We went to a high end goat farm today 'just to look' LOL Famous last words. There we found our future herd sire from the breeding we wanted. His sire is Downen Pipeline's Sparkplug and his dam is Hill Place Her Nibs. He's got 14 ennobleds in his background and is a fullbred. He was born Jan 30th 2008. We got him on the installment plan so he won't come to us till August when he's paid off. Yeah he was expensive! We should be able to recoup his price within a year. He's not named yet. got a picture of him. I'll post tomorrow. Now we need at least one doe.
MollyD
Found our buck!
Congrats, Molly. Glad you found what you wanted, and were able to buy it on the installment plan.
GG
Yipeee! You found what you were looking for! August will be here before you know it. Can't wait to see the pic.
Christy
Woot!!! I bet your excited. Oh goodness do you plan on letting him at your females right at the start? If so that will give you January/February babies. I found the babies born in the cold lived better than the ones born in like August.
Okay here he is. He's the one making a funny face with his lips (#24). Next to him is his brother (they were triplets). We felt #24 was slightly taller and broader in the chest than #23. He was born Jan 31, 2008 (tired last night when I said 30th). So that makes him 5 months old. Paul took these pictures.
He won't go in with the girls right now. One is pregnant at the moment and the other had twin on April 8th so she needs a rest! We plan on breeding her in early December. I don't want any babies born in the dead of winter here!!! Our winters are sometimes -20F with many blizzards. Don't want to find myself delivering kids on a night like that if I can help it!.
Molly
He is adorable. Real good about when you plan to breed. i just realized you area and yes I agree harsh winters. He does look the best. You did good.
Thanks L2G. There were so many bucklings it wasn't an easy choice LOL plus they kept moving around real fast! This place bred the girl's father so they were able to help me avoid that bloodline so there was no overlap in heritage. Should be interesting since this buck's father Downen Pipeline's Sparkplug is known to throw kids that have gentle dispositions and in turn have great kids themselves. Sparky is from Texas. Now I have to name this buck using our RainDog prefix. I want something that will sound real good on registration forms and maybe show a link to his daddy. His mom is named Hill Place Her Nibs which is kinda cute! Now Sparky's dad was Pipeline so I wondered about something like RainDog Sparkplug's Chip (as in chip off the old block). I'm limited to 30 letters including the 7 from our pre-fix. I'm not sure right now if he get's our prefix or the farm he was born on in which case it would be Hill Place Sparkplug's Chip.
MollyD
Now that I have no clue. I would ask the guy your getting him from about that. I like both names and call him "Chip". You are going to have fun. And I do know about so many and so cute and running away so fast. I do miss mine, watching them out romping around, and playing king of the mountain. If you dont know already, a few things to always have on hand. Monkey blood, I cant remember the real name for it. Old towels, Nutri drench, alcohol, Peroxide, and a heating pad. In case of winter birth and you need to warm a baby up for what ever reason. I had to literally bring one lil girl back to life. It was a winter birth and she was left for dead, mom just didnt do good with twins. I just wrapped her up in a heated towel and kept rubbing her chest and making her stay awake. I did give her the ND and then just whole milk, DH went out and milked the mama to get her that early Clost. she needed. She is still alive to this day. It took me about 4 or 5 hours of holding her and rubbing her to get her to be able to stand and then mama took her right in.
Good Luck
Tia
Thanks! I've been reading up on the subject. Seems there are companies that specialize in goats and will sell you a maternity kit with everything in it. This is almost as good as getting ready for when I gave birth LOL. Just glad I don't have to buy her maternity clothes!!!
MollyD
Lol so true. Really it usually is easy, that is for just in case things. Out of probably 20 or 30 babies I only had to try save 2, 1 didnt make it we got to her to late. They say, If you are going to butcher then you can cut the boys (we banded) at birth, but if they are going to be pets or show then wait until they are 4 months old to band or cut. It is easier at birth to do it. at 4 months old its kinda hard to "catch" them. I have never heard of a maternity kit. I would assume that what you have on hand around the house would be good to use.
