Goat Wise | Meat Goats, Feeding Goats, Goat Fencing, Livestock Management

125 | Why Goats Eat Brush: The Biology Behind What We're Seeing in the Sagebrush

Last week I gave you the field report on what we're seeing with the virtual fence in the sagebrush. Today I want to answer the question I get asked all the time: When wil

124 | Virtual Fence in Action: A NoFence Progress Report from the Sagebrush

Back in Episode 114, I told you our NoFence collars had arrived and what we were hoping they'd open up. Today I want to give you the first real field report: What's worki

123 | Goats Don't Have to Be So Hard; Smoke Ridge Goats Proved It

Last week in Episode 122 I gave you the framework: The two phases every goat herd goes through and the three strategies for building toward what you actually want. Today

122 | Building a Goat Herd Strategically: Two Phases, Three Strategies, and Why Herd Growth Projections Are Almost Always Wrong

Back in Episode 105 I talked about why people quit goats, and genetics was one of the two big reasons. Today is the follow-up: not why genetics matter, but what to actual

121 | We Sold Our Cows and Started Over with Dexters: Improving Our Multi-Species Grazing System

I know this is a goat podcast. But I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you what we're doing with our cattle herd, because it's part of the same system, and

120 | It's Not Just a Breeding Behavior: The Flehmen Response in Goats

Yesterday I was watering the goats in town, put fresh water in the trough, one of the does took a drink, and right after she drank, she did the flehmen response. That fun

119 | Selling Meat Goats at the Sale Barn: How to Get the Best Price

A couple of weeks ago in Episode 117 I talked about how our market evolved away from the sale barn. Today I want to talk about why the auction can be a great place for me

118 | Summer Heat Management in Goats: What I've Learned and What I Did Wrong

Today we're talking about heat management in goats, the basics that actually matter, what I learned during one brutal kidding season, some coat science that surprised me,

117 | Selling Meat Goats: From Sale Barn Auctions to a Waitlist

Today I want to tell you how our goat market evolved from sale barn auctions to direct-to-consumer meat sales to something I stumbled into sort of by accident that turned

116 | Early vs Late Banding: The Management Problems We Solved by Castrating Early

Back in Episode 46, I talked about early versus late banding of buck kids. We went through the full debate, the urinary calculi argument, the research, all of it, and I r

115 | What Is a Freemartin, and Do Goats Have Them?

This is a question I get asked a lot, and honestly, one I've wondered about myself for a long time. Freemartinism is something every cattle producer knows about, a female

114 | Drought, Hay Prices, and Why We Bought Virtual Fence

Our NoFence collars showed up on Friday, shipped all the way from Norway, and they've been sitting in boxes since they got here. Today I want to talk about why we finally

113 | Kidding Season Week One: Forty Does, No Assists

We are one week into kidding season. Forty does have kidded, seventy-eight kids on the ground, two sets of quads, four sets of triplets, and we have not assisted on a sin

112 | Kidding Management: Building the Right System for Your Operation, PART 3 of 3

We've spent the last two weeks on how our kidding system evolved and what it took to reshape the herd through selection pressure. Today is Part 3, and this one is for you

111 | Kidding Management: Selection Pressure and Behavior Reshaping, PART 2 of 3

Last week we started this series with the story of how our kidding system evolved — from show goats and January barn kidding through commercial Boers, and then the Spanis

110 | Kidding Management: How Our Kidding System Evolved, PART 1 of 3

Today we're starting a three-part series on kidding management, how a system actually works, why it matters which genetics you're running, and how to build an approach th

109 | Electric Netting in Freeze Country: The Afternoon Teardown Fix

This year we went out on grass almost six weeks earlier than we ever have, and right after we did, it started freezing hard again. Today I want to talk about what that ac

108 | Two Years of Goat Wise: What We’ve Learned, Where We Are, and Where We’re Headed

Two years ago, I hit publish on the very first episode of this podcast, not really knowing if anyone was going to listen or if I'd make it past ten episodes. Today we're

107 | Goats vs. Cattle: The Financial Comparison Nobody's Doing

Today we're talking about the financial comparison between goats and cattle, done in a way that's actually fair. Most of the comparisons I've seen don't account for feed

106 | Watering Setup: Troughs, Buckets, and the Problems That Get Goats Killed

Today we're getting into the physical setup for watering goats, what you put water in, how deep, how many, and the specific problems that can kill kids and trap horned go