Hands down the most questions I get asked are on the practicalities of raising goats. I thought I’d put together a little series and then tag them together under “raising goats” for easy reference. I’ll aim to write one per month or so (you’ll still get other posts and essays the weeks in between), loosely following my goats from breeding through rearing their kids to weaning. I can only write on how I do things, and why. Every farm and system is different. Different climates, conditions, breeds, purposes, etc., will all warrant different management. And how I do things is continually evolving, as life and farming do.
Mine is a small, closely kept, non-commercial, dual-purpose herd, of mostly Saanen and Anglo Nubian breeding, raised for meat and dairy on pasture/forage. My nannies raise their own kids, we milk share, milking just enough for our household use, and butcher the male kids for our own freezers. I’ll go into all the different aspects in respective posts. Next one on feeding. If you have any questions, please put them in the comments and I will try to cover them as I go through the series.
It’s late in the season now, and our young buck that we brought in as a just weaned kid last summer is still figuring things out on the mature nannies—a young buck in his first year is still building up his reserves and can only manage one or two at a time—they’re big, he’s had a little trouble reaching, and he’s such a softie that the older ladies just don’t take his manly attempts seriously. They want a tough buck and they challenge him. They want a buck who’s virile and strong enough to overcome them, to prove his strength to produce strong offspring and defend his herd. It’s survival of the toughest in goat society, there’s no tolerance for weakness, especially when it comes to procreation.
The last buck we ran was the handsome, horny, hairy beast, Johnny D. Oh my, how he made the ladies swoon. I remember the day I brought him home to them, they smelled him coming from their stalls across the paddock, and they stood up to lean over the rails to watch him, all starry eyed and nickering sweet love songs, as he strolled confidently in. One toss of his magnificent horns and they melted like butter. He got straight to work and had them all settled and content within the week. He was a mature, strong and capable buck who knew how to take care of his ladies, and the “buck effect” was strong.
Our little buckling, Prince, isn’t quite up to the challenge yet. He doesn’t have the height, strength, horns (he had been disbudded before we got him), libido or experience to show them who’s the man, and the nannies, frustrated by his clumsy attempts, display dominance and batter him. They want him to rise to it, fight for it, to show them what he’s got. He’s young, but he’s trying and persistent, he’s learning the moves, and he’s working on his irresistible stink and stamina. The older ladies are beginning to soften towards him, and he has proven his abilities enough for me to be confident that he’ll get there: one of the younger, smaller, more obliging nannies so far has stopped cycling, and he did manage to bust out of his makeshift anti-mating “loincloth” (he goes out with his herd during the day and he doesn’t fit in a webbing harness yet so I had to improvise with cloth and bale string) and has given us an unintended teenage pregnancy on one of last year’s flirty doelings. She will be first to kid in spring at about fourteen months old. That’s way too young for my liking, but it’s happening whether I like it or not. So, this seems like a good time to discuss breeding age.
Everyone’s got their own opinion when it comes to the age at which their doelings should be for their first breeding. I found it interesting that when I run an internet search, or even peruse my bookshelf, US sources tend to advocate breeding does in their first year, at seven to ten months, to kid as yearlings at twelve to fifteen months, while UK and Irish sources tend to advocate waiting until their second year, breeding at eighteen months to kid as two year olds. That seems to me like it tallies with the generally faster and more intensive production scale of US agriculture, and reasons cited are economic. From my bookshelf, “Waiting to age two to give birth means feeding a non-producing animal for an additional year before finding out whether she is a good mother and milk producer…”1 (Holistic Goat Care, Gianaclis Caldwell). And also, “it can be difficult to prevent does from getting chubby if their first kidding isn’t until age two”2 (Caldwell).
I disagree. Goats are not fully grown until around two and half years old and can live a long productive life. So on the first point, I don’t see a good eighteen months of laying down her own bone and substance before she has to stretch to the extra physical and nutritional demands of pregnancy and lactation as wasted, I see it as investment in her longterm health and soundness. To have the additional demands of producing and rearing kids while she herself is still in a critical growth period is an enormous strain. I prefer to see my young does putting all their energy and nutriment into their own growth and development and wait to have solid, well grown yearlings, proven in soundness, temperament and handleability before they’re bred. Anything that doesn’t make the cut as a yearling can still go for meat. Here’s what the Irish agricultural research and advisory body, Teagasc, has to say on it: “Female kids come on heat at about six months of age but unless they are exceptionally well grown it is not recommended to breed them until they are eighteen months old. This is to ensure that they produce better kids and are themselves better goats”3.
