Hello from Arizona

Hello everyone.
I found this site earlier today and thought I'd introduce myself. I live in Northern Arizona with my husband of seven months. We are living with his parents right now because we both lost our jobs in February and have been unable to find work. We lived in Colorado, but could not afford our apartment there anymore, and the in-laws graciously offered us part of their house and seven acres of desert.

I had some experience with pet goats as a kid, but this is my first serious venture into goat keeping. We purchased three LaMancha does in April from a dairy farm, and the owner gave us a day old Alpine/Oberhasli buckling for free as well. One of the does was bred, so we ended up with a set of twins also. Not a bad start.
Our goats are:
Flora Bell, an 8 year old LaMancha doe, black with brown and white spots
Gracee, a 6 year old LaMancha doe, tan and white roan with black trim and white spots
Ebony, a 2 year old LaMancha doe, solid black. We have sold her because she's not working out in our flock, and she's waiting on her new owners to get a pen set up for her.
Bucky, our Alpine/Oberhasli buck. He's six months old and light chamoise, nearly white.
Bonnie, a five month old LaMancha doeling, chocolate brown with black trim.
And we've got Bonnie's brother, an unnamed wether we are saving to eat.

We were originally going to get sheep for raising lamb for eating, and I heard about dairy sheep and got interested in that. But they were too expensive for us to get, and I found a good deal on the goats...so we got goats. I milk them and make cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. We're also planning to grow a few kids a year for meat and sell a couple of doelings a year for 4-H or pets. There's not a big market here for anything other than cheap scrub goats to eat weeds.

We've also got two cats (plus a mother and five kittens we are fostering temporarily), an aquarium and a gecko. We had a horse, but she died in August. We are planning to get some poultry in the spring--chickens, ducks, and maybe quail.

We started a garden this year, but got a late start on it and some bad seeds and it wasn't too successful this year. Next year will be better.

Other than everything goat-related, I enjoy hiking, reading, playing with my aquarium, cooking, sewing, and am working on a couple of books I'd like to publish. I'm really enjoying the farm life; I don't even know how I ever lived without goats now.

 

Thanks everyone.
I'll get some pictures of our flock on here later today. I've been enjoying looking at everyone else's goats!

I was living in southwestern Colorado out in the middle of nowhere but moved to Denver where my husband was when we got married. We were there a couple of months before losing our apartment, but the move did allow us to get our goats, so I'm not complaining! We were originally shopping online for sheep when we knew we were moving, and I ended up finding our goats at a dairy farm 15 minutes from my old house. We had to go back down there to pick up our horse who was wintering in the mountains there, so it worked out great. We drove the 15 hours to Arizona with a horse and three does crammed in a trailer for one horse, hoping our pregnant and due any day goat didn't go into labor in the trailer, and a 2 day old baby buck riding in my lap.

The family is definitely enjoying all the free fresh milk, and the entertainment the goats bring. It's kind of strange, everyone I give milk to says it's great, except my huband who says it tastes like the goats smell. He's the only one who gets that taste, so I think it must just be him. I can't drink cow's milk at all and always thought I was allergic to milk until I tried goat milk. The first time I had some milk from our does, it tasted like drinking melted ice cream, it was so sweet! (And it makes the best ice cream I have ever tried!)