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    Pygmy Goats Complete Owner’s Manual. Pygmy goats pros and cons, daily care, milking, health, training and costs.
    Pygmy Goats Complete Owner’s Manual. Pygmy goats pros and cons, daily care, milking, health, training and costs.
    Pygmy Goats Complete Owner’s Manual. Pygmy goats pros and cons, daily care, milking, health, training and costs.
    Ebook166 pages2 hours

    Pygmy Goats Complete Owner’s Manual. Pygmy goats pros and cons, daily care, milking, health, training and costs.

    By George Hoppendale

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    About this ebook

    I love my pygmy goats. They make me laugh every day: their silly attitude, their “smile”, the great times we have when we practice their training.

    They are, in my opinion, seriously amusing animals. Not to mention the tasteful milk I enjoy from them.

    Thanks Lana, Morine, Seba and Georgie for giving me such a good time. I know, it is a bit silly isn’t it, thanking goats, but I just wanted to do it as they are wonderful animals.

    I hope you enjoy reading this book in which I explain my experience of bringing up pygmy goats.

    I believe I have covered everything you need to know about keeping your pygmy goat(s): how many best to buy, the pros and the cons, where to buy the, daily care, housing, food and treats, bonding, shopping list you need, milking, health, vaccinations, illnesses, play and enrichment, training ( that is really good fun), breeding, total costs, biology, how and a word about the law and insurance. Yes, it’s all covered in this book, and more...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElliott Lang
    Release dateAug 24, 2014
    ISBN9781910410509
    Pygmy Goats Complete Owner’s Manual. Pygmy goats pros and cons, daily care, milking, health, training and costs.

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      Book preview

      Pygmy Goats Complete Owner’s Manual. Pygmy goats pros and cons, daily care, milking, health, training and costs. - George Hoppendale

      Pygmy Goats

      Complete Owner’s Manual

      Pygmy goats pros and cons, daily care, milking, health, training and costs

      by

      George Hoppendale

      ~~~

      Smashwords Edition

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is strictly prohibited.

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

      Pygmy Goats Complete Owner’s Manual

      Copyrighted © 2014 by George Hoppendale

      Published by: IMB Publishing

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Foreword

      I love my pygmy goats. They make me laugh every day: their silly attitude, their smile, the great times we have when I practice their training.

      They are, in my opinion, seriously amusing animals. Not to mention the tasteful milk I enjoy from them.

      Thanks Lana, Morine, Seba and Georgie for giving me such a good time. I know it is a bit silly isn’t it, thanking goats, but I just wanted to do it as they are wonderful animals.

      I hope you enjoy reading this book in which I explain my experience of bringing up pygmy goats.

      Most of the pictures in this book are my own goats.

      Table of Contents

      Foreword

      Introduction

      Chapter 1) Pygmy Goats

      -1. Health benefits of Goats

      -2. The downside

      Chapter 2) Goats in the Wild

      Chapter 3) Choosing Your Goat

      -1. Where to get goats

      -2. Choosing your goat

      Chapter 4) Caring for Your Goat

      -1. Housing and pasture

      -2. Food and treats

      Chapter 5) Settling in Your Goat

      -1. Bonding

      -2. Preparing for your goat

      -3. Shopping list

      -4. Log book

      Chapter 6) Milking Your Goat

      Chapter 7) Using Goats’ Milk

      Chapter 8) Health

      -1. Vaccinations

      -2. Illnesses and health problems

      -3. When to take your goat to the vet

      -4. Emergency kit

      Chapter 9) Play and Enrichment

      -1. Bought toys

      -2. Home made toys and how to make them

      Chapter 10) Training Your Goat

      Chapter 11) Breeding

      -1. Preparation

      -2. Mating

      -3. Pregnancy

      -4. Kidding

      -5. Bringing up baby

      -6. What to do if the mother rejects the babies

      Chapter 12) Showing Goats

      Chapter 13) Goats, the Law and Insurance

      -1. What licences do you need in your country?

      -2. What are your legal responsibilities?

      Chapter 14) Cost

      Chapter 15) Biology

      Forums and Other Sources of Information

      Introduction

      As robust, exotic and unique animals, Pygmy goats are fantastic animals, not only as dairy animals, but also as pets. Adaptable and hardy, Pygmy goats can be kept by almost anyone with enough knowledge and time. Because of their good temperaments and easy going nature, they make great pets, with some owners even walking them on leads like dogs.

