The Goats

Our goats, Felix and Flor, are Nigerian Dwarf goats. This is a miniature dairy goat breed that originated in West Africa and was brought to America sometime near the turn of the century. These goats are extremely friendly, gentle, and playful, in addition to being excellent dairy producers. Does can deliver up to four or five kids at a time, and are good mothers. They can be any color, and usually weigh 75 pounds or less.

We thought Nigerian Dwarves would be a good addition to our farm because of their friendliness, manageable size, hardiness, and fertility.  Felix and Flor came from God's Blessings Farm in Athens.  God's Blessings Farm breeds specifically for hardiness in our climate, as well as dairy production and kid health.  We are breeding Felix and Flor this winter, hoping she will give birth in the spring to several healthy kids. We haven't yet decided whether to increase our flock size and continue to use them in rotation along with the chickens, in which case we would focus more on health and disease-resistance, or to use them for milk and cheese production, in which case we would focus our breeding on milk-output. 

We bought these cute goats when they were only a few weeks old, and they are now 8 and 9  months old, ready to breed—they grew so fast! They’re just as friendly as we had heard: they run to the fence and bleat at us when we come to see them, and Felix loves to play a head-butting game with Lalo when he feeds them. Felix can be very bossy with Flor, who is much more docile, and both will nibble at your shirt buttons and gloves, but they live very peacefully with the chickens and—we hope—are happy and at home on our farm.