[Lesley Silvester]

Curry, my Sanaan/BA kid is nearly 6 months old and I was expecting him to be ready to go off to the abbatoir but he's not very big.  I want to get a reasonable amount of meat from him but don't want to leave it until he's tough.

Anyone any experience in sending goats to slaughter?  What age were yours when they went?

[Roxy]

Curry has a way to go until he will be tough

Lambs are bred for eating- and where they are fat and ready at an early age, goats do take a bit of growng on.
I have a female sanaan x BA and she has taken after the BA in height now she is mature, but at 6 months she was not what I would have called big enough for slaughter.

On the other hand, the kids bred from my smaller billy, Bobby, built like a tank, are 8 months, and are big enough to kill.

Are you saying Curry is small in height or is it his weight you are worried about?  It could be he has taken after the sanaan, and therefore will not be very tall?

What are you feeding Curry, and in what quantities?

Most of the castrated males we have sent for slaughter have been 7/8 months.

[Lesley Silvester]

He's several inches shorter than his Sanaan mum who isn't very tall anyway.  I feed them all together so don't know quite how much he's getting but you can be sure it's at least his fair share judging by the way he gets his head in the bucket.  They have coarse mix with sugar beet twice a day and chopped carrots/apples/green veg twice a day too with unlimited hay.  Then there are the garden trimmings that go in when I'm working outside.  His dad is huge and I suppose I thought he'd be somewhere between the two but, if I wait until he's 8 months, he should be quite a bit bigger. 

He's a pest and sneaks up behind me to butt me in the back of the legs, escapes at the drop of a hat and drives his poor old gran to distraction.  He's also still taking a lot of milk which I want.  I haven't the room to separate the goats, having them in a yard and shed in my garden.

[salopman]

I can also vouch for the head butts when Ive been helping Lesley clean the yard - little b :goat:eggar - his gran is an absolute treasure though - well and his mum

[salopman]

p.s.have also seen his dad and he is a huge BA

[chickenfeed]

we have eaten goats upto 4 yrs old with no problems. i do tend to slow cook goat though.

[Roxy]

He does not sound underfed at all - especially still drinking milk as well!!!!  I would let him grow on another couple of months - although the head butts are not nice for you in the meantime.

Perhaps some cattle rearing nuts would help bulk Curry out?  To be honest, he may take after his mum in height, and all you can do is try and get as much weight on as you can - without him being too fat.

[Lesley Silvester]

Not sure where I can get cattle feeding nuts.  I tried my usual feed suppliers and they didn't seem to know about them.  Do you  have a brand name that I could Google?  Might be able to trace suppliers that way. 

Curry was trying to mount his gran today while I was cleaning the yard.  This was while he wasn't butting me.  I found a sharp slap worked wonders for his mum and gran but he treats it as a challenge.  And he got out while I was extracting the wheel barrow from the yard.

At least, with him being so obnoxious, I'm not going to have pangs when the time does come.  I've been threatening to send him for the last two months.