The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: smithycraft on August 20, 2012, 04:29:01 pm
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I'm thinking of selling 2 of this year's kids. They were born on 1st May and are male (neutered) and female and believe it or not, they are twins.
As you can see they are a bit of a mixed breed their mother is a Saanen cross Toggenburg and their father is a bit of a mystery.
They are just weaned.
I've never sold kids before so I've no idea what is a reasonable price. Would be grateful for any advice.
(http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d41/shallywells/kids-1.jpg)
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Given that they are horned the market is quite limited, and you are most likely to sell them for their meat value. If you had them both disbudded and could show some milk in their mother's pedigree then they may have made a nice pair for someone just starting out on goatkeepeing.
Even if you yourself keep horned goats in the case of not planning to keep their offspring you would increase the kids' value dramatically by gettting them disbudded.
Please don't sell them to anyone new to goats and also not to someone with young children.
PS.: Daddy is most likely a Golden Guernsey, looking at the colouring/ pattern of the male (in the foreground?). The female is actually really quite pretty.
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With the cost of disbudding at that age it wouldn't be worth it
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Don't know on price but we bought our pygmy for £160 as a neutered, debudded male.
We got her home to find she was an un-neutered girl with horns.
People we bought her from tried to get her back as she was worth more as a girl, we said NO WAY! :huff:
Anyway, we are a family new to goats and I have 3 kids under 5. Don't discount us young family folks, we love animals as much as the next person ;D
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Disbudding is around £25 max with farm Vet . If disbudded the average price would be around £100 for a female for unregistered nothing known about stock.
If registered , disbudded, known health status i.e CAE tested,.... Then £250 - 300 would the norm.
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Also have a look at preloved, quite a few goats for sale on there, see what other people are getting??
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Disbudding is around £25 max with farm Vet . If disbudded the average price would be around £100 for a female for unregistered nothing known about stock.
If registered , disbudded, known health status i.e CAE tested,.... Then £250 - 300 would the norm.
That was the point I was making - IMHO it is just not making economic sense not to disbud!
Anyway, we are a family new to goats and I have 3 kids under 5. Don't discount us young family folks, we love animals as much as the next person ;D
Will you still love her as much if she has poked one of your kids' eyes out? Just an accident,not deliberately?
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You could say something along those lines about most
Animals and most things in life too
They learn from a young age to respect animals
And they are always supervised :)
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And children could just as easily get butted by a sheep, trod on by a cow, kicked by a pony etc etc All with serious consequences, unfortunately you can't protect them from everything and as long as they are made to be aware and supervised when around the animals then that's all you can do.
Disbudding is a matter of personally preference and there is no right or wrong choice :)
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Ever thought why the majority of goats ending up in sanctuaries or being sold for fiver at auction are horned?
Why would you not disbud your anímal ( a safe operation undertaken under general anaesthetic with absolutely no pain to the kid) if that would increase its lifelong value and his/her chance of leading a longer and happy life? You may think that you will look after them into old age and they will never have to be sold - but anything may happen.
I do have a horned tup and now have permanent damage to one of my knees as a result of a quick and unintentional but. And there are only a few horned breeds of sheep left that are of commercial value (because it can be bred out). It is just that for goats the hornless gene is linked to hermaphroditism and therefore horns cannot be bred out.
I was just trying to advise the original poster that maybe s/he could rethink their strategy for future years.
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I was advised that disbudding can be fatal to the goat even if done by vet as skull is very soft and high risk of damaging the brain.
I have just bought a few boers with horns and find them a lot smoother than sheep. As much as I love my Wiltshire Horn ewe her horns are razor sharp.
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Thank you for all your input. I am surprised at how many people disbud goats and that is not meant to be a dig at anybody. We always have our Dexters done but I had heard that the operation on goats wasn't very pleasant.
I took on two goats several years ago, one horned and one not and I now have 7 in total including kids but the non-horned one is definitely the boss. She has no trouble interacting with the others.
So far I've not had any problems with my horned goats, in fact they are much easier to handle than the non-horned one as I have something to steer them with.
Having never actually bought a goat I was really just interested in getting an idea of what sort of price you would expect to pay for a mixed breed kid.
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I have my larger goats disbudded, but not the pygmy goats. The reason for this is their heads are so small, I am not at all happy putting them through it, and neither is my vet. So, far, to my knowledge, none of the goats I have ever sold with horns has poked a childs eye out :)
Although my pygmy intact male may give you a mega butt if you suggest he has his magnificent horns removed.!!!
Not sure how we are discussing horns, but back to the original question of price for kids.......I would definitely try for £100 for the female. The male would probably end up as a companion, so not as much.
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Thanks Roxy.
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We always disbud our kids, No matter how quiet and gentle they are there is always a risk as. When I was younger there was a neighbour had 3 milking nannys, all 3 had horns and she never had a problem and always said they would never do her any harm.
One day when she was milking there was a low flying jet went over, one of the goats panicked and because she was tied up spun her head round and the end of the horn hit the owner in the eye. she lost her eye
so I would never have a horned goat here
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We always disbud our kids, No matter how quiet and gentle they are there is always a risk as. When I was younger there was a neighbour had 3 milking nannys, all 3 had horns and she never had a problem and always said they would never do her any harm.
One day when she was milking there was a low flying jet went over, one of the goats panicked and because she was tied up spun her head round and the end of the horn hit the owner in the eye. she lost her eye
so I would never have a horned goat here
That was exactly the kind of problem I meant - this kind of accident is preventable by a safe and painless (for the kid) operation. The risk to the kid is actually very low if the operation is carried out by an experienced vet, using gas as the anasthetic rather than injection and is done in the surgery. However there are quite a few vets around that are not experienced with goats because there aren't that many goats being kept and vet school doesn't really each them anything about goats. They are then really quite reluctant to take on this operation, and it is easier for them to emphasise possible dangers...
It is not that horns as such are dangerous, it is that the consequences of even a minor butt/swipe with the head are usually quite serious for the butted person/goat, as opposed to being butted by a hornless/disbudded goat.
Also my girls (now 11 and 9) spend a lot of time in the goat field/milking/helping with bathing before shows etc etc, and I couldn't supervise them all the time anymore. If I had a horned goat they couldn't spend time in there and would loose out on their smallholding upbringing.
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Blimey, I'm starting to feel paranoid now with all this talk of horns and eyes. I can honestly say that before this, I barely even noticed their horns.
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The risk of losing a kid thru disbudding is worth taking when you consider the restrictions having horns put on them.
Pedigree Milker kids are selling from £80 - £120, Pygmys sell for £200+. I dont know meat value for these two little gems so it is hard to put a price on them but I would guess the boy is just meat value and the girl (if correct in udder, mouth and limb) a little more as she could I guess breed up. I honestly would of given the little girl a home had she been disbudded as she looks adorable x
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Blimey, I'm starting to feel paranoid now with all this talk of horns and eyes. I can honestly say that before this, I barely even noticed their horns.
Me too hence my other thread, it never even crossed my mind before as she hasn't butted anyone or used them at all on us ???
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I have to add my twopenneth on horns, I have 3 males, planning on freezer for them so left with horns, very friendly, but rather boisterous, aweek or so ago one just happened to rake his horn across my forearm, not intentionaly, I think one of the others pushed him and he pulled his head away. The bruise is just about fading. I think if I kept males again I would have them done as well. I hate horns.
Also been a bit too close for comfort when bending down to pick buckets or bowls up, and boys have just wanted to check no morsels left. I would just advise beware.
I wouldn't have one given without checking out cost of dehorning first.
Sorry to rant.
Very pretty goats, good luck selling them :)