      Pygmy goats are incredibly popular pets and have a fantastic way about them. People keep pygmies as they are smaller and more compact, but still have a cheeky outlook that you’d expect from a goat. They are really sweet and an excellent option if you have limited space or want to have a couple of milkers at the same time, but don’t want masses and masses of milk.

      Pygmy goats are very good producers for their size, producing up to 2 litres a day at the peak of their season. The milk is sweet and thick, with high butterfat content.

      Pygmies are very disease resistant and have excellent health in general. They are hardy and cute. There are lots of fantastic reasons for having pygmy goats, but if you want to get the most out of a dairy animal, a Pygmy is still the best bet.

      Pygmy goats are great animals to keep, either as pets, companion animals or as an alternative dairy option. They are both entertaining and very useful. They do fantastic work keeping the lawn cropped, as they browse and don’t clip the grass too short, and keep other animals company. They produce good quality, high butterfat milk without having to be bred every year. And they gambol about happily, being all too cute for words, all over the place!

      They are small enough to be easily handled and don’t need milking if you don’t breed from them, so they can be kept as pets.

      A Pygmy goat is also a fantastic addition to an existing herd, being strong and of good temperament and have a cheering influence on their peers and herd mates, remaining youthful and exuberant well into old age. They also make a good basis to cross from and have a good, wide gene pool coming, as the do, from wide areas of West Africa, mainly in Cameroon.

      The decision to keep any animal is a big one and you need to be informed. You kneed to know about any special housing requirements. You need to know what they eat and if they call for any dietary additions. You need to know about any potential breeding complications. You need to know the benefits of owning them too. There are so many pros, it’s not just a massive list of cons.

      What you need at this stage of the game is information. This book will tell you all you need to know in order to make the rest of this decision

      Chapter 1) Pygmy Goats

      Just look at that face! This is what initially attracts most people to the breed, and then the more people learn about their temperament and milk yield, the more appealing the Pygmy becomes. Their small stature and their good nature just makes you want to own some all the more.

      One of the other reasons that people choose Pygmy goats is if they have neighbours. They are fairly quiet when provided with food, water and shelter and are generally only vocal when they’re hungry or disturbed.

      The physical characteristics of the Pygmy are rather varied when it comes to colours and markings, but the size, shape and weight are in a quite narrow field. The minimum height for both males and females is 17 inches at the shoulders. The maximum height for males is 22 inches and the maximum height for females is 21 inches.

      The shoulders are rounder and smaller than other breads. The chest should be large and low. The body should be in a large proportion to the small size of the goat, giving abundant digestive and reproductive capability, strength, vigour and stamina. The barrel (tummy) of the body of a Pygmy goat should be broad and deep, increasing in width towards each side, giving an impression of perpetual pregnancy, symmetrical and well supported by firm abdominal wall and well sprung ribs.

      The thing about Pygmies is that intact males and wethers look different from each other.

      The male should have a strong, masculine head, neck and shoulders without any trace of coarseness. The horns are longer and more robust than those of the female. The barrel may be slightly less well developed than the female.

      Reproductive system – two testicles of appropriate size for age of animal carried in a healthy scrotum. Male Pygmies also have two rudimentary teats of uniform size.

      Wethers are somewhat more sturdily built than females, but not obese. They do not develop the typical male head, neck and shoulders. The horn growth is usually less than in the entire male.

      Goats are such clever beasts and it’s quite amusing to watch as they learn. Once shown the proper way of doing something, for example, being let out of their pen to be milked and shown where to stand, a Pygmy will walk to the right place, jump up and wait to be milked. Being full of milk can be quite uncomfortable and they will eventually know that the people help it to feel better.

      Both males and females have a medium long coat, and one of its most attractive features is the variety in colour. Many coat colours are possible within the breed; white caramel, medium caramel, dark caramel, dark (red) caramel, silver-light grey agouti, medium grey agouti, dark grey agouti, black with frosted points, solid black and agouti. Many colour combinations are found which give some very pretty mottled, marbled and tortoiseshell animals.

      You’ll find the most common colouring of Pygmies to be white, black and grey. This is because most Pygmy goats are descendants of their grey shaded ancestors, kept in European zoos.

      No two pygmy goats are the same, not even twins or real siblings.

      Each pygmy goat has a distinct personality and each one will

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