Just been given a billy

[Potter's Farm]

A chap knocked on the door today and gave us a 4 year old purebred British Alpine billy. He's a friend of a friend and had raised the billy from a kid as a pet, but he keeps donkeys and they weren't geting along. The mutual friend suggested us to take it as he knew we have 2 female goats.

At first we said no as we've been taking our goats to a billy at another farm in an attempt to get them in kid and the billy at the farm is a BEAST, we weren't certain we could handle a one on our own farm. We said we'd take a look and we're pleased to see the billy being led on a lead like a little dog.

The first thing he did was hump Naomi, our 2 year old goatling. Its been hit or miss taking the goats in the back of our car (very funny sight to see...we have no towbar for a trailer) to be mated elsewhere, its so easy to miss them being in season. It wasn't as glaringly obvious as we'd been led to believe and we were getting worried we'd have no milk or goat meat at all this year.

We're in the process of dividing our goat paddock into 3 smaller paddocks and a small yard so that we can rotate the grazing, so we're planning on keeping the billy in with the girls on a permanent basis as we believe a goat herd would be naturally. We also have 3 grassed pig pens which can be used for the girls as needed when they are kidding, and a pen enclosed in 7ft high fencing should we need to put the billy on his own for any reason.

We'd appreciate any advice from seasoned goatkeepers as we've only had goats since March last year and are very much learning on the job!

Thanks, Lisa.

[oldjerry]

OK,we kept goats for many years,having said that,we aren't some sort of oracle.and everyone has their own road to hell.
Firstly the good news,if you've got a controllable billy that's good,now the rest...
We always kept our billys a long long way from the goats,otherwise the milk will taint.There's a good reason for taking your goats off the farm to the billy,this is it,if your regular one is a sod,take them somewhere else.
I don't like freebies,but I'm a cynical old git,don't worry about missing your goats any year,if they're any good they'll run through at least one year.
I wish you all the best,we miss the goats terribly,if I can be of any help PM me. BW.