Boers, breeding, electric fence

[ohiogoatgirl]

I worked out a trade with a neighbor for twin boer doe kids. I'll be raising them in with my sheep for now. I have a lot of brushy woods areas that I can definitely utilize the goats for later.

I am keeping an eye out for bucks and may have an alpine buckling lined up later in the year if a friend does a sheep/goat transport trip. I grew up with dairy goats and had some of my own so I'm very familiar with them but its been a few years and I've been deep with the sheep and working with them so I'm getting back into the differences.

When I was younger we had a bunch of alpine does and we always bred to a saanen buck. That's just what Dad did. I liked the alpines. In my recent reading most people with boers seem to like crossing to a Nubian if anything. I'm not very fond of Nubians and there isn't a lot in my area. If people have experience with crossing boers I'd be interested to hear what you have liked and have not liked. At this point I think just having these few and getting back into goats will be good. In the future I don't know if I'd want to invest in a boer or kiko buck or maybe just keep a real nice half alpine son to breed back and sell the alpine. We shall see.

I have Valbazen, Ivermectin, and Prohibit on hand already for the sheep. I'll be checking labels but I'd be interested to hear what goat people prefer. When I was younger we goat the wormer pellets that you top dress in the feed. I don't remember having parasite issues then but I've read goats have higher tolerance than sheep and I know I've dealt with barber pole worms with the sheep. Hoping with the added rotational grazing and planning to very much minimize that though.

In my experience and what I've seen locally boers have not been much better looking than any of the dairy goats or mutts. These kids from the neighbor look nice though and I hope with a bit of feed and rotational grazing that they grow up nicely. With sheep a generally rule is not to breed ewe lambs until they are 70% of their adult weight. I'm thinking it's the same or similar with goats. I know boers can breed year round, but I'm assuming that much like sheep the optimal breeding is Sept-Dec and breeding in hotter weather is more difficult, especially on fertility. I think I'd want to breed Oct and kid March, like I do with the sheep. But I'm open to considering other times in the future.

I rotate the sheep with electric netting. It seems more hit and miss with goats. I'm hoping that with the kids being 2months old and the sheep already trained to it that they'll figure it out quick and respect it. It's on a 2joule charger.

Ok I think that's all my rambling for now...

 

[Nao57]

You said...

I rotate the sheep with electric netting. It seems more hit and miss with goats. I'm hoping that with the kids being 2months old and the sheep already trained to it that they'll figure it out quick and respect it. It's on a 2joule charger.


I wanted to ask for clarification on that.

Is it possible that long haired animals would have some of the electric shock absorbed by the hair, or partly neutralized?

I had this thought that I should ask that today.

But also I want to also find out if the budget solar electric fence box kits are strong enough to stop larger predators?

In my state, if you are rural chances are there's some kind of predator or another. Often coyotes but not always only that.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

You said...

I rotate the sheep with electric netting. It seems more hit and miss with goats. I'm hoping that with the kids being 2months old and the sheep already trained to it that they'll figure it out quick and respect it. It's on a 2joule charger.


I wanted to ask for clarification on that.

Is it possible that long haired animals would have some of the electric shock absorbed by the hair, or partly neutralized?

I had this thought that I should ask that today.

But also I want to also find out if the budget solar electric fence box kits are strong enough to stop larger predators?

In my state, if you are rural chances are there's some kind of predator or another. Often coyotes but not always only that.

Long hair or wool is an insulator and won't zap the animal. Luckily I find that the sheep will walk face first to it and hit with the nose or ears. After they figure it out they usually stay about 6 inches away from it, but sometimes one will accidentally get a shock on the tail, not realizing they were that close.

I ended up not sticking with the goats. Hard to manage with the sheep and I'm more attached to the sheep than trying to get into goats. But they did stay in the netting fine. They did drive me crazy though, one I swear would listen for the fence to pulse and the very second I would unhook it to feed (for me to get over the fence and back) and she'd have her head through it to eat from the other side. Or walk over it. Then panic, realizing she was on the wrong side. Luckily she herded back in ok.

There are different strength energizers. Overall the little ones with the small panel are just for keeping chickens in. I went with the battery hookup and I'm using lawn & garden batteries. Switching them out every other day to charge in the house. My energizer is a 2joule.
I can't say for certain on the predators. Last fall I had one day that the farthest corner of netting was messed with. On post got knocked down and the way it was looked like a predator or animal from the outside had to have done it. We have heavy coyote pressure and that's another reason for it. It won't keep out truly hungry predators but it's another deterrent for them. But you have to put in the fence good and keep it hot.

 

[Mini Horses]

Having raised full Boers and crosses, I'll say the reason for crosses with Nubians is for a few reasons...drop ears, size and ample milk and have a similar roman nose type. A really good Boer is a big, chunky animal. Kids are born sizeable, not the smaller of many dairy types. So the larger dairy breeds can carry, birth and feed those fast growing kids. I used does who had kidded before, looked for the older type Nubians, who were heavier. Now, I can use both Nubians and Saanens. They can handle the kids. Since I sell off most on my kids, the mixed bucklings tend to bring a little more.

Right now I keep dairy bucks but, am adding Boer once I find what I'm looking for...means a few more does will be bought. Meat goats selling well here now.

Fencing. I can attest that dairy types are far harder on it than Boer with their tendencies to climb more. Electric here is not used for an only....it helps if they nose it, otherwise, almost a waste. All goats are individuals, with personalities. Some are problems! And more, rather than few, create fence challenges.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Agreed on the fencing issues. We have a small herd of goats that do not stay in any fence so far. We also used electric net to great success for our sheep...at first. Then one of the polypay ewes decided she no longer cared and would just charge thru/over it and the rest would follow. We tried making the fence stonger by using t-posts, we tried raising the fence off the ground a few inches to make it a bit taller. In the end it didnt matter once they figured out they could go thru/over that fence it was all over. The sheep thankfully do stay inside of a 47" page wire fence even though the two bigger ones can go over it.

I'm glad you didnt go with the goats. We ran our goats and sheep together for years..then the rams killed a buck during rut and a doe killed a ewe a few weeks after lambing/kidding time. So no sheep and goats do not mix. If you had 20 acres of pasture maybe but not in a smaller pasture or in a barn.