How many goats to justify a buck?

[farm mom]

How many goats did you have before you justified getting a buck? Just thinking ahead as we expand our dairy.

Tiffany

[HazyDay]

6 I think is what all the books say, I got one for 5 does. (I used other bucks for 2 different ones.) But since I have 7 does bred, it works for me.

But it really matters if you want to keep one or drive to use him and pay a fee.

[susanne]

one
keep him until the doe is bred and put him in the freezer. no hassel to transport a doe in heat, miss a heat and have a dry doe.

[HazyDay]

Originally Posted by susanne

one
keep him until the doe is bred and put him in the freezer. no hassel to transport a doe in heat, miss a heat and have a dry doe.

good idea, but for me it would be a very high cost piece of meat! (the cheapest well bred animal I can get my hands on is $350.00)

[susanne]

bucks in spring are available for much less than $350. feed maybe will cost you $100. you than can sell the buck either to another breeder if he really is valuable, or sell him as meat. meat here goes for $6.50 per pound. the doe he bred will have at least one kid, most likely two. let your resale market for kids not as good and you only get $150 per kid. since you say there is nothing under $350 available you might get that as well. you also have the doe in milk. she will give you milk for 10 month. let as assume she gives you 150 gallon milk during that time. with the current milk price in stores
it would be worth around $480 . i think this justifies to keep a buck for only one doe to get her bred

[jordan]

I have 15 does and 6 bucks. Even early on when I only had 6 does or so, I still kept 2-3 bucks. I like having choices!
This way I get use out of all the bucks for years and years. Buying an excellent buck costs alot of money and I look on it as an investment. I'm not going to use one on all my does for a year, sell him, and discover 2 years later (after the daughters freshen) that I sold off a real keeper!

[wildhorse]

Ive only got 2 does and a buck I bought him so I could keep a clean healthy herd.

[Oldntimes]

I would have a buck no mater how many Does I had. I would never be without one,or two or four.... I can't tell you how many times I have heard of people trying to get thier does to buck service and things just no working out. I sold 3 adult bucks just this fall to folks that finally gave up on that and decided to get thier own Buck, thier does were then bred in a heat beat.
My advise get a buck....

[Spinner]

For me it was a single doe and a buck in the beginning. The reason I bought the buck is b/c I wanted pure blood kids and there is not another buck anywhere near me.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Me too!!! I would not be without my own bucks. Bucks should not be asked to live alone, just like we wouldn't ask does to. Vicki

[mpillow]

It really depends on buck service availability.

I went dry a year because I could not locate a buck to rent.

For my first 2 breedings I used a rented registered buck($75/month up to 5 does) bred back one of the bucklings (just for milk production)the third year, kept the best buckling that happened to be the most unrelated to my heard and bred back and got a decent doe the fourth year. Then I bought a registered buckling 2 years($150 papered) ago in Spring. I'm considering breeding him back to the two retained doelings he sired this Spring I can then sell them in milk and sell/eat kids for meat. So the only inbreed I have kept was a successful line-breeding! LOL

I may keep this buck another year or two. He is Nubian but I also have Alpine and a Saanan doeling added this year in with the rest of my nubian gals. I like crosses alot for their vigor and dont care much about papers or show.

I know some may find my methods worth gasping over but I'm not looking to be a world class breeder. Milk and meat and happy healthy critters are what matter for me. I'll have 10 does in milk by June if all goes well.

[RiverPines]

We started out with 2 bucks and no doe's. LOL

We have extra bucks, a lot of them.
We have a buck only pen.
We dont mind bucks at all.

And they are real fine once they are in the roaster.

We keep only the best for breeding.

[dosthouhavemilk]

The first year the does were being bred....they went on dates. One doe settled and she wasn't even here when she kidded. We ended up with no kids, no milk and Hannah couldn't show her 4-H doe because she had not kidded.
Dad and Hannah purchased our first buck that year. He was used two years, we took one year off from breeding and then we had one buck the following year. Since then we have never had less than 2 bucks (there were 12 does at one point) and we are running 5-8 bucks at this point. There are 7 intact bucks currently. We have 72 does/doelings right now. We will be selling at least one buck still this Fall and may move another one.

[LomahAcres]

We had three does before we bought our first buck. It would have cost us over $150 to get them all bread, and only about $100 to keep our buck ourselves for a year, so it was just worth it for us. We currently have 16 does & 5 bucks.

[moonspinner]

I really don't think there is one answer to this question. It really does depend on how available good stud service sires are in your area. The customers I provide stud service to are quite content to not keep a buck. They generally live within an hours' drive and have wethers so most know when their girls are in heat and we can do a driveway breeding. I only had two occasions where does didn't settle and that was due to problems on the does' end.
The advantage of not keeping a buck is no purchase investment, no care, no dealing with health issues, no smell, no rowdy males in rut. This makes particular sense if you are into show/primo bloodlines and the cost of using a top sire is well below that of buying one.
But having said all that, my very general rule of thumb is 3 does or more and it makes sense to invest in a herdsire.

[ozark_jewels]

I had two Nubian does when I bought my first Nubian herdsire. I had two Boer does when I bought my first Boer herdsire. So for me it was two does. I love bucks and wouldn't be without my own. They live together happily.

[southerngurl]

Also depends on what is or isn't available in your area to have your does bred to.

[Goat Servant]

As someone pointed out, it all depends on your circumstances. We are coming into our 3rd season with 11 does. The first two yrs we hauled them on dates. This yr we leased a buck. Maybe we will purchase a buck next yr or so.
I have found that everyone wants any does brought in to be certified CL CAE & Johnnes free. I cannot afford this testing. So I work closely with my breeder.

[fillycate]

I am in my first goat breeding season. I have three different "herds", LaMancha, Nubian, and Boer cross. This has been very hectic, in part because we got 4 free goats on 3 different occasions that we didn't expect to have. Not that I want to sneeze on that blessing! But it has made things more complicated.

First, we feel strongly about being CAE and CL free. So we've had to send in blood tests on 4 different occasions instead of just one. We sent in does to be bred on three different occasions, (one doe didn't settle, well, at least one that we know of!) and we now are leasing a buck of a different breed. Then we will still have two more does to breed (waiting on blood test results.)

Honestly, this has been a nightmare! But again, I can't tell how much of that was our inexperience at detecting heat, the multiple occasions of getting new does, or the different kinds that they are. Having bucks around started to seem very attractive.

But now we have a buck here (the one on lease) and we can't stand him! He is so incredibly obnoxious, and stinky of course! It's not that I personally find the smell that bad, but because we sell our milk, I worry that having a buck on hand would mean bucky milk. (The milk seems to taste bucky for a little while after a doe is bred as it is.) I also hate that the moment I touch him, I stink like him forever.

Also, I can't trust him around my kids at all. He is brainless and aggressive in his need to mate with any warmblooded being. I call him the "sex zombie." He creeps us out!!!

So, in spite of the expense and inconvenience of dates, I don't intend to own bucks in the near future. I have 9 does now and that number is sure to go up. When I do get bucks, I'm going to make sure the pen is extremely sturdy and put them in a remote corner of our little 6 acre plot! I can jokingly say I will just do AI, but honestly, I think that would be even worse in some ways.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Filly you have to grow out your own. Alot of people ruin bucks by making them live alone, letting dogs or children play with them. Like all intact livestock they are so cute when they are little people forget that older and in rut they aren't cute! So they have to be taught manners. My bucks are very friendly, they have excellent manners, but I don't let young children in with my bucks anyway.

Buck smell does not permeate into the milk, if your hands smell like buck from your doe having buck smell on her, than wash the doe! Vicki