Located
in the San Diego (California) area, Islander Ranch maintains
a small
herd of Nigerian Dwarf Goats. The
Islander Ranch herd name
is
registered with American Goat Society, American Dairy Goat Association,
Nigerian
Dwarf Goat Society, and - although I’m no longer keeping them –
National
Pygmy Goat Association.
The
NGDs are good weed
eaters (firebreak maintainers) and mine help with
the
training of stockdogs. NDGs are a dairy
breed, producing a goodly amount
of
milk for their size. Letters at the end
of their registered names are milk
producing
titles. NDGs come in a rainbow of
colors. They are calm and friendly
and
don’t need to be bottle raised to be this way.
Even the bucks have pet
quality
temperaments.
Islander
Ranch kids are doe-raised to have better herd dynamics
and
to not have that obnoxious temperament so typical of bottle babies.
Bottle
babies are noisy, always wanting to be with you, some bite a lot.
Bottle
babies are very difficult to move along with the herd. I’ve not found it
necessary
to bottle-raise a kid to make it friendly.
All it needs is people
interaction. Unless naturally polled, all kids have been
disbudded.
NDGs
are a miniature breed. Despite their
name, they are not dwarf in the classical
genetic
sense, but rather have all the proportions of a full-size dairy goat. The
advantage
of keeping miniature goats (vs. full-size goats) is that you can keep more
for
the same amount of feed, they are much kinder to your fencing, can’t jump/reach
so
high (and therefore can’t get into as much trouble), are easier to wrestle with
and
pick
up (thus easier to worm, foot trim, etc.,), they are selected for a pet quality
temperament.
On
the negative side, miniature goats are very good at finding and squeezing
through small openings.
This
is even more so true for their kids. I once
had a neonate squeeze through a 2x4 inch opening!
Also,
most goat equipment is made for full size goats, not all of which can be
adapted for miniature goats.
And
it is much more difficult to reach a big hand into a miniature goat to assist
in delivery, then it is for a full size goat.
Fortunately,
NGDs do not have many delivery problems.
I
prefer NDGs over Pygmy goats because of their more refined build. Pygmies are cobby,
with
blocky heads and coarser somewhat longer coats and come in very limited
color
variation. Pygmy teeth tend to not
align right and need to be regularly floated.
Due
to their large heads and pelvis shape, pygmies have a high percentage of
kidding
problems. Therefore, in addition to being much
prettier, Nigerians are much easier
keepers
than Pygmies.
I
like to use goats for training stock dogs rather than sheep because goat
temperament
Is much
more stable than sheep temperament.
Goats are much more forgiving of a
dog
not being exactly perfect. They recover
much quicker from being stressed. Sheep
tend
to take off all over the place when disturbed by a dog, whereas goats are more
likely
to
not do so. Goats generally don’t flock
very tightly, so it is good training for a dog to make
him
work to keep the goats together. All
of this goes double for Nigerian Dwarfs and their
exceptionally
calm temperaments.
Additionally,
it is a pain and an expense to shear sheep.
Especially in today’s market where
wool
has almost no value. Also, wool breeds
require a lot of extra feed to go into growing
all
that wool. Therefore, many stock dog
trainers use haired sheep instead of wool sheep.
Unfortunately,
the hair sheep breeds tend to be very flighty in temperament and it can be
a
real challenge to train powerful, keen, or fast moving dogs on them. In these cases,
one
is better off avoiding the wool by getting goats instead of hair sheep.
Furthermore,
goats work more similar to cattle than sheep do. If one wants to start a dog off on
smaller
stock before moving up to cattle, one will make an easier transition if one
starts
on goats
rather than sheep.
Lastly,
goats have really neat personalities.
Whereas, sheep are kind of dead heads.
I’ve
kept both and much prefer keeping goats.
Meet the goats of
Islander Ranch
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America’s top herding German Shepherd Dogs
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