Buying our first goats

[mydog8it]

Thanks again for all of the feedback. It sounds like the general consensus is waiting for the right ones and paying a little more up-front worth it in the long run. So, I'm on the waiting list with a couple of breeders and plan to visit in person if they end up having anything available for us. It might be summer at a minimum before we get them but I guess I need to be patient.

I can't find any local nigerian breeders that test for anything besides CAE. I can only find one local-ish nubian breeder that tests for everything, but all of their 2011 kids are already reserved!

One nigerian breeder said all of her does tested negative for CAE Dec 2010, but she hasn't tested for CL or anything else as all of her goats are from closed herds that were negative and she's never had any issues. Does this sound legit? She seems like she knows her stuff, and is involved in showing. She also gave me the option to purchase them with or without papers (at a heavily discounted price) which I thought was nice - do I care about registration if I'm not showing?

 

[themrslove]

One word of advice:
Just because the breeder *doesn't* test for certain diseases...doesn't mean they can't.
If you are a really interested buyer, I don't see the harm in asking for testing done on the animal/animals that you are looking at.