Writing the Perfect Craigslist Ad

I have always had pretty good luck with selling goats on Craigslist. There are a couple of things that help when writing an ad to post:

1. Be descriptive - I am always leary of an ad that simply says "purebread nanny goat for sale". I kind of get the feeling that maybe the seller isn't very up to date on their goat information. I worry about the quality of animal that comes from an ad with such a lack of description. If the seller didn't have time to write a little bit more about the animal in order to sell it, did they have time at all to care for it? I find it always makes a goat more appealing if the ad has a good description of the animal. Things like age, exact breed, registration, disease status, general health, and any breeding/kidding info are always helpful.

2. Don't be too descriptive - While I like to get a good snapshot of the animal from the information in the ad, I get a little weirded out if the ad is too descriptive. A Craigslist ad is not the place for a thesis on proper goat management. A super long ad makes me feel that perhaps the seller will be very picky about who they are selling to and give you the third degree if you call.

3. Use good pictures - Nothing hurts an ad more than a blurry, dark cellphone picture. If you don't have a good, in focus picture of the animal to post, don't post a picture! Take a good picture with proper lighting of the whole animal. Also be sure to crop it so it only shows the animal for sale. Try to never take a picture in the barn because the barn usually has poor lighting and a dirty barn is a terrible background to use. Take the picture outside during the day with someone holding the animal or at least the animal looking at the camera (no butt shots please!).

4. Tell the truth - Be sure to give a reason why you are selling the animal. It helps to give a small hint of why you are not keeping it.

5. Don't tell the whole truth - You can omit some stuff and save it for after the buyer contacts you. If the goat is a jerk and doesn't like to be milked then maybe it's best to just say in the ad that it "would make a good companion animal".

6. Don't harass the buyers - It's not necessary to put in the ad that it needs to go to a "good home only". That is pretty much implied, duh. Also never say "Be sure to put "blah blah blah" in the subject so I know it isn't spam". You are going to get spam anyways so just freaking get over it!

7. The Price Is Right! - Research what the going price is for a similar animal in your area. Ask around, look at similar ads, keep your ear to the ground. It does no good to ask $400 if the going rate is $100. You aren't going to be able to sell the animal for $400 EVER. Get. Over. It. And lower your price.

8. Don't repost or renew the ad without changing it - I surf Craigslist often so I know when I have seen the same ad 5 weeks in a row. If you haven't had any bites on an ad in 3 weeks, change something and try posting again. Don't repost every day! Also if you animal isn't selling you may need to look closely at the main deciding factor in your ad ---- THE PRICE! Lots of times I see the same ad over and over and think to myself, "Should I email them and let them know that the reason they haven't sold the goat is because they are asking a ridiculous amount for that animal?".

9. Know your audience - Craigslist is a great place to dump an animal quickly and cheaply. It's not the place for a fancy animal that would only be in the price range of very high-end buyers. It's fine to post a high quality (AKA: high price) animal once to see if anyone bites. But don't be shocked if no one goes for it. If you have a really fancy animal for sale then you will need to branch out from Craigslist and go to the place where more expensive buyers will be looking. There's lots of special groups on Facebook and other place on the internet for selling specialty animals.

10. Be picky about your buyers - You don't have to sell your goat to anyone. Create a relationship with the buyer and make sure they are someone you feel comfortable with. Ask them questions and give them lots of information on the animal they are looking to buy. Don't be afraid to turn someone down. They will get over it.

CAE is a real disease!

I am always shocked when I hear people talk about how Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis (CAE) isn't a big deal. Even though they have never tested, they claim that their goats "look healthy" and have never had a problem and that they must be "CAE-free". I'm sorry, but as soon as I hear "CAE-free" I tend to shudder with horror. I really don't believe there is such a thing. Your goats are either CAE negative or they are positive. They can never be truly "free" of it. If you have never tested your herd or you don't do CAE prevention, then you have no right to claim that your herd is "CAE-free".

