Meat Goat Blog

Watching for Patterns in Breeding Results is Entertaining

Every year as we tag our new born kids, we are amazed by various patterns that develop. We often see similarities between cousins. For example, two does that were full sisters were bred to the same buck. One of the babies from the first doe was identical to a kid from the second doe. Seeing all the similarities and seemingly random differences is great fun while tagging kids and enjoying kidding season.

Late Summer Feed May Boost Your Crop

For several years we have been told by quite a few people that feeding during the late Summer increases the number of kids per doe. Last year we decided to try it and see if it worked.

Historically we have not fed any feed except during extremely harsh winter weather or the last trimester before kidding season. Some people call it flushing the goats. So far it seems to have been worth the expense. More does have given us triplets than ever before.

Bear in mind. there are other factors that could come into play and we have no scientific evidence to support the theory. However, preliminarily it seems to have made a difference. We want to point out we also used a couple of new bucks on some of the does.

We will wait for the rest of kidding season to end before we decide to do it again. But, if we continue to have more triplets, it will defintely be tested again next year.

Kids Are A Wonderful Part of Spring

Spring always brings the new crop of kids. It is invigorating and makes all the hard work well worth the trouble. We were really not expecting any kids before March 15th. Surprise! We have almost 40 healthy, happy little brier eaters running around. With many more to arrive in the next few weeks we are off to a good year. We have every color you could possibly desire. Some pure blacks, a few complete whites, and nearly every combination you could want. Hooray for Spring!