I have 4 babies that are around 2 months old. One buckling, one doeling, and two wethers. We waited until they were 2 months old to start separating them at night so we could start milking the Momma. The buckling is on reserve but havent heard back from the lady interested and we have found a home for the 2 wethers as well but they may not be leaving for a month or so.
I have been worried that the buckling might try to breed with him Mom or his sister which of course we do not want but was concerned that he was still too small to put in with our older buck and wether. Yesterday we separated the buckling and one wether and put them in with the older boys. They both cried all day long and Cee Cee, the mother, seemed upset all day long. We put everyone back together last night because even with food we couldnt get Cee Cee to go to her barn. We have a separate small barn for the babies.
Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to handle this. They are really big now and are so rough on Cee Cee when they are nursing that they lift her off the ground and are causing scratches on her udder. We feed them free choice minerals, hay, and purina noble plus they get as much browse as they want.
Also, should I be so concerned with the buckling getting with the doeling. They are both 2 months old now and will he try to breed with his mother?
I know this probably sounds like silly questions but I try so hard to take care of them in a caring and responsible way. I am going to try and get a hold of the lady that wanted him as a buck again and hopefully I wont have to worry about that so much but I will still have three of them here at least for another month or so.
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It's not a silly question at all! I know there are people on the web who swear they had a 2-month buck breed a goat, but after ten years, I find that increasingly hard to believe. Maybe it happened once somewhere, but it sure isn't something normal. I've been gradually leaving bucks with the herd longer and longer, and right now I have a 3-month-old buck still in there. There are multiple things that have to happen for a buck to breed a doe -- 1) the doe has to be in heat, 2) the buck has to know what to do, 3) the buck has to have a decent sperm count, 4) the buck has to be able to reach the doe. I've had six month old bucks who didn't know what to do, so a mature doe beat the snot out of him because she lost patience, and he couldn't breed her, even though I wanted him to. I have seen only about five doelings in heat at three months, and they were all from the same line, so young heats appear to be a genetic thing, and if my herd is at all representative of the rest of the ND world, it's not a very common gene.
If your little buck is giving you reason to worry, you can put him in a pen that shares a fenceline with the dam to reduce stress. When I was new, that's what we did, and the doe would go over there and let her boys nurse through the fence, although she would only do it towards the end of the day when her udder started to get uncomfortably full.
It seems young to me for breeding but that is what people say, and so I guess it is possible and you should not take the chance. You said "caring and responsible way". Well, I think I know how you feel, sometimes that can be confusing as to how to accomplish both those things at once, right? Caring seems more like it would mean leave the poor little family together. But that is not always considered responsible by most people.
One thing I did notice that I am sure is making it harder to do this is the separate barn issue. It seems to me that most people feel separations are easier if they can see each other. I plan to separate mine with just a fence between them to start with and then move them further away from each other as they get use to that.
And I did not realize until yesterday that if you put bucks that are to young with older bucks that they will try to rape them. Well, that one really shocked me so if anyone has info on appropriate ages to mix there I would be interested in that also. I don't know if you were talking about putting them with "older" bucks meaning just a little older or grown bucks but just thought I would mention that in case you didn't know either.