One of the current estimates on prevalence of CAE infection in the goat world is that up to 80% of goats carry and transmit the virus to others. I have argued with people before about how they don't believe this number because they feel it is too high. They insist that since they test or use prevention and since they know others who do too, that the general population is also aware of the disease and takes action against it. I don't believe that at all. Just talk to any random goat owner and about half of them will go "Huh?" when you mention CAE. They don't know what it is and have never heard of it. You can bet hard cash that their goats are positive. The other half of goat owners will give you the "my goats look healthy so they don't have CAE" line when you question them about it. You can also bet hard cash that all their animals are positive. Don't even bother asking a meat goat breeder about CAE. I have yet to find anyone with Boers or Kikos who regularly tests. Yep, get your wallet out again -- all of their goats are positive too. So if you add the uninformed, the noobs, and the meat goat producers into the equation, you are probably approaching the 80% mark pretty quickly. 

CAE is a highly subclinical disease which means that only 10% of the animals who carry and transmit the virus will actually show the "classical" symptoms -- ie: swollen knees, hard udders at freshening, or encephalitis. Unfortunately these symptoms often get confused with other common goat ailments so the actual percentage of goats who express direct CAE-related problems may be much higher than 10%. Hard udders at freshening often go undocumented in the meat breeds or get confused with other udder related maladies in the dairy breeds. The same is true for encephalitis. There are several goat diseases that cause sudden paralysis and death, so usually when presented with those symptoms, CAE is at the bottom of the diagnostic list.

Do keep in mind that CAE doesn't only cause those classic symptoms. CAE is an immunodeficient virus that suppresses the goat's immune system and leaves them open to serious complications due to other infections and deficiencies. CAE is often called "Goat AIDS" for good reason. Rarely to people with HIV/AIDS actually die directly from that virus. It's the other diseases, like TB, that ultimately kill a person with the HIV virus because their immune system was compromised by HIV before they got TB. A normal, healthy adult can fight off a TB infection, but someone with HIV is at a huge disadvantage. The same is true for a goat with CAE. Most goats that are CAE negative will be healthier in general than their immunocompromised CAE positive counterparts.

One of the big problems with people and understanding CAE is that the current test for CAE only looks for the antibodies to the virus. This is not a fool-proof test by any means because many times a goat can carry the CAE virus and transmit it but she may not carry the antibodies to it. She may test negative but actually be infected with the virus. Some goats do not produce antibodies normally due to a preexisting immune system dysfunction and some goats have delayed antibody production for one reason or the other. There can also be false positives if the goat was exposed to the antibodies. They can carry the antibodies but not the virus, so technically they are not infected but they will test positive. Do keep in mind though, that false negatives and false positives are extremely rare!  Unfortunately this kind of confusion about the accuracy of the testing causes people to proclaim that the test is completely invalid and a waste of time. They will swear up and down that since the test isn't fool-proof that it must be totally wrong, thus they stopped testing and worrying about CAE.

Another big problem that people have with CAE is that prevention and testing is a huge pain in the ass. If you never test and you assume that your goats are healthy, then you never have to work very hard to claim they are "CAE free". You can just sit in the dark and let your infected goats spread the virus all around to their kids and their kids' kids, and sell those kids to people who also don't have a clue, and everything is just peachy. You can skip the annual testing, you can skip the bottle feeding of pasteurized milk, and you can skip having to change your herd management to eradicate the virus. Being ignorant is so much easier than being informed!

So what is the goat owner to do? TEST, TEST, TEST! It's cheap and it's easy -- about $4 per goat through the mail. Just take a blood sample (which is super easy to do -- no veterinary needed!), and pop it in the mail with payment. Then in about 5 days you will get an email with the test results. If your goats are positive then the hard work begins. You will have to evaluate your herd management and make changes so any new goats you produce are negative. Some goats can live a long time with the infection and continue to produce kids so it isn't necessary to eradicate your positive animals. BUT it is necessary that you take the appropriate steps to be responsible and not spread the virus to new goats.

If all goat owners work together to test their goats and then manage them properly, it is possible to bring that 80% number down to 50% or 20% or even 0%!

Well, I should've known better....

I should've known better when my friend asked if I wanted to buy some fancy breed chickens from a friend of hers. It was a pair -- a rooster and a hen. That right there should have stopped me. I don't need a rooster. I have a rooster. A good rooster. Then she said the rooster has a big straight comb. There's another tip-off that this was a bad idea. I can't keep roosters with big combs because they get frostbite in the winter. My first rooster had a big comb and it froze off every winter, no matter what I did to try to keep it warm. Short of knitting him a little hat, there wasn't anything I could do. I swore I wasn't going to get another big combed chicken again.