Mama should get some ND also and the babies after they are an hr old. The bottle should tell you how much and how often. You can go to goatwisdom and see some of their comments, its a forum you have to join, some good stories.
Thanks L2G I'm already on goat wisdom and on the practical goat list :-)
The breeders here (and on fiasco farm.com) don't recommend banding at birth. They recommend doing it at 2 months of age. Too much stress on a newborn. Also you can't tell the quality of the baby when it's just been born and you can end up neutering a champion male who would have made one great buck. So they wait till they can see how the baby is developing before making that change! Remember these are high price tag kids. We saw some that were the same age as ours but cost $1000. (couldn't afford those even on a budget plan!). Imagine cutting one of those and reducing it to a $100. wether cause you made a hasty decision at birth!
Our does will produce at least twins their first time (Bonnie already did) and more likely triplets and quads after this. Boers are bred to produce multiple births.
MollyD
Molly....he a good looking fella! Wow, that could be one costly choice, huh? Goodness, I wonder how hard the choice is to make even at 2 months old?
Christy
Oh so true at multiple births, usually the only time I got a single it was a small young girl. We did make that mistake at banding one we called him studly, he was a monster. At 4 months old he was bigger than his mama. She was at least 2 yrs old and really good size. The ones I banded at about 3 or 4 days old did fine. We kept them put in their stall with mama for the 1st 5-7 days then let them out with the herd. If more time passed they had to fight there way back into the herd. Just like chickens they do have a "pecking" order. It can be brutal. We even added a set of twins, traded them for some extra roosters we had. They were outcasts for about 4 or 5 months. I had to try and feed them separate. These girls were small even full grown and gave me good size babies but only single birth, and always a girl.
you do have a point at the $$$ and the breed. Mine were, if you will, throw aways. Only the billy was full blood. He was good, still is. I know the lady real well that purchased them and she said last time I talked to her they are all doing real good. I sold her 22 for probably the price u paid for you stud. With the option to get some meat goats from her this summer. I may give her a holler today and see if she can get a few to the butcher. My butcher vac packs them.
Well at 2 months old they do show their temperament and their colors. Their colors are at birth also. What is it in show, its about their stance? Studly had the stance and the short snout. He was pretty, I will see if I can find a pic of him and post it.
I found him on my other computer is is a beauty
this was my billy
Nice looking buck L2G. At two months you are looking for how they are gaining weight, their height, how broad is their chest. Are the legs straight with a good distance in between. How the hips look when they stand. Are they coloring up under their tail (right under it). You want to know how many teats they have, how their scrotum looks. Is it evenly balanced. A lopsided one or one with a deep division between the two testicles is bad. You want to see how their horns are developing too. How their jaw is developing, the muscles that are forming in their thighs and it goes on from there.
btw we won't be disbudding ours. No one in the Boer goat field wants them disbudded plus the horns help the goats keep cool in summer and warm in winter. So I won't have to face that horrible job.
MollyD
OMG i read up on that disbudding. NO way would I do that. We did have to cut a mama's horns off just to get her out of the fence, HOW she got stuck is beyond us. OMG she bled, still alive tho.
I would have cut the fence first. Cutting the horns on any goat is excruciatingly painful for them. Poor thing!!
MollyD
we couldnt cut the fence you would have just had to see it. I hated to have to have it done. We did spay some kind of blue stuff on it(something we got at the feed store for wounds) and she did ok. She didnt seem to be in discomfort. At that, she was the ONLY one that was done. I would have never done it if I could have done something different. It was one of the main fences to the property and she was already wore down we had to do it right then. Rebuilding the fence wasnt an option at that time.
I just thought of a funny thing to do. My moms property and mine is all connected. Get a few goats and wait for her call. WHAT the H*** is that out there. She will think hmmmmmmm I know we sold all them goats, were there some left out there. I wont answer the phone.
Tia, you are TOO terrible! too bad you can't drop a bunch of chickens on her...
Molly, many congrats on the Buck!!! you go girl!!!
tf
Thanks tf! I think my mentor is jealous LOL. He said he just knew I hadn't paid any 2 or 3 hundred for that goat! I told him that was so true!
MollyD