Inducing labor................on a goat

We start October 12th, so close to you guys. Thanks for all the tips. The vet got us on a medicated salt program to reduce coccidia levels and help with  weight gain. I keep hearing to use our special salt mix, but I don't think it has the needed amount of copper, so I buy some goat blocks. They are fun to play with, I started a little over a year ago and am close to 60 head.  I wish we lived out that way for seedstock, there are mostly back yard breeders here, but there were some really nice bucks up by portland. Capriole seems to be a popular buck here.

Here a a few pics of some of our breeding stock:
1. Herd buck Austin at 2 years and 275lbs
2. Doeling Lily at 8 months (Austin daughter)

More goats!
1. Pudge at 8 months (Austin son)
2. Monkey at 1 year (Austin daughter(

And More!
1. Willet at 6 years (Foundation doe)
2. Granny at 7 years (Foundation doe)

Nice!  i love the thickness and depth they have. if you ever come my way let me know ill buy a buck off of you. alot of people here use capriole  genetics do you know anything about him?

Thank you for the kind words about our stock. Our next buck and doe kids will be sold private treaty during our open house in April. As far as Capriole is concerned, I am not familiar with the breeding or the lines of the stock they use. I am more in touch with what is popular in the central states. Capriole's bucks look pretty awesome and have plenty of power. My concern would be that their does featured on the website are a bit fine boned and almost all lack a good wedge body shape.

what lineages have you heard about that would add some bone and thicken them up? I'm shooting for a high weight gain

Today is just ridiculous. Everything is in heat. I have two questions for ya. THe one that bred back twice is now starting to bag up and I see a baby moving in her. Have you ever heard of that before? SHe would have been bred both times I saw her breed back. If she bred to my buck when I saw her she would only be one or two months along, so you shouldn't see a baby moving yet. Another question, the doe that I wanted to induce just bred back, 19 days after kidding. What are the chances she took?  January/February is going to be a busy month, I have a total of 25, so far, to kid and the majority is in January.

Sounds like you're having fun! As far as the first doe you mentioned goes, she is probably settled and farther along. If you see something moving behind the ribs and a bag (if she's not too fat) I'm betting she's bred. You may have an overly anxious buck and  if you just put the buck in with her when you think you see a heat, he will breed her for the heck of it. If you left her in for a couple of cycles, he will likely only give it a go if she is really in heat. Also, if the buck is in for the entire season with a lot of does, he might get a little confused and excited and again, just do it for the heck of it. As for the second doe, there is every chance she settled on the first go. If you have a good management and feeding plan, this can happen. Some breeders actually shoot for a mature doe to kid out twice in just over a year. It is harder on the doe, because she is often still nursing in her later stages of the current pregnancy due to short gestations. Again, for some it works, for others it's not so handy. We breed one set of does to kid in the fall and another to kid late winter/ spring. We have too many to kid at one time, and some does do differently being prego at different times of the year. Hope this helps!

I can beat their program, lol, she kidded january first 2012, August 12 2012 and just bred back 8/31/2012.  I'm thinking a shot of lutalayse may be in her future. I think you are right on the first doe, she just doesn't look only two months along. I think I have close to 30 breds right now, without looking at the spreadsheet. It's going to be busy, lol

What do you think? I need another billy right now and can't find another anywhere. I made him an offer of 300, and I'm not buying him until I get a look at those feet. What would you offer? http://salem.craigslist.org/grd/3215725561.html

I honestly would probably not pay more than $300 or $400 for that buck based on the info and picture provided alone. He has mass, but its hard to really judge him from that photo. I would want to see his front end clipped off and pics that show his leg structure. In Boers, leg structure is a huge selling point right now. They were bred for a long time for mass alone, and now people are looking for ones to put good legs back under their flocks. As far as his coloring is concerned, I know some people like the paints, but for the most part, the traditional colored ones are WAY more marketable. I have to wonder why they de-horned him, the horns should be left on breeding stock. Was he destined to become a wether and something changed, or does the flock have a docility problem that causes the owner to want to de-horn their bucks? I understand breeding bucks are not cuddly during breeding season, but there are too many good ones out there to have a poor tempered one. The buck I posted before (Austin) is 2 1/2 and 300 pounds. He has a horn spread of over 12 inches and his shoulder is almost level with my hip (I'm 5'7"!).  I can still walk into his pen, halter him and lead him around the yard with does in heat all over the farm and not be riddled with bruises when all is said and done.

I guess what I am trying to say, is I would have a lot of questions for the seller. If you are in a pinch, he will do the job, but I wouldn't pay too much over market for him. Too bad we don't get out your way too often, we still have one yearling buck for sale sire by Austin! By the way, our first doe for fall kidded the other day. Twin boy and girl sired by Austin. I will post some pics later in the week of the new arrivals and the buck we still have for sale.

Now that you pointed it out, I completely agree with you on that.  People are really into paints over here, the commercial buyers don't seem to like to play guessing games so they pay more for traditional colors. You might get a kick out of this, I was about 300 miles away from home with a trailer and a friend, of mine called and said he had some goats he knew of and to make an offer. I wasn't horribly intersted since we had another 6 hour drive ahead of us so I offered $25/head, not expecting them to be healthy or anything like that (rarely are they ever healthy here, they like that organic crap and it doesn't work). So I get there and they are the fattest boer x goats I have ever seen in my entire life. They are standing in about 5 inches of alfalfa stems, so obviously they were fed great.  I was super impressed, bought all 7, sold 3 kept the 4 females and came out ahead and kept the four for free. I was pretty tickled with it, now I owe someone big time but it was worth it. The does are breeding back tonight too, so they are bred $25 goats. If you ever send a cow or whatever this way let me know and I'll buy a buckling or a buck off you. I have over 45 females right now and the buck can't keep up. I can't find a buck over here that amounts to anything and is worth his price. They are all narrow topped, short ribbbed and pigeon toed at $175/head no papers. It's ridiculous. The one that bred back twice in june is about to kid anyday so I'll let you know how that goes, she is huge, I don't know how many she has in her but I doubt it's another single. Congratulations on the twins! Maybe it's a sign of things to come The buyer said to hold onto everything until November, I don't know if that will affect your prices as much but maybe something to keep in the back of your mind.  They are bringing $1/lbs over here right now, so it came down $.40

I love your herdsire, he's a good one!

oakie said:

I love your herdsire, he's a good one!

