Ok, so why do we need to disbud again

I have Fainters, and they are totally not as active as pygmies, etc. They free range my property and my UPS guy (an old school friend) of mine has brought his kiddos over to visit - one of my bucks keeps getting into the truck with him to go lol. Personally, I've held one of their horns while they are chewing, and you can FEEL how connected to the skull they are. I try not to even use horns to catch my goats. Bucks esp - we avoid horn play that way.

So far I have a waiting list, and have sold one kid as a breeder/pet to a young woman who has both pygmies and fainters and a 2 yo two legged kid!

I know accidents can happen, etc, but I work very hard with teaching my children how to act around animals. Guess I could always go childproof the horn tips, but then I'd have to carry around little horn tip protectors to all my friend's houses LOL...that and debeak all my birds...declaw the dogs...round all my corners...wrap 'em in bubble wrap... <j/k>

And no, I don't ask any less. My customers are more concerned with CAE/CL free and the lines I'm getting my goats from.

If you are really worried about it, look at breeding for polled!

Andrea

It would be very difficult to sell horned dairy goats. With fainters and pygmy's, it's much less of an issue since so many of them are horned anyway. But you would have a hard time selling a horned Lamancha or Alpine. You might find a few willing buyers, but your market would be hugely diminished, if you had any market at all. Comparing selling dairy goats to selling fainters is apples and oranges.

We have a mixed herd....crossbred goats, with the only pureberds being three of our bucks.
We have Pygmy, LaMancha, Alpine, Nubian, Saanen, Kiko, Togg, and Boer mixed into our herd in varying degrees.
We have 34 goats currently (just lost one to another dog attack). Three of the goats have horns. We would have been down to two but when I purchased a goat site unseen I never bothered to ask about horns (the other four I was already purchasing didn't have any), so I added a doe with horns.
We've always had a mixed herd of horns versus no horns.
We now disbud before a week of age...everything, even the meat wethers. I am very happily adding a polled Nubian breeding buck into the mix next season.
We made the decision over two years ago to disbud everything at birth..why? We kept horns on the kids we though we were going to be selling. We had to have the does we then decided to keep dehorned..not disbudded. Their horns weren't all taht long but they were long enough that it has taken me over two years to calm those does we had dehorned late to the point where they are easily catchable. Also, when we were there to have ours done, a local faremr was having mature full grown does done and I will never let any of our goats face that potentional future...
Having said this, we are going to leave horns on Iris' daughter(s). She is the boss goat, has horns and she is very protective of the herd. The only time those horns are a problem is when I am medicating and when they are in the milking barn in a confined area in the winter for kidding. She has to have her own pen. SHe is getting up there in age and hopefully will train her daughters.
Sammie was from that same group we had dehorned late. We thought we were going to sell her still so left the horns on her. We didn't and it is just as well. She is smaller (part pygmy) than the others in taht age group and the horns are a beneift. I am also glad Esther has horns since she hasn't adjusted all that well and is also smaller than her peer group and appears to be a different age as well.
Our type of fencing does not proper for horned goats...I hav had to remove goats many a time, just another reason we disbud.
It may also be affected by the fact we are dairy farmers and disbud our cattle as well.....I have seen cows injure one another with their horns, we dehorned 2 three year olds and a two year old cow because of it.....

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Roseanna
Morning Mist Herd
Journey's End Jerseys
Jerseys, Jersey/Norwegian Reds, Beef, Boers, Nubians & crossbreeds

You know, that is also a very good point. If you keep a goat horned, then sell it, there is a possibility that the new owner (or another owner down the line) will want/need to dehorn it. Wow, I never really thought about that.

So, not a good idea to dehorn an adult. Ok. Two of my horned girls are Nigerians, so they're not real big - I'll just have to make sure I don't stick my face down near them at feeding time! The other one with horns is my six-month old Alpine. I have a sneaking suspicion that she is going to be herd queen when she grows up - she's pretty feisty now!

I've been watching the older goats interact with the two Nigie babies, now about six weeks old. I disbudded the little doe, left the buckling as that is what the breeder wanted (he's getting these two back). Angel, my seven month old Nubian X, will play with the little guy. She'll rear up and come at him head first, then very gently push head to head with him. She seems to know that she outweighs him by about 10 times!

Well, after reading the stuff at this site http://www.goatwisdom.com/ch1baby_care/dehorning.html (click on the blue word "here" above the first pic for horror stories), I'm looking at this site http://www.caprinesupply.com/shop/kid_raising7.html for pricing disbudding equipment. If/when I actually get the opportunity to raise goats, I'm thinking of keeping all the does disbudded and separated from any male kids, which... erm... will not be kept long enough to get stinky or hurt each other. You can't survive on chicken alone, right?

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