Hi Folks,
I'm an urban farmer located near Seattle WA. I have been keeping Nigerians since Dec of 2011, and loving every minute! My does both came to me bred last season, successfully kidded, and milked through 2012 (still milking one). I was able to re-breed the younger doe through a driveway breeding visit to her old farm, she's due to kid in a few days. The older 7 year old doe has now had two driveway breeding visits to her home farm, both seemed like standing heat, but she hasn't settled (just got the preg test back today, negative). I also now have a 3rd doe I retained from last years kids, so am hoping to breeding her soon.
So, my main quandry is, the breeder whom I purchased my does lives about 60 miles away, so thats 120 miles roundtrip to breed my does to her bucks. The next closest buck I've found is about 30 miles away... much more doable, but I'm wondering if there's a better solution to all this driveway-breeding madness.
Are there any other Nigerian doe owners on this forum in the Seattle area? Any chance any of you would be interested in maintaining a buck co-op of sorts? The idea is we find a local pasture to rent & house the bucks, purchase a couple (or more) CAE/CL/Johnes/Bruc negative bucks to house there. Test all of our does and borrow bucks from the buck herd to bring to visit our girls as needed... share costs and maybe offer buck service to others outside the co-op group to help cover the buck expenses?
Thoughts?
Thanks for any input on this idea...
Replies
No problem, sweety, I guess I learned a few things the hard way and don't like seeing others have to do that. If you enter into a partnership over this, make sure you discuss every possible problem and details that either of you can think of and possible solutions and put everything on paper.
Things like this can make enemies of the best of friends, so it can really be difficult with strangers. I hope you find someone. I really feel for those of you who can't keep bucks and what you have to go through to get your does bred. I can't imagine dealing with that!
Excellent points Margaret, I appreciate you taking the time to write a thoughtful response! I prefer the idea of co-ownership of a buck with one other person who can keep them on-site for best care. Anyone on here in the Seattle area interested in such a scenario?
Yea, It does sound good in theory, but I am not so sure it would really be worth it to you if you are having to rent a place to put them it could get pretty costly and then you have to drive to them daily to care for them. I am afraid that in the long run you will feel that you have traveled way more than the distance you now have to travel to breed them once a year! And if you use them for other people, you then have to worry about exposing them to anything that might be on any of the other homesteads were the other does live, which means exposing your own does too!
Like I said, it does sound good in theory, but it is a big undertaking with lots of responsibility and risk. My best advice to you is something that I learned a long time ago, try to consider every possible thing that could go wrong before proceeding, and then see if you are still interested.
Not trying to shoot down your idea here, just hope you proceed with a lot of for sight and caution. A lot could go wrong, especially without someone around to keep an eye on them. What I think would be nice would be if you could link up with someone who is interested in a co-ownership who actually has a place where they can keep them at there home. Now that could be a wonderful alternative. If you can find someone like that it would mean that together you could afford to own better bucks than you might want to invest in individually.
Thanks Patty! I appreciate your input :)
I live nowhere near you, but just wanted to say it sounds like a really great idea! :)