weigh of 3/mo

Reed77 · #1 07/21/11, 11:52 AM

How much should a 3 month old boer doe weigh? another thread got me wondering if mine are too small!

mpete · #2 07/21/11, 12:16 PM

If I remember right, mine were about 45-50lbs.

Reed77 · #3 07/21/11, 01:09 PM

yikes....I think mine are 30lbs

houndlover · #4 07/22/11, 12:45 AM

Some lines are slower to mature. If you have ruled out cocci and worms (get a fecal, don't mess with eye color and charts ), and your kids have access to creep, pasture, and have had plenty of milk, compare your goats to others of the same bloodlines, not total strangers online who may exaggerate how well their animals are doing. Kids that have worms or cocci so bad that their growth is stunted are going to have some other serious problems too, like continuous diarrhea, poor appetites, listlessness, dull coats. Kids that are from slow maturing lines act like lively healthy kids, just grow slower.

mpete · #5 07/22/11, 12:55 AM

Yes, you are right houndlover, but isnt that what we are striving for? Goats that mature quickly so they can either go to the market or get bred? I have lines out of Childers Show Goats out of Caprioles Roge Ox/Tehachapis Denali and I have found they grow quite nice. I only have a small herd of Does, but I want them to be quality.

houndlover · #6 07/22/11, 09:46 AM

I have some very very nice mature lamanchas, go big in the show ring, that were slow to mature and not bred until they were 18 months. I strive for a lot of things in my goats, but there are still goats that are awesome producers that take longer to grow up - I don't cull for slow growth as long as they are growning. My personal experience with boers is that the kids tend to size out the way the buck has. If the buck is small or a slow to mature animal, the kids will be too. A rule of thumb for dairy goats is that they should gain about 10 lbs a month from birth, and that's okay for boers, but I'd like to see more like 12-14 lbs a month growth. That still doesn't mean there's anything physically wrong with the poster's goats. A message board isn't a substitute for medical testing and advice.

Were these kids dam raised or bottle raised? Did they get replacer along the way? The only really stunted goats I've ever seen, when all medical reasons have been eliminated, were replacer raised kids.

Reed77 · #7 07/22/11, 10:23 AM

They where 100% dam raised, and whatever grain they could get from what I fed the mother.

I've looked into Childers Show Goats, how do you like their goats?

houndlover · #8 07/22/11, 05:51 PM

If you plan to be competitive in the show ring, buy "show goats". If you want to produce a good carcass and breeding stock that live longer than it takes to get to market, find a breeder who markets their animals someplace other than the show ring.

Alice In TX/MO · #9 07/22/11, 05:58 PM

Does whatever grain they could get from when you fed the mother mean you weren't putting out any extra for the kids? Did you have a creep feeder that the big goats couldn't get to?

Reed77 · #10 07/22/11, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alice In TX/MO

Does whatever grain they could get from when you fed the mother mean you weren't putting out any extra for the kids? Did you have a creep feeder that the big goats couldn't get to?

I do put in extra for them, but she eats it up pretty quickly. I think I'll up the grain until I buy a kid feeder