In spite of these two big problems, I picked up the chickens on Saturday. I paid a good deal of money for them which really should have stopped me right there. I am not much of a chicken farmer so spending money on chickens for me is kind of a waste. It doesn't really matter what kind of fancy breed they are, I am not up to the caliber of chicken person to really be spending anything on a bird. Well, against my reservations, I paid the lady and took the birds home.

Once home, I should have known to clip their wings. Both of them looked very game-bird-ish and from my experience any light breed, game type birds won't stay in my fencing. They tend to be flighty and fly right over my 5' chicken fence. I decided to wait and see if they would be like that, rather than taking my own advice and just clipping them. I also should have known that they would need a few days of acclimation being locked up with my chickens before being allowed to free-range it in the coop. They just moved here and don't know the neighborhood so a few days in confinement would be ideal. Well, yesterday I got lazy and rather than cleaning their cage, I let them out with the rest of the birds.

Well, you can probably guess what happened next.... When I did chores this morning the new hen was gone and the rooster was sitting forlornly at the back of the chicken run. I looked around and didn't find her anywhere. I am hoping she is just in the woods and will come back before being eaten by a fox. Of course, if she does come back, I have no idea how to catch her. Short of getting lucky and surprising her, I can't imagine being able to get a hold of her.

Well, I should've known better.....

No more floppy ears!

 So I told my husband yesterday to smack me around the next time I think about getting a goat with floppy ears. This ultimatum was said after listening to my Boer doe yodel her way through chore time because I wasn't fast enough in reuniting her with her kid and her dinner bowl. I have not been amused with my Boer doe's attitude lately. When I first got her she was great. She never said a peep! For two months, I didn't hear so much as a loud fart out of her. She moved into my existing herd with no issues. She was pleasant and calm and soooo quiet. That all changed when she gave birth. As soon as those kids popped out she started yelling. I bottle fed two of her kids and left her one to keep. I thought that would shut her up. But noooooo! She cries even when her kid is with her. Oh, and the kicker -- her kids are screamers too! Both of the remaining kids have very established lungs on them. My other Alpine kids like to "baa" now and then, but these two Boer kids can shatter glass.

Don't let them fool you!

I thought Boers would be different because they are meat goats. I thought Boers would be different because everyone says they are great. I thought they would be different because they are traditional "pasture" goats who aren't as spoiled and pampered as dairy Nubians. I thought they would be different because they aren't super closely related to Nubians. I have known for years that Nubians are screamers. They are NOTORIOUS for being loud and obnoxious. That is one of the main reasons why I sold all of my Nubians last year. I was tired of hearing "WHAAAAAAAA!" at 6am and 4pm and 12pm. All. The. Time...

So cute, so innocent, so LOUD!

Of course, this all may be a cosmic dose of karma (and we all know how much karma loves me!) because I was chuckling this spring over my friend's dilemma with her Nubian doe. She called me in a panic shortly after the doe gave birth because she couldn't get the doe to shut up. My friend said the doe used to be so quiet and loving but now she screams all the time. She was certain that she had mentally abused her doe beyond repair by her removing the kid for bottle feeding. The doe's mournful howling was keeping her up at night (literally -- because the goat barn is right near her bedroom window) and she was sure that the goat was never going to be the same due to the mental anguish from being separated from her kid. She felt guilty about taking the kid away and was starting to feel guilty about breeding the goat in the first place. I explained to her over and over that the goat was not suffering from post-partum depression or PTSD from the separation. The goat was merely a Nubian and that's how they handle a major life change.

Nubians have for some reason developed a very distinct coping mechanism for dealing with stress and major changes. That mechanism is to scream their heads off until they are hoarse. After a couple of months of hoarse scream-whispers (let's call them "screamspers"), they do eventually accept the change or at least forget what they were yelling about in the first place. You see, not only are Nubians loud, but they are also stubborn and clueless. It would be one thing if they were just loud and stubborn -- a stubborn animal is usually only stubborn for so long before they give in. It would be another thing if they were just loud and clueless -- a clueless animal forgets what they were doing and stops doing it fairly quickly. But Nubians are a trifecta of crazy -- loud, stubborn, clueless. This means that once they start screaming, they won't stop. Even when they forget why they started yelling, they continue to carry on because they don't want to give in to whatever reason they started carrying on about in the first place.

