So we will eventually be selling Oreo's little buckling as a pet wether, since she is a first freshener and we don't need a closely related buck. The triplets are 25 days old.
How old do you guys band your bucklings? I read that if you wait for several months, it is better for their systems to be able to mature first and it can help prevent UC later on. ???
If you did wait to band (like if you were keeping a buckling intact), at what age would you wean the kid to make sure he didn't breed his mom or sisters?
Do bucks mature faster than does? I hear about bucks being fertile at crazy young ages, not always, but enough to where you have to be careful. Do the does mature that fast too?
One of my does, Caramel, got bred at 5 months, when the buck jumped the fence. I have another pet doe, half Pygmy half Fainting, I got from a neighbor who keeps his buck with his does all the time (including the daughters until he sells them...). This doe, Fifi, came to us bred by her father at around 5 months. She kidded at 10 months.
With Caramel's daughter, Cocoa, I didn't notice any signs of her being in heat until she was 6 months old, but at that point, it was VERY noticeable. Maybe they can get pregnant earlier, but their cycles aren't quite smoothed out yet?
Final question. The breeder I got my first goats from said she waits until the does are 9 months old to breed them. The breeder I got my second buck from said she waits until sometimes 16 months or more, depending on the goat. Her goats mature slowly but have longevity and mega production.
What do you guys do? Somebody else told me to breed when the doe is 40 pounds. Cocoa may be there now, she is such a hunk and growing so fast. But she is only 8 months old, and that still seems a bit young.
Sorry for the ramble. What are you all's practices?
Replies
Aha... Thanks. Sorry. :P
I will have to do some reading on the Burdizzo thing, methinks.
Rachel Whetzel said:
I have also heard that waiting longer is better, but I also believe that keeping a kid with their mom is best, which is why I do as Deb does... wait as long as I am comfortable, and then band so that my boys can stay with their moms. I'll be changing that from banding to using the Burdizzo soon.
Rachel, that's what Deb is saying. She uses the Burdizzo to emasculate, and she does it so that her boys can no longer be a "threat" for breeding, and can stay with their moms until they are placed in a new home. She doesn't wean/rehome until her goats are 3 months or later, and using the burdizzo means you have to wait to make sure the testicles shrivel up and die. Once they are dead, her kids can stay with mom instead of being weaned or put in with bucks until they are rehomed.
Michael, along those lines... using the Burdizzo means that there is not the same risk to damaging the urinary tract as there is with banding, so I would be interested to know how many instances of issues (which I have also heard of from vets like you have re banding early) there are when the emasculating is done with that tool. Also, using the Burdizzo is the least painful way to emasculate, and it does not create any open wound areas that create risk of infection like castrating with a knife does.
Michael Garwood said:
Michael, that is interesting.
With our first Pygmy meat wethers, we did it the old fashioned way with a knife... Eeeeeeg...I don't think I wanna do that again. Especially not to my precious Nigerians. I don't think it was pain-free. :P Plus it leaves an open wound until it heals up.
I have yet to actually do banding myself, but what I've read makes it sound a lot less messy and painful for the goat, even though with a knife, you can tell better that it actually got done.
Rachel, and all,
I have talked with a vet in Massachusetts who advised against neutering at less that 6 months, because he said he had seen too many cases of Nigerians dwarf goats with problems in the urinary tract due, in part, to poor placements of the rubber bands, and in part, due to the damages done to the small "aparatus" as a whole from the procedure. I failed to ask him if he had noticed this with castration.
Do any of you actually do castration? Or is it only the rubber band method? I have read on another web site that the castration method is quick and as pain free/ painful as the rubber band, but that it has the advantage of being "certain" that the job is done. I will try to get permission to post the description of the procedure if there is interest. There might even be a youtube!
Michael
Hmm. I wasn't sure I quite understood your words. It sounds like you both wean and castrate around 8-10 weeks? And you don't wean until soon before they go to a new home?
So it sounds like it is okay to leave Little Bit unbanded with his mom and sisters until a typical weaning age?
How do you tell the difference between overweight and proper size for a doe?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Age at first breeding is almost irrelevant. I would not breed a doe younger than 7 months (for a 12 month freshening), but weight is the important thing. ND does should be at least 40 pounds when they are bred, or you could find yourself in a very sad situation in five months if the doe isn't big enough. And I do NOT eyeball it. I take a scale out to the barn, weigh myself, then pick up each doe and weigh myself holding her to see how much she weighs. Some does are not big enough to breed until 18 or 19 months.
The late castration theory is based upon cattle, but I've never heard anyone quote a study done on goats that showed late castration is that important. I like to leave kids with their dams as long as possible, so if a buck is going to be a wether, I generally castrate them around 8 to 10 weeks so they don't have to be weaned until they are going to their new home. They just stay so much healthier that way -- no coccidiosis, much lower risk of worm overload, etc.
As you've already noticed, age of sexual maturity can vary greatly! In all the hundreds of doelings we've had, I think I've seen 4-5 that came into heat at 3 months, and they were all related. Most doelings don't come into heat until at least 5 months. Age of sexual maturity also seems to depend on season -- at least on our farm. The only buck I've ever had that really looked like he was doing the deed at 2 1/2 months was an August kid, so it was early November (breeding season) when all the does were coming into heat that he suddenly decided he was a buck. But even though I'm pretty sure he went through the act of breeding a doe, she did not get pregnant. A few years ago, I used a 5-month-old buck to breed a doe, and she didn't get pregnant either, so sometimes when they're too young, they might be able to perform the physical act, but they're shooting blanks.
Thank you, Julia!! I'm hesitant to buy an emasculation tool that I can't see the front side of, because of Fiaso's caution about getting one with no gaps in the clamp area/sides.
Julia Stephens said:
No, I don't separate.
As long as she is not "at weight" because she's over weight.
Do you separate a buck kid from mom/sisters before 3 months old?
So if I weighed Cocoa, and if she were at or beyond 40 pounds, it would be okay to breed her? It isn't a big deal, since we were planning to wait awhile longer before breeding her. I was just wondering. She is getting close now to the size of her mom. And she looks wide-framed like a truck - lots of body capacity. At least that is what my eye sees.
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