[poppy2012]

 
happy goat day - pip kidded one girl and a boy today - my question is as i want to keep the boy for meat what should i do first e.g does he need to be disbudded?? also does he need to be de musked? and when is best to kill??
any advice would be great!!!
thank you

[jaykay]

Congratulations 

Regarding your little boy, you need to castrate him as little goat fellas are active and effective at a pretty young age. I'd ring him, which has to be done inside a week and ideally within a day or so. Get someone who knows what to do (any sheep farmer) as you don't want to get an empty sack in the ring leaving his balls inside his body as there's a risk then that he would still be effective 

Since I don't disbud any goats I won't get into that one.

I sent my two boys to the abbatoir last year at 8 months.

[cuckoo]

We keep males for meat.  Most are castrated with elastic band.  If you dont want to do this / cant do this then get the vet to show you when you get the girl disbudded - I assume you will.  Saying that we have kept some males entire this year - weaned at 12 weeks and will be killed before breeding season so wont taint meat.  All our males - including out Boer Billy - are horned - no problems - kept extensively with adequate feed space etc.  Next year we will keep all our goats horned - we run a quite extensively - only in at kidding - vets have put price up and now with more experience I dont think for our setup disbudding is needed.  But different people have different views!

[colliewoman]

DO castrate sooner rather than later!
I would recommend a day or 2 same as jaykay. I had to leave ours till 5 days as he was a bit weak and mum wasn;t very well.... he yammered and yelled much worse than any of the 2 day old kids I have seen done
I'm not disbudding as the peeps having my boys don't want them done. My nanny kid is a natural poll so don't need to worry about her either

[chickenfeed]

we always ring the meat males and dehorn as they run with other goats that are dehorned, although last year i took a couple of horned meat males in never again they bullied the dehorned ones about a month before slaughter (guess who went off first  ). depending on growth rates killing at between 6 & 8 months should give you a 40 + lb carcase so pretty much like a lamb.

[Penninehillbilly]

I may be on a learning curve here as well, kept a boy entire, not disbudded, planning on using him on 2 goatlings, then to the freezer, but also been given 2 'ringed' males, not disbudded, so I wait to see if I regret taking them on, I'm wary of their horns already and they are only 7 weeks old!

[poppy2012]

Have booked the male into disbudding for thrusday, i dont want horned animals, with 2 small children i think a toddler could be an easy tarrget! waiting for the 4th day to ring, as have sheep as well, so hoping they are the same sort of thing! ive named him a name i dont like much, and that way i wont get too attached! if you eat meat im a strong beleiver you should be able to get it killed youreself! have done lambs and chickens, lets see what happens with goat!

[chickenfeed]

I may be on a learning curve here as well, kept a boy entire, not disbudded, planning on using him on 2 goatlings, then to the freezer,

if your going to kill a entire male that has worked i would wait to kill him after breeding season unless you like your meat well tainted, we had a request for a entire older male for meat and expressed we had never eaten meat from a working male................never again the kitchen smelt like the male yard not nice lets just say the meat was different in a not so good way.

[poppy2012]

i will have to think on that! i guess will have to let him mature a little you think??

[jaykay]

If you are going to 'ring' him, ie castrate with the 'elastrator elastic bands' than you have to do it before a week old and it's best earlier in that week rather than later, after 24 hours.

Don't keep an uncastrated male unless you actively know what you're looking for in a breeding male (and if you're a beginner you don't, without being rude) and you can keep them well away from your females, taking into account the Houdini-like ability of randy male goats and you are experienced at handling rough male animals.

If you are not intending to use him for breeding, only meat, I can't see any advantage at all in not castrating. It's an avoidance of a tiny bit of pain (for you and the animal) now for a significant amount of avoidance of trouble in the future. Taint in the meat isn't the issue - dealing with an entire male goat is.

[poppy2012]

 i now understand the term an entire male! am definately ringing him today once im sure the balls are all there!!! disbudding is a must for the male too, as he will get pretty big and boy stress im sure. i never plan on keeping an entire male! with 40 sheep and now 3 girl goats, he would be a problem!!
thanks for your help oin understanding the term ( entire male!)

[jaykay]

Good  - on the understanding and the decision 

Get some help if you've not ringed before.

My method is:
Lie/sit the little fella on his back on your knee, head towards you.
Get the elastic band on the applicator and stretched wide.
Lower into place, still stretched wide, pull sac gently into place, check nipples not going to get caught in - right hand.
Squeeze little balls, retracted in fear, back into sac with left hand and close applicator with right hand.
Roll band off applicator.

Even lambs look pretty concerned and hop about/go and lie in a corner - understandably.

Goats being way less stoical will probably yell like mad and you will want to cry. He will be fine so get out of earshot and stay that way for an hour or so, then pop back and check on him.

[Anke]

If you are disbudding the male too, the vet can ring him while he is under. That's what mine does, and he doesn't charge extra for it. Also means he will get the balls where they need to be, as boy cannot quickly put them inside his body again...

I keep my males until 9 to 11 months, (depending on their character and how much space there is in the freezer) but as most of the ones we have eaten so far were Golden Guernseys the carcasses were not that big.  Have got a BT this year, and he is growing faster than the GG boy... so maybe he will be earlier.

With young children around I would think disbudding - even though it's extra cost - is the safest option. Don't worry about them looking quite bad, by about 4 weeks they start to look quite normal again...

[colliewoman]

Goats being way less stoical will probably yell like mad and you will want to cry. He will be fine so get out of earshot and stay that way for an hour or so, then pop back and check on him.

Thank gods for that! It's not just my kids that do it! I left quickly and drank lots of coffee then returned and all was indeed fine

[plumseverywhere]

If you are disbudding the male too, the vet can ring him while he is under. That's what mine does, and he doesn't charge extra for it. Also means he will get the balls where they need to be, as boy cannot quickly put them inside his body again...

With young children around I would think disbudding - even though it's extra cost - is the safest option. Don't worry about them looking quite bad, by about 4 weeks they start to look quite normal again...

And make sure the Vet understands that you mean ringing and not surgical castration    When I took Sixpence in, I signed the consent with the Vet nurse and explained my understanding of it being a little red ring round the scrotum and that he'd be disbudded etc.
went to collect him and the vet and taken it upon himself to surgically castrate and we are now left with a scrotum (am assuming he couldn't find both balls to ring and didn't want to admit that) but we were given some flannel excuse about it 'being less likely to catch' - Excuuuuuuuuuuse me but I think this flappy little scrotum will catch for sixpences life span now!!
ok, rant over - but take from my experience that not all vets assume castration as being ringing so be firm!! (prob.less important if you are eating the kid but we are keeping this one...)