# At what age to breed Boer/Nubian (or Sanaan) crosses?



## lupinfarm (Mar 25, 2010)

I'm just curious. We went to a farm the other day to see some little kidlets that have already been reserved to get an idea of the place, and what we'd be buying when May comes around. We're looking at getting 2 doelings, either a boer/nubian or boer/nubian/sanaan. Their mommas are good milkers and have amazing personalities. We got to meet everyone, even the herd of bucks were lovely. As per usual around here the farm doesn't test for CAE, but their animals looked great and they believe in vaccinating and practice biosecurity (boot washes, ect.). Really nice people. 

We'd be getting our doelings at 12 weeks of age, and I was just curious at how old we'd be looking at breeding. I was thinking fall after this one coming, so fall of 2011 (obviously depending on when and how well they come into heat  ).


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## Roll farms (Mar 26, 2010)

The general rule is 8 mos. / 80# but I also take the doe's mental / emotional maturity into account.   If I don't feel they're 'ready', I won't breed them until their second season.


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## goat lady (Mar 26, 2010)

Roll is that your rule for any breed?  I have a couple of nigerian dwarves that will be coming to one year in Sept.  They look like they will be on the bigger size of the breed.  We have them in a separate pen and was planning on breeding them this fall.  thanks and have a great day.


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## ksalvagno (Mar 26, 2010)

All the Nigerian breeders that I talked to (and I talked to quite a few of them in my area) said to breed Nigerians at 18 months of age. It will be interesting to see what the other Nigerian Dwarf breeders say on this forum.


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## lupinfarm (Mar 26, 2010)

Thats what I thought about nigis too, we have the two little gals (Pygmy's or.... pygmy crosses.. lol) and I wouldn't breed Mione until next year if I was to breed her.


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## cmjust0 (Mar 26, 2010)

For seasonals, we breed during their 2nd Fall season.  If they're born in early Spring, they're 18mos+..  We'll have some born as late as early July this year, but they'll still likely be bred their 2nd fall...at, what, 15mos or so?

Most folks breed by weight, but man...I dunno, looking at an 80lb standard sized doeling always puts me off breeding them.  They just seem so tiny to me..


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## lupinfarm (Mar 26, 2010)

Well these kids would be born beginning to mid April (so really soon!!), so I would be thinking they'd go through a full winter and then be bred Fall 2011. Make sense, thats over a year... 

LOL can ya tell I'm super excited to get them?! They're born in April, and she has strict lock-down biosecurity until May, then we come in (still biosecurity, boot washes and such) and we get to chose our 2 doelings. They stay at her place until 12 weeks, and get all their appropriate vaccines and disbudding (her neighbour does this, we talked about it the other day when I was there and determined it would be a good idea since we'll have two ginormous goats and two eeny weeny goats (who are both polled) LOL). 

I'm probably 1/4 done the driveway fenceline for the first of 3 pasture areas for the goats. I've decided to split my bigger field into 3 instead of 2 so I have more options, plus the pen that will be behind their shed plus I've discovered some wasted space by the horse pasture that can be fenced in. We're going to be weather-proofing the barn over the next year and getting kidding stalls set up down there as well as in the shed by the house.


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## cmjust0 (Mar 26, 2010)

Ur doin it rite.


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## Roll farms (Mar 26, 2010)

Sorry, I guess I should have stated that rule applies to 'standard' goats.  We didn't breed the pygmies we had until they were yearlings or older.

Also, keep in mind we kid in January for the most part so our "keeper" kids are 10-12 mos by the time I breed them...but again, *only* if I feel they're ready.  

That's why I said "general rule" followed by "but..."  I'd really rather wait the extra year than risk a problem kidding.

I had a boer x kiko doe I was doing a 'test' with, to see if the crosses of those 2 breeds really would live up to the hype, that I bred at 7 mos / 85#.  
She kidded twins at 1 year old w/ no probs., trips at 2 yrs old, and trips at 3 yrs old AND gave 10# of milk a day for a good 3-4 months before she'd start to slow down / dry herself off.
We sold most of our commercial does last year and I really hated to see her go....she was awesome.


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## goat lady (Mar 26, 2010)

Thanks for the info and thoughts. My two girls will be 1 year on Sept. 10th.  So I have time to watch them grow, and decide when they are ready for breeding.


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## ksacres (Mar 28, 2010)

Roll farms said:
			
		

> The general rule is 8 mos. / 80# but I also take the doe's mental / emotional maturity into account.   If I don't feel they're 'ready', I won't breed them until their second season.


We breed between 75 and 80 pounds.  We don't go by age per say, most of our doelings get there by seven or eight months and freshen on or shortly after their first birthday.

This is common practice for standard dairy breeds (we raise Nubians now, but had La Manchas in the past).  

Doelings that are fed to acheive this rate of gain (as ours are) are fine to breed.  Some people like to feed less and have slower growing animals-that's fine for them, but not how we do it.

As long as you keep up high quality nutrition during gestation and lactation, a bred doeling will grow just as well (and in some cases, better) than a non-bred doeling.


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