2-3 Month Old Doeling Question

[2littlepygmys]

Just picked up a little boer doeling off of CL. The guy I got him from didn't know much about them. Lucy doesn't have horns, but I'm sort of new to goats, so I was wondering if that means she is polled and will not have horns, or have they just not grown in yet? My little pygmy fella had his horns when we got him, and he was supposed to be about 3-4 months old. Just curious if she will grow any.

 

[()relics]

Boer goats begin to grow horns almost the minute they are born. To dehorn them properly the horn buds are burnt as soon as 10 days old. I have heard of some goats that are naturally polled but I would say it is rare. So if she doesn't have them by now they were either removed when she was a kid or she is polled, you should be able to tell by looking closely at her horn base.

 

[ksalvagno]

Cute little girl. Congratulations!

 

[Roll farms]

Polled boer are few and far between....there's a lady I know of trying to breed for them but...I wouldn't want one, they're bound to be mighty inbred.

I'm betting it was disbudded as a kid (looks to be a dairy x boer) by the breeder.

A polled goat's head won't have the 'swirls' in the fur that a horned goat's head has....see the pics at the bottom of this page:
http://www.goatwisdom.com/ch1baby_care/dehorning.html

However, I'm not sure if you can tell this past the 'newborn kid' stage....

Congrats on the new goat!

 

[2littlepygmys]

Thank you all for your help! I just inspected her little head and it does sort of look swirly, so I guess she is polled! So y'all think she's mixed, huh? The guy said she was 100%, even showed me mom and dad. But that's not to say he wasn't fibbing, lol!

 

[()relics]

swirls=dehorned, not polled....Purebred/fullblood? not likely.. in the picture her ears don't look too boerish to me...look at the underside of her tail, what do you see as far as color? Whiteish? any thing else? If she was a fb/pb she should have the proper paperwork with her. Paperwork makes a $75 doeling into a $300 doeling...Always seems odd to me when a seller says they didn't have time or didn't think it was worth the trouble to follow through with the paperwork. To make an extra $200 you didn't have time??..But I am a skeptic...I like to see paperwork and matching tattoos....

 

[2littlepygmys]

LOL, I meant dehorned, guess I just had polled in my head still, haha! Under her tail its pink with black splotches, I only noticed that because I thought the spots were kind of funny.

Well, we only gave $50 for her, and she's just a pet anyway, so I'm not too torn up if she's not full blooded! She does have some wacky ears!

 

[()relics]

splotches=pigment. High percentage or FFb/Pb boer goats would need at least 75% pigment, Fb/Pb should be nearly 100%. Anything less could be called whatever the seller likes but Wouldn't be called a Fb/Pb or even a percentage boer goat....Not registerable anyway...Good thing to keep in mind when goat shopping...Lift the tail and see for yourself if you are being lied to by the seller....