The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: roddycm on December 24, 2018, 04:26:01 pm
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What are people's thoughts on keeping a wether as a companion for a billy goat v keeping the billy alone? Billy, my uniquely named Boer billy, lives alone in a paddock next to the girls, he can see them as they share a fence line but he is not in with them... he seems happy enough but I sometimes think life must be a bit dull for him when he is not in with the girls. My only concern is that he is such a sex pest that he will harass the poor wether endlessly.
We would leave him in with the girls in the big field but when they are not in heat or already pregnant he just pees on them and it gets a bit gross for them ha!
What do other goaty folk do?
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Depends, mine often grow up with a wether friend of the same age and share a pen, but once adults I normally remove the wether (freezer) and have billy on his own. I bring females to them to be mated one at a time, and several entire or wether boys to the "male" goat house usually. They can see each other but I have entire adult males of similar age not within butting distance from each other during the autumn/winter. They are normally fine in summer though.
I think once the boy has dealt with his girls he will settle down quite happily in a field next to them, maybe next summer leave a couple of wethers for him to keep him company? That's what I do with my sheep, once tup has done the job he goes back into his bachelor field. He will chase the wethers for a day or so, but I often have them running with the group during mating (to reduce number of field in use) as well and they do fine.