What to do with culled goats?

It'a a nice thought Sarah Joy but it certainly isn't practical. A doe who is not kidding or milking is costing you money. She likely also has lost her place in the pecking order and so you have this lovely old doe who is being picked on by the young does. No warm place to sleep and may not be even allowed in the barn when it rains...so you build on a gereatric pen....which slowly as you have goats fills up, you go out each day and help some get up, others have a hard time finding their way back to the barn. They have teeth problems so you then soak their feeds, jacket them in the winter, and worry over them. Trimming their feet is a constant chore because they wear unevenly and really can't stand on 3 legs long enough to be trimmed well. Just because you don't breed them, they still come into heat, they come back into milk in the spring, and being dry have a much bigger problem with mastitis with the extended times of being dry.

I think it is much more humane if you love something, to let it go. Here it is sausage also. I only have two does buried in the 21 years of goating. Vicki

__________________
Vicki McGaugh
Nubian Soaps
North of Houston TX
www.etsy.com/shop/nubiansoaps

A 3 decade dairy goat farm homestead that is now a retail/wholesale soap company and construction business.

Are you guys talking summer sausage or just a ground up type sausage. Ground sausage would be easier, but I guess one could do a summer sausage themselves, too? Any recipes?

Dee

I struggle with this also....I can't even imagine butchering my old milking girls - I'm so attached. Then again, I can't imagine taking them to the butcher either, as that would be so stressful to them.

In my neck of the saguaros - I don't think we have traveling butchers anymore - you know, the ones that come to your home and do the deed? That's what I need to find.

The bucklings aren't hard to do, but Diva, Blue - all the girls that I see twice a day and were my first ones would be really, really tough.

Niki

Niki, whereabouts are you in Arizona?

MariaAz;

I pm'ed you.
----------------------------

I'd love some favorite goat sausage recipes too! I have never made anything but pork sausage - do you have to season it differently? Anyone have anything tried and true? I've looked online and haven't really found anything that caught my eye.

Sincerely;
Niki