Baby Castration

[Jewls819]

Our Doe had two little boys. We are very new with goats and my husband is adament about keeping them. He is already in love with all the goat(you should see the area he is fencing up near the house so he can keep an eye on them..so funny.) We have plenty of room so I dont mine. I plan on getting a few more does later but not in the imeadiate future. I do have 1 buck so we will keep one wether with hom as company and the other with the doe. Now here is the question. My husband will not band them he said we need to learn more first. He is going to take them to our vet. The vet said we can bring them in at 2 weeks old. Is that old enough or should I wait till 4 weeks. Just so you know we treat all of our animals like family and 2 weeks seems so darned young. I want what is best for them. Any advise is truely appreciated.

 

[DonnaBelle]

Wethers develop a problem with their little urethra if they are castrated too soon.

The best time to wether a buckling meant to be a pet is 3 months of age. Yes, It can be done at two weeks, but they are not developed enough and may form crystals in the urethra and can't pee and must be put down.

I have had 3 wethers for pets. You and your husband will LOVE them. They are actually sweeter than the does in temperment.

They are very easy to handle and will sit on your lap when they are old and grey if you let them. LOL.

Also, wethers do not need a lot of goat feed. It tends to make them crystal up. I feed my one wether once a day, two measuring cups of goat feed. Good quality HAY is what they need. Also plenty of fresh hay.

Vaccinate them at 2 months of age with CD & T, available at your feed store. 2 cc, no matter the size of the goat. I do mine in the rear flank, IM. Some folks prefer to do SQ, but I find that vaccine causes lumps and scare the wee-wee out of folks who think their goats have CL. But that's another story

If they begin to scour after they are a couple of weeks old, they may have coccidia.

MY BEST ADVICE TO YOU IS ALWAYS TAKE A FECAL SAMPLE, AT LEAST 8 BERRIES TO YOUR VET AND HAVE HIM IDENTIFY WHAT YOU ARE DEALING WITH.

Goats on pasture can get barberpole worms, and babies can have coccidia.

I had no idea I'd become wacko about goats, lol, but they are a lot like dogs, they will show affection and become part of your family, even if they do live in the barn.

Get on Amazon and order a book named Storey's meat goats, or Storey's dairy goats, whichever applies to you.

MAKE SURE IF YOU BUY DAIRY GOATS THAT THEY ARE BEING RAISED CAE FREE. CAE IS A VERY BAD DISEASE AND YOU DON'T WANT GOATS THAT HAVE IT.

DonnaBelle

 

[Goatherd]

Congratulations on the babies!

Since you are going to keep the bucklings as pets/companions I would wait as long as you can before banding or surgically castrating them. Suffice to say that the older they are before it's done, the less problems you may encounter as they grow and age.

I wouldn't consider it before they are 10 weeks or older, even if you have to house the doe's potential companion with the other two males until he is done.

 

[Jewls819]

Ok so here is my next question. They are NGDwarf/pygmy cross. When should I remove from thier mother?

 

[Goatherd]

Since they are being dam raised, remove them when the mother looses interest in feeding them. She will naturally wean them and you'll be able to tell. It could be as early as 8 weeks, but I'm thinking longer.

 

[SheepGirl]

Go ahead and castrate them at two weeks. As long as you feed them lots of roughage and very little (if any) grain and a free choice mineral, you really won't have any problems. IMO urinary calculi is caused by incorrect diet leading to a formation of stones/crystals, which will happen regardless of urethra size. I had a wether for 2.5 yrs (castrated at 3 wks old) before I sold him at auction and he was on pasture or hay the entire time with a little grain every now and then to keep him friendly. He did get grain when he was growing, so his nutritional needs were met. After about 8-9 months old he stopped getting a grain ration and would just get a handful every now and then.

Right now I have a triplet ram lamb I'm waiting to see how he grows before I decide to castrate him or not. So he will probably be 30 or 60 days before I make any decisions on him. His 6-7 yr old dam had twins in late May 2012 and then 9.5 months later (early March 2013) turned around and had triplets. So he could be herd sire material, but I have to see how he grows. If/when I wether him he may be kept for my ram or I will eat him or I will sell him.

