Lavender Goat Farm

05/21/2024

French alpine buck kid 👀 for a new herd book. 5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣. Dam needs one more leg to finish and has been on milk test since she was an FF. This is her 2F udder.

04/28/2024

Still have this beautiful girl looking for a new herd. My sister farm also has some Great Pyrenees babies looking for new herds.

04/26/2024

Lets talk buyer etiquette! No personal issues here but there are a lot of new people in this group so its a good time to learn. Couple of things I think are pretty important as a buyer to keep in mind.

1. Make sure you know the price of the kid you are getting and factor in transport as well. So assume anywhere from 400-900 for ground hauling if you are using professional services, and 500-600 for air shipping.

2. Keep track of when your kid is due to be born. That will allow you to have time to plan to have finances in order for the kid and shipping which can be as early as 4 weeks after birth (for most bottle kids).

3. If you have something come up and you have to cancel, let you breeder know ahead of time. Sooner the better, we all have thing in life that happen, but take it as a courtesy to let them know, sometimes it is a case of you just need your deposit rolled over a year, most are fine to do that.

4. Know the terms of sale of your seller. This is usually published on the website. Middle and bigger breeders will always have this. Most you see things like (here) payment in full in 14 days. Some breeders allow 50% down 50% at pick up, it just depends. Most require that you reply back within 72 hours of notification (and usually we will message or email you twice!) that you are going to indeed take the reservation that has been filled. However! If you have a larger purchase and you want to split something up, ASK! Kids, especially Nigerians can be expensive. I literally would never turn anyone down here if they asked to split up payments between pay periods etc, as long as they have a solid plan in mind and the kid is paid for before it leaves.

5. It is totally ok to window shop. It is not really polite to window shop with no reply back. AKA do no ask for goats or semen and then have your breeder reply and ghost them, or leave them unread. We are ALL busy in our lives, I am not going to play the game of who is the most busy. The polite thing to do is at least reply with a thank you, and if it is out of budget or not what you are looking for, it is ok to say I am going to pass for now. We, as sellers appreciate that way more than leaving a message or email read with no reply, not read, etc. When you sell goats you will appreciate it too, it just means we will move onto the next person in line. No hard feelings, just be a good business person.

6. If you are brand new and know no one, and you want to reserve a kid, but are afraid of being scammed, ask for references. I can easily give you a dozen names of people I have done business with that I am not close friends with. Other sellers should be the same. You can also ask for a bill of sale once paid, or in my case I will register the kids and put it in your cart, you will have your goats papers often before you have the kid itself.

***A nice discussion I shared from Kelley Hines at Here Be Goats on buyers etiquette***

04/19/2024

This doe kid would love another herd book of her own. She has nice genetics and would be great for a beginning herd. Her dam has a leg out of 3 towards her championship. I just need to get her out to more shows. Her sire has also placed well but we don’t have many buck shows. She’s ready now. Timid, but someone with kids can make her friendlier in no time. Polk City. 4️⃣0️⃣0️⃣

04/18/2024

Stop letting people on those groups convince you to starve your baby goats!
The bottle baby feeding schedule strikes again. The latest version I've seen seems to have been created by someone who's rationing for survival in a harsh environment....you know, not enough food so we give them barely enough to keep them alive but certainly not thriving and growing! Therefore, it seems it would be beneficial to repost this from several years ago. Those of you who've followed my page for a while will recognize I've even updated the picture of the boys. 🙂

***I no longer have a bottle feeding schedule on my website. I choose not to confuse the issue with such nonsense.***
EDIT….This is for Dwarf kids. Double or even triple the amounts when feeding standard sized kids. Do not withhold milk from babies!