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Thanks for the kind words! We love him to death and if all the goats should have to go for whatever reason, he would be kept as my pet! We call him the One-Nut-Wonder! He lost a testicle to trauma at about 8 months (playfighting and another buckling's horn sliced open the scrotum, one was too damaged to save). He was so well built, we took a gamble to see if he was still serviceable and it payed off big time. He covers 30 or so does about twice a year with one testicle and excellent conception rates. If he had both, we'd have quads coming out our ears!!!! We use him on all of our foundation does, so we have no plans in sight to replace him. He produces excellent, cookie cutter replacements and then we can then pick and choose what to breed them to.

We occasionally buy up commercial herds that get sold out around here too. We feed em up, pick the best doe or two or three, and sell the rest as profit. The order buyers love it because we take underfed ones and get them in slaughter condition, so they don't have to find a way to get it done themselves. Too few people know how to feed them up around here. The ones we decide to keep get bred to Austin and if the first kids don't cut the mustard, they are down the road as well. They often make good does to raise a couple of crops of percentage kids off of and maybe help someone we know get their own start in Boers.  We haven't sent anything to market in over a month, so I'm not sure how the market is holding. As far a private treaty sales, luckily, we cannot meet demand and most people do not even blink at our prices anymore. Around here, market value is best closest to Jewish and Latino holidays.

Good luck kidding and great to hear from you again!

That's crazy that he can still work as a one nutter. So I have a question on that. I have always heard that the female is the influencer on whether or not the doe has multiples. I thought that the sire affected his daughters liklihood of having multiples. Tonight I went out and picked up two boer bucks and a spanish buck from a neighbor and he mentioned that his buck throws lots of multiples. So is it the doe or the buck?  He also mentioned something that made my day. We have a friend that drives back and forth from Oklahoma to Oregon a couple of times in the year, how hard would it be to meet up and drop off a buckling or two? And what do boer bucks bring out there? Still waiting on the doe to have the warpaint (pretty sure that's his name) baby. I'm getting pretty excited about it. I'll have to take a photo of our doeling that came out of a Redneck Boer Goats buck. She's pretty stout, but doesn't appear to be very "pretty", she's more of a male maker. Bigger boned and muscled. Her mom is the one that died from toxemia having quads, so I'm curious if she will have a higher liklihood of multiples. Her mom had triplets her first freshening, a singler her second and died having quads on her third.  I found this photo of "Ethel", not a very good one, she wasn't the subject I was aiming for but it's my daughters goat and the goat and pony follow her around everywhere.  I got her as a two month old doeling for $75.

I've heard it both ways about which parent has the greatest impact on kid numbers. I tend to think it is a combination of genetics, buck potency, doe heath and general care. We had a good green summer here, but the mill mix we were using just did not cut it. The does were in good flesh, but overall, the kids are averaging 1 to 2 pounds lighter. We just finished fall kidding 6 does and they all had twins, one set of bucklings and 5 sets of one of each. Most of them usually have trips, but they are older girls, so who knows. We will kid out 20 or so young does come early spring, but we find that the old does do better if they are prego during the late summer and fall, not the winter.

As for delivering a buck, I'm pretty sure we can work something out! I am planning a quick trip to Montana in March, but as for other plans to head west, I'm not sure yet. We will have 2 young bucks (10 months) for sale as soon as we are done using them. One is an Austin son, the other is an embryo we purchased. Both are very well put together buck, we just do not use the same young bucks over and over again. We use Austin on the foundation does, and get a young buck every year or so to breed to his daughters for new bloodlines. We are also having our annual open house in February. We have a private treaty bull sale on one day and a private treaty goat sale the next. As far as pricing goes in this area, a good registered yearling buck will run $600-1000. The average registered bred yearling doe with cost about the same. It may seem high, but this would be for show quality stock, not the dairy cross, skin and bones "Boer" goats you see at the sale barn.

By the way, I love the bargain doe in your last post. She should get the job done! Did you end up with the red buck you were interested in?

No, he never got back to me. I probably offended him. A neighbor loaned me his boer buck and a spanish buck. Then the other neighbor will come and borrow my buck lol. That's not too terrible of a price, that's what the higher quality goats bring here. It's just a matter of getting them from point A to point B. Lol. I really like that doeling, she's a stout little gal. Her breeder didn't want her because she has 4 tits. I could care less, they make pretty decent babies. I left a little buckling intact this year so if the neighbors need to borrow a buck I have a decent commercial one available. There has to be some sort of transporting service we could throw a goat in, lol.  Too bad we can't put one on a train. I'll figure out when he makes the next trip. I'm set for bucks now until next year and then I will need some new ones. I'm trying to figure out how to get more multiples right now, the August does all had singles and bred two months after they had kidded. Pushing them like that probably didn't help things at all. I figured out how to make a really handy molasses feeder out of PVC, do you guys use those?