And I think the second point made above might only be a concern if you’re on really rich pasture or feeding high protein/energy feeds—fed for fast growth or production—it’s a non issue when young, still growing goats are kept actively fit and fed an appropriate, high fibre, forage based, very low or zero grain diet. I’ll come back to that when I write about feeding, next month.
I’ve come across goats that were bred in their first year, by people who thought that’s the done thing but didn’t have the experience or eye for feeding, that have ended up very small for their breed, stunted by the unmet extra nutritional demands of pregnancy and lactation as well as their own growth. But I also know experienced breeders who successfully breed their doelings on a case by case system as long as they meet certain growth and weight requirements. That’s where a solid base of experience and an eye for condition and feeding comes in. “The aftercare of these ‘kidded kids' needs to be especially good if the goat’s full potential is to be realised”4 (British Goat Society). I can’t speak on raising meat breeds, but the thing about dairy animals is they will pour everything they’ve got into their udders. A pair of kids will suck the life out of an underfed or under grown doe, and her own condition and growth will lose out first. And I haven’t touched on the additional risks at kidding, but it figures that a small, very young doe is more likely to have difficulties giving birth.
To anyone new to raising goats, don’t underestimate the nutritional needs of a nanny rearing kids. If it’s your first time breeding goats, wait. See a few grown nannies through pregnancy, kidding and lactation first. Find out first hand just how much feeding it takes to keep condition on a doe while she’s raising a pair of kids (most goat breeds rarely have just one). Raise a few kids to adulthood and learn how much and what kind of feeding it takes to have them grow straight and strong. Kid a few does and gain some experience assisting difficult births, getting weak newborns to suck, reluctant first time moms to nurse. Develop an eye for weights and growth rates, to be able to judge how well grown your kids are for their age and for your herd. Then put all that together and decide if you want the additional management, feeding and risks of breeding kids from kids.
I prefer to see my babies be babies, see them race over the rocks and leap around with that boundless, joyous energy that makes having goat kids such fun. If you ask me, there’s huge entertainment value in watching kids be kids for as long as possible. They change as their middles begin to thicken with kid. They quieten. They get serious. They have to grow up and settle down fast. All that boundless energy turns in to the growth and development of their pregnancy. They become less interested in play and more focused on feeding their rounding bellies. My little one is nearly eight weeks in and I’m adding extra energy (sugar beet) to her feed. She looks pretty pissed off and annoyed by her twin sister who still wants to play. She’s in good condition and growing well, but her own growth will slow down as the demands of late pregnancy and then lactation take their toll. I will watch her closely at kidding time, be prepared to either top up or remove and bottle one or both kids from her if she’s struggling, and wean her kids early to let her recover her own condition and growth. I’ll feed her grain if I have to. I won’t have her lose out for the principle of having grain free goats and dam raised kids. That all said, she’s well grown and well fed and I’m sure she’ll do just fine.
Our kidding will be well spaced out throughout this summer on account of our buck being so young and taking his time getting there. But I don’t mind, it suits me to manage each individually. Next time I’ll go into feeding and keep. We might be able to see a few bellies beginning to swell by then.
Citations:
1,2 Caldwell, G. (2017). Holistic Goat care: A Comprehensive Guide to Raising Healthy Animals, Preventing Common Ailments, and Troubleshooting Problems. Chelsea Green Publishing. pages 181-182
3 Teagasc. (2009) Dairy Goat Keeping. pdf.
4 British Goat Society. (2016, November 12). Breeding - British Goat Society.
I loves reading this. Hello from Sligo 👋 I've always loved goats but still feel a little ill-equipped and inexperienced to take the plunge into getting some. Delighted to have discovered your substack 😀
How beautiful, i'm excited for this sweet series! Very heartfully written. Thank you for doing the work you do. It is inspiring as I move into my own role of land stewardship and animal tending <3