As I was explaining to my friend about the joys of Nubians, I kept thinking "Thank God. I don't have any of those noisy boogers anymore". Well, that was before my Boer gave birth (Hi karma, I have missed you so!). Since then I have unfortunately discovered that my Boer goats are also loud, stubborn, and clueless. I do have to say that they don't seem to be as clueless as the Nubians. My Boer doe at least remembers where the barn is every time (My Nubian doe always acted like she was seeing the barn for the first time. Every. Single. Day.). But she is clueless enough to not realize that I always feed her on exactly the same schedule every day. My other goats will cry and make noise for a few minutes at the beginning of chore time but they usually shut up once they see me well under way in my normal chore routine. Not the Boer. She continues to scream and holler and yell the whole time. The only time she does shut up is when she is stuffing her face with food. Even then she can still manage to talk with her mouth full.

Maybe the floppy-eared goats are so loud because all that dangly ear tissue covers up their ear drums and they have to shout to hear themselves. I wonder if Lamanchas are super quiet because they have no ear tissue to muffle their noise. I will have to try hanging out with some Lamanchas sometime and see if they are any quieter than their floppy-eared cousins. Perhaps no ears is the way to go?

And Now For Some Good News....

 And now time for some good news: All the remaining baby goats are doing well! Lucy's two Alpine/Oberhasli babies are getting big and now eating grain and hay, along with thrice daily bottles of milk and milk replacer. Ruby's girl, Curry, is a gigantic monster-sized beast! She stays with Ruby at night and then goes with the other kids during the day. She is enormous at 25 lbs and only 4 weeks old. She towers over all the other kids. Her brother, Samy, is finally showing some growth. He was very sick for a while with bad diarrhea. After throwing the kitchen sink at him, it started to clear up and hasn't been back since. He actually looks like a real goat now and not a weird runt. There may be hope for him yet! The best news is that this is the first year in forever that my kids have hit the 4 week old mark without diarrhea from coccidiosis. This year I put them all on a preventative regimen of Corid starting at 21 days old. I have seen no signs of coccidiosis at all this year. Whoohoo!

 You can see the difference in the two Boer kids. Curry is in the back and Samy is in the front. Curry weighs twice as much as Samy!

 Here is Ruby and Curry. It's not an optical illusion, Curry really is that big!

 Prince Charming and Cinderella (her name might change to Princess Fiona, depending on what my 2 year old decides). Prince does have four legs - this is just a weird picture. 

 A close up of Cinderella/Princess Fiona.

 Figaro was shorn last week. He never likes his face done so he's still a little shaggy around the eyes.

Lucy and Daisy.

Don't Choose Favorites

The number one rule on my farm should be “DON’T CHOOSE FAVORITES”. As much as I would like to rate my chickens and goats and other animals, I have to be very, very careful in letting any thoughts of supremacy into my head. There’s apparently a little red devil running around my farm that can telepathically pick up on these thoughts. As soon as I look lovingly at a particular goat kid or imagine a plan for the future involving this animal or that animal, the devil sneaks over and takes them away from me. Usually my punishment for choosing favorites is obvious – the favorite of the day suddenly dies. Sometimes the punishment is slower acting – the favorite has a change in attitude or just doesn’t grow out the way I planned. The results are always the same. The favorite ceases to be my favorite anymore. 

This has happened so many times, I can hardly count. The last two years have been particularly difficult. Last year I lost my “favorite” doe kid to a mixture of coccidiosis and enterotoxemia. One day she was fine, the next she was dead. Then I had my Nubian/Alpine doeling not grow out the way I had planned so she ceased to be my favorite anymore. After that the doeling I had saved from last year for breeding this year stopped growing and became somewhat stunted. She wasn’t turning out like I wanted so she had to move down the line. This year I have already lost my favorite Boer doe to bloat and my Boer buckling, who I desperately want to use for mating, is very sick and runty. Now my Sultan hen (a favorite because she has both a top knot and feathered feet) has a bum knee.

Nothing bad ever happens to the not-favorites. If I have a goat or chicken that I particularly don’t like, it takes an effort to get rid of them. The cows I never liked lived and thrived like crazy. Those stupid pigs we raised once were as hardy as a can be. I have even TRIED to get rid of some of the not favorites and failed! They stick around forever and never get sick, never have an accident, and always turn out fine. 

