free Kidding Due Date Chart: https://www.goatwise.com/kidding-chart

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

We are one week into kidding season. Forty does have kidded, seventy-eight kids on the ground, two sets of quads, four sets of triplets, and we have not assisted on a single birth. Not one. Today I want to tell you about day two, when four does kidded in a rainstorm, and the harder question that was sitting underneath all of it: how do you know where the line is between trusting your animals to do it themselves or intervening? Let's get to it.

Episode Mentions:

110 | Kidding Management: How Our Kidding System Evolved, PART 1 of 3

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts + grab your free Kidding Due Date Chart: https://www.goatwise.com/kidding-chart

Join the insider email list: https://www.goatwise.com/join

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drycreekpastures

More from the ranch: https://www.drycreekpastures.com

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.