Last Saturday Abbi and I purchased 25 goats. We are going to run this small herd with another farmer’s herd at AMA Farm, in Ulster County, NY. We are very excited to have Darlin’ Doe Farm up and running, and are in the process of creating our logo and website.
When we purchased the 25 female goats, or does, the first thing we had to do was tag them all. Basically we give them earrings–it’s painful only for a quick second. We tagged each goat twice, one tag is white with a number for identification and the other tag is an orange circle. The reason for having two tags is that sometimes the tags can come out if the goat gets her head stuck in the bushes or a fence. Between the color and the number we will know that these are our goats. We had some challenges last week with the tagging process, though. The white number tags were really hard to read from a distance and the orange button tags were hard to apply. It will be important for me to know which goats are which and to take note of their health on a daily or weekly basis. For this it would be great to be able to read their number from a distance and not to disturb them while looking over their body condition and wellbeing.
Orange circle button tag
Today Simon, Ronny (both are AMA Farm Managers) and I went through the tagging process again. This time I purchased bright yellow tags with large numbers on them. They come in a pack of 25. Perfect, Right? No. Of course some did not go in perfectly and broke so I was only able to give 21 goats new bright yellow beautiful ID tags. The 4 other goats will still have the old system with the orange and white tags. I was annoyed with the tag company because they really do not give you any room for error. I guess next time I know to have back up numbers or to buy the next 25 tags now just in case. This is all a learning process and I am happily learning with these beautiful Darlin’ Does.
This goat (#1) has a bright yellow beautiful ID tag and also one more tag from a previous farm. That top tag on the left needs to go
Happy goat at Darlin' Doe Farm
Can’t wait to show you all the Darlin’ Doe Farm!