Bottle feeding schedules (including the one on my site) were made by people with one or two bottle kids and way too much time on their hands! I've decided to help you retain your sanity and give you a far more realistic view of how bottle feeding lots of kids works!
Newborns.... day one, they get fed 4 times to make sure they get 8 to 12 ounces of colostrum in them. That last bottle is fed around 8 or 9 p.m to make sure they have full bellies to sleep on. Day 2; As long as they are normal sized and healthy, they're ready for 3 feedings...7 or 8 in the morning, middle of the day when I get there and the last one before bed. I NEVER feed bottles in the middle of the night. It's stupid and exhausting and your kids will not starve! You make sure they're warm and they're absolutely fine. I keep them on 3 times a day for 3 to 4 weeks but my goal is to get them to take bigger and bigger amounts and if I can get them to take a full 16 ounce bottle per feeding, I drop them to twice a day. They also get introduced to pelleted feed at this point. They remain on twice a day feedings until I wean them at 12 to 14 weeks old. Most of the time I pull the morning bottle at 12 weeks and just let them have a bed time bottle until I'm sick of giving them milk and then I take it away. This is also how I use lambar buckets.
~By the way, mob feeding is magical! They're super annoying but competition from their siblings/pen mates makes them eat a LOT and you can move them along faster by using it to your advantage.

04/03/2024

So I had someone today tell me $150 is too much for an unregistered buckling... $150 doesn't even touch half of my herd health tests. $150 isn't half of my monthly hay costs. $150 is 1-1.5 weeks worth of my feed bill. $150 isnt half the costs of my meds on hand... I don't feed cheap grain, I don't feed trash hay, I don't half @$$ my herds care. $150 is enough to get me my next round of hay, or something they need. $150 is my coccidia prevention and CDT. $150 isn't my bedding costs for the month.
If you want cheap or free, go to the auction but just be warned diseases and parasites are what you get. Or someone else's problem. I'm sure you can find cheaper out there but I can assure you the quality is probably not there.
When you pay that $150, you get quality, you get healthy, you get an animal that has been loved and nurtured since the day my doe conceived them. And you get someone who will answer your questions with the best of my knowledge or a mentor if needed.
We are a completely self sufficient family, my husband is an independent rep and I own my farrier business. Our goats are our hobby and to better the breed as well as providing quality animals for others to enjoy.
So no your $150 isn't going to pay my mortgage but it will help put back into the care for our animals.
Stepping off my high horse, have a wonderful day,and tell your goats I said hi!
Ps: boys we don't sell will be used to feed the family or our working dogs. It's not worth driving 2 hours to the auction.

03/28/2024

Just sharing this for later.

Madigan Squeeze Technique

Full disclosure, I hadn’t heard of this technique until fellow breeder, Julie Matthys, made a comment about it a year or two ago in a group I admin. I actually had a tab opened in my phone since she mentioned it… yes from way back then! Little did I know, this would be a true lifesaver.

This kid was born big, full term, nose and toes normal delivery but was off. I couldn’t get him to drink and he had zero suck reflex even with extra doses of vitamin E. We resorted to tubing him colostrum but he was weak and couldn’t stand. I then remembered a bit about the Madigan Squeeze, found some links, YouTube videos, and TikToks. At this point we had nothing to lose and decided to try it. I won’t say we are experts or that we even did it perfectly (maybe use thicker rope??) but the result is a kid who started to get a suck reflex almost right away, to drinking well from a bottle, is now on the lambar, and stands and walks around. 🤯

Moral of the story: Always, always be open to learning new things and listen to trusted breeders. Big thanks to Julie for sharing her wisdom and knowledge… this has been fascinating to learn and we’re grateful for a positive outcome.

More info:

https://ceh.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/health-topics/neonatal-maladjustment-syndrome-foals

03/17/2024

Toying with letting these girls go to new pastures. Very very friendly girls. They were bottle babies except themore black doe kid(she’s a little skittish). I’m doing less NDs. Will not negotiate 💲 unless they go together. They are going to be amazing additions to someone’s herd and great starters. I also have unregistered buck kids (1 ND and 1 Sannen) Polk City.

03/05/2024

🙄 well. Notion had twin buck kids. I’m thrilled. Thankful the delivery was easy and she kidded with no assistance.

03/05/2024

Hey everyone, I have been pretty absent from this page because I got divorced and moved from the farm. I have since gotten most of my goats back and will begin to post on this page again. I will be changing my herd name, I just haven’t come up with anything yet but I will let everyone know. I currently have two bucks that will be searching for new digs and possibly a doe or two. These are ND’s. I hope everyone has a great rest of your week.