Maybe it’s some big cosmic plan for me to learn humbleness or maybe it is God smiting me for being proud of my animals. Or maybe it’s payback for being an opinionated blogger who goes on and on about her farm and farming ethics for page after page after page. Karma, smite, payback – call it what you will. All I can tell you for sure is that I am getting very tired of not being able to pick a favorite and stick with it.

Over"Boer"d With Planning

 A couple of months ago, I got the great idea that I should plan to mate my dairy does to a Boer buck next fall. I need to breed my dairy girls in order to get milk but I don't have a need for the kids. I have had some bad experiences with kids (especially buck kids) ending up in bad places after I sold them or gave them away. (I have had lots of really, really good experiences with selling kids too -- don't get me wrong). So I wanted to avoid the mad scramble to find homes for kids by crossing them with meat genetics to get a meaty kid that I could butcher for home consumption. Ideally I wanted to buy a Boer buck to use, but a pregnant Boer female landed in my lap at exactly the same time I was lamenting only having one pregnant goat on the farm this spring. "Ruby" came to stay on my farm in January. She was pregnant. My plan was that she would have at least one buck kid that I could raise until the fall and then use for breeding before turning him into goat-burgers. My plan was also that she would be able to raise her own kids so I wouldn't have to bottle feed them. That part of the plan didn't work out because she came back CAE positive. Time for a new plan...

Well, I got my one buckling out of her when she finally kidded with TRIPLETS (two does, one buck). But the whole situation hasn't worked out quite like I planned. My plan was to bottle feed all three kids and use the buck for breeding. A local dairy had contacted me wanting a buck for their breeding too. My plan (there's that word again!) was to use the buck for my breeding and then sell him to the dairy in the fall. The two does would be sold as breeders or made into sandwiches.

 The first doe born was Vindaloo. She's a beast who loves to eat. She ate so much yesterday that she is very sick today. I am hoping she is okay by the time I get home from work.

 The next doe is Curry. I tried and tried to get her to take a bottle the first day she was born and she wouldn't have anything to do with it. She would root around like she was hungry but as soon as I put the bottle in she would spit it out. After three hours on my hands and knees making grunting and "baaing" sounds with her stuffed under my belly to try to get her to nurse, I hauled her outside and dumped her back in with her mom. She immediately ran to her mom's udder and began to nurse. She'll be CAE positive and have to become BBQ.

 Finally, the buck was born. Ruby left him in his birth sack and he got very chilled. My husband found him and thought he was dead until he went to pick him up and he moved. The buck was brought in the house and given a bath and then wrapped up in front of the woodstove. It took about 4 hours to revive him and get his temperature up to where he could eat. He was born a runt and had lots of extra skin. I think the other two kids took all his calories and nutrients while in the womb so he wasn't able to grow as big as his skin. He stayed in the house for a few extra days. I took him out to the barn but he got chilled again. I brought him back in the house and nursed him back to health. He's out in the barn now. He's still very small. I am worried that he won't be a good breeder because of his runt status. Unless he really starts growing, he will become sandwiches too.

With two does and one buck, my new plan was to keep one of the does for breeding as part of the herd. That plan faded when I flipped over each kid and counted their teats. The buck has four teats. Vindaloo has two teats but one is a bad fishtail. Curry has FIVE teats (see picture) - two small teats, two big teats, one fishtail on a big teat! Her udder looks like a tree branch! Both does having fishtail teats means that they are unusable for breeding. Fishtails are double orifice teats that are very difficult (often impossible) to nurse on or milk out which leads to issues with feeding kids and huge potential for mastitis. Any does with fishtails should never be bred. The buck having four teats isn't that bad. According to Boer goat websites, four normal looking teats on a buck is not considered a disqualification for showing or considered a major fault. Since he doesn't have to produce milk, his multiple teats do not exclude him from breeding. Unfortunately his multiple teats does increase the chance that his daughters may have teat issues so any kids from him should be slated for butchering and not expected to be used for breeding.

In conclusion, as usual my "plans" have become a shambles. This pretty much happens all the time so I can't say that I am surprised. I can say that I am awfully tired of my plans never working out. Of course, this hasn't stopped me from planning. My new plan is to eat my entire stupid Boer herd this fall. Ruby and her three kids will be butchered once the kids are market weight or as soon as I get tired of feeding them. I can't say what my plan for breeding this year will be yet, there's still too many months for things to go wrong to start planning on next breeding season. All I want to do is get through the spring and summer without accidentally killing any goats. THAT is my plan!!