Researching goats for next year

With any extra goat milk you have, you could raise that beef your husband likes so much. If you get them as bottle babies from a large dairy you can sometimes get them for 50.00 or less, cheaper than a good dairy doe. If you buy three, most likely two will make it to butchering size.

I suggest maybe getting a good quality boer buck and some does out of good milking lines and crossing them. I'd also suggest you still pull kids, because that way you keep the doe producing well... If allowed to raise their own kids they will lower their production to that of the needs of their kids. And you could raise the calves, too.

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Dona Barski

"Breed the best, eat the rest"

Caprice Acres

French and American Alpines. CAE, Johnes neg herd. Abscess free. LA, DHIR.

I just got my wife laughing until she had to run to the bathroom.
I told her I had about decided to go for wabbits next instead of goats but the wabbits would only be for meat because you can't milk wabbits,
She said I don't know about you, you could probably get milk from a wabbit.
I know it is spelled rabbit but we say wabbit picking at each other.
Anyway when she said that I took both hands and held two fingers together and said yep, I could milk a wabbit, and she busted open laughing.

Heck yea. If your fingers are little enough you could milk a wabbit, LOL.
I just had to share that crazy moment with you.

Not the way I raise my kids/dams I let the kids nurse during the day and separate them in a pen at night away from the udders. In the morning I milk the dams, then turn the kids in with the herd for the day. I feel this management actually increases the amount of milk the doe will produce any given lactation, as compared to just letting the dams raise the kids.

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I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Last yr we had 5 Boers butchered. Hanging weight totaled 198lbs not including heart liver & kidneys. They ranged 30lb at the lowest, up to 55lb before processing.
I've read that Boers dress out at 60-65% live weight.

Kinder goats also are supposed to dress out at 60-65% of live weight. And, judging by the two I butchered, it's true. I was surprised at how much meat was on them (didn't have a scale to weigh it, though), compared to a dairy doe I'd butchered before.

Kathleen