Meat Goat Blog

Purchasing Breeding Stock - Quick Tips

When you're buying breeding stock, consider purchasing grown does. Many new ranchers want to buy young doelings to start their herd 'from scratch.' But, they don't realize that their approach has some downsides. Small yearling does are often targets for predators and may not be biologically ready for fall breeding. In our experience, two-year-olds are a safer option for a new herd.

What Age to Buy Breeding Stock: Kids or Does

We got an e-mail a while back asking what age of goats we recommended a new rancher purchase. Though I often make the case for beginners to purchase proven does instead of kids, the excitement of starting a herd at “ground zero” usually overrides the logic of buying grown stock. So, based on my experience, here is my advice for what age of goats to buy – take it or leave it!

I prefer not to buy does until they are at least a year old – preferably two years. When we purchased our original breeding stock, we tried buying both doelings and grown does. The older goats almost always had a better overall result. The obvious disadvantage of the grown does is that they are that much closer to the end of their usable years (usually around 8-9 years old). However, at two years old, they are just entering their prime.

The disadvantage of doelings is that the first year can be a very difficult one. We lose more does before they reach one year old than any other age (that's why the price goes up after they reach a year). Since they are smaller, they are easier targets for predators. No matter the breeding program, there will be some natural survival of the fittest. That first year is usually a very telling period for which goats are the fittest and which ones aren’t.

Bucks are another consideration when buying young does. When the doelings are 8-9 months old, they are still pretty small. This is why we keep a couple bucklings to breed our kids, instead of our older sires. Once the bucks reach about 2 years old, they are just too big to breed to the little doelings without hurting them. If you do decide to breed any doelings, you will definitely have a better result using a buckling instead of a grown buck. Young bucklings (under a year old) can usually cover 10-15 does per cycle.

But the doelings’ struggles don’t end after breeding. While they’re carrying their kids, the doelings are still very young - and it takes a toll on them to raise that first set while they are still trying to grow themselves. We breed our young doelings almost every year to get their hormones in phase (we usually wait until they are 8-9 months old though) - but we usually don't require much from their first kidding cycle. So the bottom line: this means that you must hold on to these does for almost a year and a half before you start seeing a decent number of kids hit the ground. As long as you understand that buying doelings is a long term investment, any age can be a good choice. But I think most new ranchers would like to see a return on investment a little sooner.

Two Kids are Better Than One

I think, as humans, we have a pretty good grasp on the concept that more is better than less. But when it comes to goats, we often turn a blind eye to this logic on the grounds that "this single is a lot bigger than either of those twins." But think about it this way.

As meat goat producers, our primary objective is to sell as much meat as we can each year to get more money and make more profit. That being said, which is better: one 40 pound buckling or two 30 pound bucklings? The answer is simple. Two is better than one!

This is why it is so important that does birth and raise twins or more every year. If they're not, then you aren't getting the maximum revenue per head to make make that money! So next time you're struggling between a pretty single or two average twins, go with your gut - more is better than less.

Dr. Sparks on Selecting Meat Goat Stock

In the video below from Goat Boot Camp seminar, Dr. Dave Sparks talks about strategies for selecting seed stock for your meat goat operation. He points out that it doesn’t matter what the goat looks like as long as they can do the job. Throughout the lecture, Dr. Sparks reiterates that you can’t have good breeding stock if they aren’t having kids – no matter the size. He also articulates the importance of having good records in order to make good business decisions. This is a great video for anyone who’s interested in goats – novice or expert.

Using a Cleanup Buck - Quick Tips

If you haven't already, you might want to think about running a cleanup buck after your initial breeding this year. By running a second buck 30 days after the first one, you can ensure that anything that can be bred will be bred - while still being able to tell which kids come from which buck.

How to Select Future Breeding Stock

Selecting good breeding stock is probably the most important part of raising goats. Whether you’re deciding which buckling to breed your doelings to next season or selecting your next generation of breeding does, it’s essential to make your decisions based on the factors that will affect whether or not your herd will continue to prosper.

When you’re deciding which kids to keep as seed stock, it’s tempting to look for the ones that look the best right after weaning – but that isn’t always the best indicator. One kid may be the prettiest or the biggest – but she’s a single. Is it better to keep a doe that is a little bit bigger but doesn’t have the genetics for raising twins? Two medium sized kids will almost always wean more meat than one big kid. When selecting seed stock, one of the biggest factors to look at is whether or not the animal has the genetics to do what you want to do – raise kids!

Next you should look at the abilities of the parents. If you look back in your records and see that the dam always raises twins, but she’s just barely surviving the parasite load, you’ll have to make a judgment call. For me, parasite resistance and mothering are two sides of the same coin. Is it better to keep the doe who raises more kids or has kids that will stay healthy? For seed stock, you need something that will continue to perform in rough conditions. It doesn’t do any good to have a doe that has twins if the parasites force her to abort them every other season. That still averages out to singles!

Once you get mothering and parasites locked down, the rest is up to you. If you like goats with polka dots, then feel free to breed for that – just never let aesthetics like color trick you into keeping a goat that doesn’t have what it takes to improve the herd.

When is the Best Time to Breed Goats?

In the goat business, it is common to tell your fellow goat ranchers things like "have a good kidding season" and "have a good breeding season." This works out pretty well because goats spend most of their time either breeding or preparing to kid. But from the rancher's perspective, when is the best time to officially start breeding cycle?

