Cl? - Page 2

chamoisee · #21 07/13/07, 04:27 PM

Wattles are not a fault, and extra teats should be checked for before buying an animal (another reason I would not buy an animal after seeing it merely walk a few feet through a sale barn ring!).

The last thing I will say on this subject: I don't especially care where you folks buy your goats from. It's your business, and if el cheapo is what you want, get it. But please, please don't come back to this board whining and wringing your hands when your entire herd gets infected with God knows what. Vicki and I and others here try and try and try to educate on being careful, avoiding crummy stock, I must have posted on this one subject alone at least 50 times. So you know the risks when you buy from a sale barn, just like any man with a grain of sense knows the risks when he walks into a brothel.

okiemom · #22 07/13/07, 05:17 PM

Why not vaccinate for CL and minimize/eliminate the worry? Cl is naturally occuring and lives a LONG time in the soil. You can buy clean goats and the stress of moving them and comming into contact w/ Cl in the soil can get you CL in your herd.

Feral Nature · #23 07/13/07, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milk n' Honey

I do have to agree with you Jim. People charge a lot of money for junk the same as you can get a good doe, even registered, for cheap. I watched a whole group of registered 88% doelings go through a sale barn, a few weeks ago, for $35 each. The goats were gorgeous. You can tell clean/healthy goats from sickly ones, especially when someone brings 10-20 goats in and there isn't a spot on one of them. The man sitting next to us ended up being the seller and he was an old man who raised Boers for his grandkids and he was really nice. His goat numbers were getting to high for him to care for so he loaded a bunch up and brough them in. They were awesome. I have also bought $375 slow growing with extra teats and wattles goats!! Um, they'll end up being of the first to leave this farm and what will I ask for them? Hmmmm....paid $375....gotta get something. I don't know...might lose my butt on them. I consider them commercial quality, at best. I can't believe the breeder charged us that amount and even more that I was stupid enough to pay it. So far, we are doing great on no CL and no CAE. Everyone looks great. I have cheap goats and expensive ones. Some of the expensive ones are my favorites to look at and they do drop kids with no help but I have those low maitenance, cheapie crosses that never get sick or anything...gotta love that!! So far the goats who have produced for us, came from a sale barn. The others....the ones that we paid all the money for, NOTHING. Well, we bought one bred and she had trips but all the others were sale barn goats. I'm much more cautious now though. I purchased some goats from an individual, whom I know, and brought pinkeye on to our place. It doesn't matter where you go or what you pay, you are going to have risks. People can lie about things. We have bought some nice goats from a production sale, which is almost the only place we buy them now.....nice stock, nice prices (for the seller...LOL) and we hope to be able to compete with those prices some day when we sell ours. We'll see.

Milk n' Honey, this is not meant to be personal attack so please don't take it that way, but your post is full of contradictions. It makes not a lick of sense.

billygoatridge · #24 07/13/07, 11:01 PM

Wattles are not a fault, and extra teats should be checked for before buying an animal (another reason I would not buy an animal after seeing it merely walk a few feet through a sale barn ring!).

The last thing I will say on this subject: I don't especially care where you folks buy your goats from.

Quote:

It's your business, and if el cheapo is what you want, get it. But please, please don't come back to this board whining and wringing your hands when your entire herd gets infected with God knows what. Vicki and I and others here try and try and try to educate on being careful, avoiding crummy stock, I must have posted on this one subject alone at least 50 times. So you know the risks when you buy from a sale barn, just like any man with a grain of sense knows the risks when he walks into a brothel.

All the goats I have originated from the one goat I got off a farm 28 years ago. All I've bought is a new buck every couple years, not from a sale barn I must add. But the generalization that cheap = disease and expensive = no trouble with disease irks me. I've heard of almost as many people that bring home a disease from shows which include mostly higher priced animals.

Milk n' Honey · #25 07/14/07, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feral Nature

Milk n' Honey, this is not meant to be personal attack so please don't take it that way, but your post is full of contradictions. It makes not a lick of sense.

I'm sorry that you didn't understand my post. I was just telling different stories of some of my goat buying/shopping experiences. The whole point was to bring out the fact that no matter where and what you buy, you have risks and sometimes the salebarn goats are better than the ones you get from the breeder and for much less money. Unless some of us on here are rich, I think we all agree that we value a good price when purchasing a goat, no matter where it came from. I've had some issues on my farm. However, the only contagious thing brought here was pinkeye. Everything else was parasite related and had to do with the layout of our land. The pinkeye that I brought on to my farm came from a few goats I bought from an individual that I trust and they were not cheap either. They were somewhere in the middle on what we typically pay for goats. Now, I admit that I have some sale barn goats and they are truly nice healthy goats and I love them. I've had them for 1-2 yrs now and they have been thriving. Of all the goats I have lost due to illnesses and parasite loads, these have been the high end goats bought from show breeders at production sales. One goat we lost was a Nubian doe purchased from an individual who kept her with a couple of pygmies that were a 4-H project. All were healthy when I purchased this Nubian. She was just never going to make it on this farm, in a herd type enviroment. She was too much of a pet, I think. Her tolerance was low. We are done buying goats for a while anyway. We will be keeping the goats we had purchased at the sale barn a while ago b/c so far, they've proven to be good and healthy animals. Not all sale barn goats are bad. Some people take everything to the sale barn. I admit, the idea of buying a goat at a sale barn does scare me now. That is because, even though I know some of the animals are fine and I believe I can see which ones aren't a lot of the time (some things you can't see, I realize), I know they could pick up something while they are there. Those places are filthy and many times they throw animals from different farms together. I've seen bursted CL lumps and everything. I know more now than I used to. Like anyone who starts into goats, you have to learn what is the best way to do things. I'll still be going to my production sales even though I've lost a couple of really expensive animals that came from those sales. Mostly, I think the show animals tend to be less hardy, at least with the Boers. It wasn't the breeders fault, I don't think. It was more or less things wrong with our property such as standing water and such. We've since fixed those things. I can't tell you what we've spent in time and money trying to make a go of it. I don't frequent sale barns anymore. We save our money and purchase the high dollar stock at the productions sales. I don't fault people for purchasing animals at the sale barn. I understand why. You have to be able to get $400 for a doe to be able to spend $400 for a doe, ya know? If you don't have a name that is well known, it is hard to get those prices. We'll be going back to the same production sale in the spring that we go to every year and we'll be shopping for a buck. They had some to drool over at the last one. If I'd had the extra cash, I'd have come home with one but we bought bred does instead. I know some people look down on me b/c of the things we've gone through from lack of knowlege and such but we really have a nice bunch of healthy goats now.....finally. I like what Jim said.....everything I buy, I consider someone's cull. That is so true. You think they are going to sell you their best stock? Duh. LOL!!

Feral Nature.....sorry if I confused you with my post....I did bounce around a bit and that maybe threw you off. Sometimes, getting a point across is difficult on here!!

BillyGoatRidge.....OK, but you never see a goat with wattles being shown unless it would be in 4-H. That was my point. It might not be a fault technically but I think it would be difficult to do well. Good thing we weren't going to show her I guess. We did check teats and were so new at goats, we didn't realize that that funny little teat on the 4 month old doeling would develop into a big fish teat at a mature age. You know, you aren't born knowing this stuff and we didn't have anyone helping us. Most people don't have time to help and if I can't even find someone who knows more than I do...well, you know what I mean?