---

For your latest question, when you should remove them--are you bottle feeding them and milking the mother? Or are you letting her raise them? I always wean my lambs from their dams at about 60 days old. If you intend to bottle feed them, take them away immediately to reduce the bonding between the dam and the bucklings.

 

[Jewls819]

Go ahead and castrate them at two weeks. As long as you feed them lots of roughage and very little (if any) grain and a free choice mineral, you really won't have any problems. IMO urinary calculi is caused by incorrect diet leading to a formation of stones/crystals, which will happen regardless of urethra size. I had a wether for 2.5 yrs (castrated at 3 wks old) before I sold him at auction and he was on pasture or hay the entire time with a little grain every now and then to keep him friendly. He did get grain when he was growing, so his nutritional needs were met. After about 8-9 months old he stopped getting a grain ration and would just get a handful every now and then.

Right now I have a triplet ram lamb I'm waiting to see how he grows before I decide to castrate him or not. So he will probably be 30 or 60 days before I make any decisions on him. His 6-7 yr old dam had twins in late May 2012 and then 9.5 months later (early March 2013) turned around and had triplets. So he could be herd sire material, but I have to see how he grows. If/when I wether him he may be kept for my ram or I will eat him or I will sell him.

---

For your latest question, when you should remove them--are you bottle feeding them and milking the mother? Or are you letting her raise them? I always wean my lambs from their dams at about 60 days old. If you intend to bottle feed them, take them away immediately to reduce the bonding between the dam and the bucklings.

First of all thanks everyone for thier input! I am letting the doe raise them. She has never been milked and this is her first pregnancy so I still need to work with her. I may try to start in a couple of weeks or just work with getting her used to me and the stanchion for the next time I breed her. I am in no hurry to get milk and this will be new to both of us. I have only had her for a little over a month and she comes up to me, eats out of my hand and I can even walk her on a leash but she does not really like to get touched even though she is very easy for me to catch. Yesterday I had her out with me all day while working on her new enclosure and she followed me all day.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Do not wether them at two weeks. There is no harm in waiting to make sure they have time to develop fully and that is backed by more than enough professionals who have studies the effects of early castration and say it is unwise. If a urethra is narrow, even a very small stone could be lethal. Once they are older, do keep their diet in proper balance but if they do have a problem, it will be less likely to be disastrous than if they have had that chance to grow first.

We don't dam raise here but mom probably will show disinterest at eventually, but I would not separate them until they are at least 8 weeks and maybe more depending on their weight gain. I have heard of kids and dams that don't really wean and require some extra effort to get them to stop.

 

[meme]

2 weeks is definitely too young. We had Shasta surgically castrated by our vet at 3 months. So far, he hasn't had any UC issues. We feed him good quality alfalfa, all the browse he can eat, manna pro minerals, probios, baking soda, and plenty of ammonium chloride. Have fun with your new babies!

 

[Oakroot]

Earlier castration is one of those hotly debated things. The sooner you do it the less suffering the boy will endure, and the less it will cost. The longer you wait the less options you have for castration and the greater the risk of immediate complications. If you are going to have the vet do it surgically anyways you might as well wait. From doing a bunch of scholarly research the science seems to suggest early castration does indeed result in a smaller urethra but diet is the largest contributing factor. Pros and cons really seem to weigh out evenly with money being the largest tipping point. Banding young is cheap, fast, easy and does not seem to bug them much. Surgically castrating at an older age prevents some health issues down the line, must be done by a pro, costs a good deal more, and can leave them in a lot of pain for a few days. This is offset by a possible decrees in pain and suffering and vet costs in the log run. There is no guarantee that waiting will mean no or even less UC though.

I have a wether I am keeping that I banded at 4 weeks, which I felt was a good compromise (this was a big well developed buckling, I might have waited longer for a small one), but he will be on a largely pasture based operation with very limited access to grain. And if he has problems down the line I have no issue sending him to the freezer. If you can stomach eating your goats if things go wrong and efficient production is more then name of the game then banding young is the more appealing choice. If they are your pets and a long life is the more important thing then waiting and having it professionally done is the way to go. Neither way is necessarily right nor wrong. Just different ways to manage herds.

Hope that helps you navigate this issue.