My animal scale arrived Thursday. Today we did the weighing thing
- Summer, my four-year-old milking doe who kidded last April, not pregnant, weighs 63.6 pounds.
- Ginger, my little too-heavy girl, three years old, and no longer pregnant, weighs 80.6 pounds!
- Dancer, my two-year-old girl, and may be pregnant due at the end of May, weighs 72.2 pounds.
- Dollie who will be one year old in May weighs 47.2 pounds.
You might be able to see, noticing the range of weights there, that keeping track of weights could be a valuable asset in managing does and preparing for breeding and kidding. The vet said earlier in the week that Ginger could stand to lose ten pounds. While I knew she was heavier than her year-older half sister, I had no idea she was twenty pounds heavier, Summer weighing only 75 percent of Ginger’s weight! To better understand this, Summer and Ginger are both Capri’s children with different dads; Ginger and Dancer have the same father. Dollie is also Capri’s daughter by a different father from Summer and Ginger but cannot really be considered here since she is not yet fully grown. Any way we look at it, Ginger is way overweight!
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That sounds like perhaps I should not wait until fall to breed Dollie. She'll soon be a year old and is 47 pounds.
They have had a lot of fir boughs over the last couple of months because of wind storms so that might be a factor in weights but Summer's been eating them also. So two of my goats and I need to lose weight! I'll be weighing all five of us every week.<g>
Wow! That's a big girl! I don't think you can entirely blame yourself for feeding her too much though. Dry does can really pack on the pounds because they have no stress on their bodies. It's one reason to breed does as soon as they cross that 40 pounds mark.