LOOKING for my first goats.....need some opinions!

[DouglasPeeps]

I have been looking to get goats for a while....over a year. I have just been gathering information and such. We are interested in dairy goats for our family. That being said, we have decided to go with older does, older meaning 2-5 years old. I found 2 does on my local craigslist that the girl is selling because she is going away to college. They are 2 and 3 years old. She has shown them for 3 years at the county fair. She said because of that they have been handled a lot.

Here is some of her response from some questions I asked her.

Neither have been bred, I was going to but then I went to college and was worried about getting rid of the babies before I left. Therefore, they have also never been milked. I did do 4-H with them and did showmanship so they have been worked with. I can't remember what I put in the ad, but one is two years old and the other is three. In the shows I have taken them too I have been told they have good utter attachments and nice large barrels to help with kidding and milking. I bought both of them out of New Mexico from an National Dairy Goat Breeders Association woman.

So here is my question, does it help me to buy an "older doe" if she has never been bred and never been milked? Or is it good that she has been handled. I am new so just feel unsure. HELP!

The does are nubians. My plan is to go and see them tomorrow.

 

[goatdude95]

It really does not matter they can be bred anytime they are just now becoming full adults same with milking i will tell you though nubians are hard to deal with sometimes lol they are the most active of all dairy breeds and can jump a 4ft fence standing still but i love um they are my favorite of the dairy i say go for it buy um then find you a nubian buck get that herd started

 

[ksalvagno]

I am new to goats too but had heard that you shouldn't wait too long to start breeding them. I have no idea at what age is considered questionable because they are old though.

Sometimes you don't get answers right away as people have to do their chores and take care of daily activities. So if you go look at the goats before getting some answers, I wouldn't commit to taking them until you hear from people much more experienced than me.

 

[lilhill]

As long as they are healthy, there's no reason not to breed them. I'd make sure they are UTD on all vaccinations/deworming and go from there.

 

[trestlecreek]

Yes, it is great that they have been handled. You will appreciate that when you need to work with them.

As far as breeding goes, yes, you could breed them if you want as long as they are physically mature.

 

[cmjust0]

My personal opinion...there's a lot of literature out there that advocates things that I've come to believe are questionable, and which are designed to satisify human greed at the expense of the animals..

Breeding by weight is one of those things.. A lot of the literature says that a goat should be bred when it reaches 70 lbs.. If a goat is born at 10lbs and gains 10lbs a month, you're talking about breeding a 6-7 month old goat which will barely be a year when it kids. To me, that's all about giving people an excuse to not have to "waste" feed on a non-milking, non-gestating doe for longer than is absolutely necessary, physiologically speaking..

A lot of that literature states that 'research shows' goats older than a year which have never been bred don't milk as well as goats that were bred when they were teeny tiny...I just don't buy it.

Our first does -- two Nubis and a Boer -- were more than a year old when we bought them, and had never been bred. They did great. We milked one of the Nubians and had more milk than we knew what to do with, even after feeding her two from a bottle and supplementing a third from the Boer..

The kid that was being supplemented didn't really need it, per se, as he was also nursing his mama, the registered Boer. She didn't kick her three off the teat until they were big enough to lift her off the ground...she never ran out of milk.

The other nubian had a singleton born about six weeks after the first two kidded out, and she had enough milk to give that the kid caught up to the rest by the end of the summer..

Suffice it to say that every kid in the field was fat and slick with a little bulge of milk neck...

With that said, if the question of whether or not the goats are too old never to have been bred is the only thing holding you back from purchasing what you think are otherwise good, healthy animals, let that concern go and snap'em up before someone else does.

Just my $.02.

 

[onedozenphyllises]

cmjust0 - thank you for talking about that. I've heard the same thing, and have always been curious about its validity. I'd love to hear some other opinions. We have two girls now that are 8 months old and about 80 lbs, and conventional wisdom dictates that we should breed them this year. Are you simply saying that it's fine if they're not bred young, or are there some significant negative effects when breeding them so young?

 

[cmjust0]

When ours hit the theoretical breeding weight, my wife and I kinda looked at each other and went....no way. They just seemed too small. We discussed the fact that they'd be a little bigger by the time they were ready to give birth, but decided that trying to gestate kids, plus nurse them once they were born, and try continue growing their own bodies at the same time wasn't worth getting kids a year early.

The birthing process kills a lot of does as it is. I can tell you almost for a fact that if a year-old, 90-100lb doe had tried to give birth to a gigantic singleton like we had born in '07, she'd have been on the table at the vet's getting a c-section. The 2-year old doe that threw that kid was mature, but a little on the small side herself, and she needed some help...we were very, very lucky that they both survived. That could have been much worse.

I'm sure some folks out there will tell you that they do it all the time and never have problems, but we just don't feel like it's worth it.

 

[ksalvagno]

I was told that I should wait until my goats are at least 18 months old before breeding. No one ever told me about breeding at a certain weight. I'm glad they didn't.

My experience from alpacas is to give the females time to mature not only physically but also mentally. So I am carrying that over to my goats as well.

 

[cmjust0]

I think 18mo's is good..