Over the years, we've tried a lot of different timings for breeding our goats. We've bred in early August, late December, and every month in between. But with all that experience, the best breeding date still seems to be a moving target.

One of the biggest factors effecting breeding season has nothing to do with the rancher's timing at all. If you have more than one herd sire, chances are you'll want to know which babies belong to which buck. But when the bucks get impatient for the rancher to start breeding season, sometimes they'll just knock a hole through the fence and elope with the entire herd. So if your buck pens aren't quite up to snuff this year, early breeding may be the best (and only) choice because it will be early.

Another factor is breeding the does when they are most fertile. We've heard scientists claim just about every idea and theory imaginable for the proper date. But for the last couple years, we've had good success with breeding in September to October and running a clean-up buck in November. For us, this has given lots of twins and triplets. We attribute the improved results to the cooler weather - so if it has been a hot year, we usually wait a little longer to breed (until it gets cool).

Weather is also a condition that can make a difference in how well your kids do. If you breed early (like we try to) the kids will begin popping out in late January - the coldest, snowiest month of the year. For us it is worth the risk since our does usually weather the storms quite well, but gambling with big blizzards is a tricky business. So what if you go the other direction and breed as late a biologically possible? Then you have the heat - and with it, the flies - to contend with. If you hit a really hot year or heavy flies, it can be just a devastating as any winter storm. The heat will make it harder for the mother to sustain herself as well as her kids and the flies will attack the kids right after they are born (while covered in after-birth). So pick your poison. It's pretty hard to find a date that will avoid the hot and cold without exception.

So the best time to breed goats is whenever you will be able to live with the decision. Kidding seasons can be disrupted no matter when you breed. But test the waters. Try different strategies. That's what goat ranching is all about!

A Special Thanks to Our Bucks

This was a great kidding season! We had lots of beautiful, healthy babies.  But, even though the does obviously did the majority of the work in raising the kids to be healthy and strong, today we'd like to acknowledge the other half of the gene pool. So these are the bucks we bred to last fall. Thanks guys!

Paco is a 100% Kensing Spanish buck with a lot of personality. He has great parasite resistance and plenty of bulk. He is 2 years old and has done a great job for us. Because Paco has such an impressive genetic-makeup, he makes a fantastic all-around buck. Last year, we bred Paco to some of our finest Kensing Spanish and Spanish/Kiko cross does to produce some really fantastic Purebred and Crossbred Spanish kids this Spring.

Juan is also a Pure Spanish buck from the Kensing line. Juan is two years old, very intelligent, and has phenomenal parasite resistance. All this combined with the color he throws to his kids, makes him a real winner as a buck. Because his 'crucial genetics' are so evenly matched with Paco's, Juan was bred mainly to black-furred Spanish does to enhance their strong color genes. However, he was also used extensively on the lighter colored does that needed an extra 'color boost.'

Roman Ruler is the buck we use to produce our Spanish/Kiko crosses. He is a Purebred Kiko and has served us very well for the last 5 years. Roman is quite unique - not only because of his excellent parasite resistance - but also because he is one of the few Kikos that has such gorgeous markings. Even though we have mainly chosen to raise Pure Spanish goats on our ranch, Roman is such an outstanding buck, that we couldn't let him go when we made the switch. Now we breed him to Pure Spanish does as well as the Spanish/Kiko crosses that aren't related to him.

Marcos, Santos, and Renaldo are our three youngest Kensing Spanish bucks. For their first breeding, we paired them each with a couple full-grown Spanish does just to see what they could do. But more importantly, we split the three bucks between our 7-10 month old does that were mature enough to breed. By using the smaller bucks, we were able to avoid injuring the young does. All three bucks did very well and we look forward to great things from each of them!

Clean Up Bucks Are A Good Idea

We like to use a clean up buck as part of our typical breeding program. A clean up buck is a second swipe at breeding by allowing a different buck the opportunity to breed does that might not have taken the first round. Our clean up cycle started this past Saturday using two different bucks. We waited a little over 30 days before the clean up starts. In this way, we can safely know any kids born later in the Spring came from the second round without having to perform DNA tests.

It's important in a commercial operation to know the sire of your offspring in an economical manner. Waiting the 30 days (or sometimes a little longer) gives you enough of a break in the kidding cycle to feel comfortable. Using the second buck usually increases the kidding rate as some does don't take the first time.

Even before we ran the second set of bucks, we noticed a handful of does standing around all day near the buck pen. It was pretty obvious the attraction. You may be wondering why we used two clean up bucks rather than just one buck. This year we had a few younger does that were excluded from the initial breeding because they were not old enough to breed. Now a few months later they are ready and we hand-picked the buck we wanted to use with them.

Breeding Safely: Size Matters

As we always do this time of year, we have been preparing our breeding plan so we can strategize what does we want to breed to what buck. While we try to think about a lot of things as we decide what combinations will produce the best result, by the time we've culled all the does we don't want to raise kids from most of our strategies don't get much further than breed, color preferences, and avoiding incest. However, the one factor that we always try to take into account is the size of the buck as opposed to the age of the doe. For example, we never breed our big 300+ lbs bucks to the kids that were just born earlier this year. These big size differences will either hurt the doe or prevent breeding.

For this reason, we often keep a buckling or two from our kid crop just to use on the doelings. This way, the goats will be the same size and, since the bucklings cannot handle as many does as a full grown buck, they only have to cover as relatively small herd.