I raise goats, but this question could apply to any livestock. It's just more of a problem with goats, because they reproduce so rapidly and there is a limited market for them in our area. What do you do with your livestock that just doesn't make the grade? Or maybe it's not a bad animal at all, but you already have ten milkers and just can't feed any more? We send almost all the buck kids to the livestock auction at 6-8 weeks old. When you have 20 buck kids, there is no way you are going to find homes for all of them. Besides, it degrades the goat population to inundate it with poor or mediocre quality bucks.Only one in 50 or even 100 bucks is good enough to be retained as a herdsire. i'd rather see them butchered quickly and humanely, than to end up half starved and neglected ( who wants to play with a smelly buck?!) The buck kids are easy. But what about that doe who is milking decently, but she just isn't of any use in your breeding program anymore? Or the extra doe kids- you can't keep them all, no matter how nice they are. I have turned a number of people on to raising goats, but once their does start kidding, they don't need any more goats, either! Obviously, they have to go somewhere. What do you do with your culls or extra animals? Has anyone had theirs made into salami? We don't have a freezer, so butchering them presents some problems.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), August 11, 2000

Answers

If you tell us what kind of goats and what state you are in then maybe some of us could help...

-- William in WI (thetoebes@webtv.net), August 11, 2000.

Culling is all part of running a good farm operation, I like and enjoy my animals but I don't fall in love with them (well maybe a dog). I have people call me and ask me if I want to buy their culls than they want to know if I will promise that I won't sell them for food, I don't run a zoo I have a farm.

I have bought many animals from so called "Good Homes". They gather all theese animals and are than overwhelmed with the feed bills and the time it takes to care for all the animals. I than buy them and bring them home and worm them, trim them and put some weight back on them and sell them at the market where they should have gone in the first place.

-- Mark (deadgoatman@webtv.net), August 11, 2000.

I wish I knew of a fancy way of turning this into a big red capital sign like I know some of you know how to do but it is so simple

!!!!!!!!!!!!!ADVERTISE IN COUNTRYSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since we have always sold milk all unsold breeding bucks are euthinized at birth, but all does who have servicable udders yet were lacking attachment or perhaps her teats were pointing less than straight are sold as family milkers. 90% from my add in Countryside, we have alwaysed sold these purebred does for 200$, this year we will be asking 300$ and we can't keep a one on the place. Several years ago we also started a soaking wet kid buck sale, if you come when I call you, you can pick up a purebred with papers, buck from any of my first fresheners for just 50$, you of course get to raise the little lovely, and send in his paperwork if you choose to register him. I already have 6 folks on my sale list for these bucks, and we won't have any born until mid-December. I have made excellent contacts in the past, sold goats for hay, working on a buck sale in exchange for pups this next winter. How are folks supposed to know you have stock for sale if you don't advertise, course you are going to ignore what I have wrote and go on to the next answerer, while I will be sold out this next year by April, and you will be up to your eyeballs in stock! :) Advertising works and it is tax deductable! And what is it 30$ per year? Less than one sale of one meat animal sale. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 11, 2000.

Actually, I have thought of advertising, though I had UCN in mind. I didn't realize that Countyside was such a good place to advertise- it is only $30.00 a year? What a deal! Wish I'd caught on to that before. The only thing is I am not really set up to ship them yet, so the buyers would have to come and get them. We have mostly alpines, some registered, some percentage grades. The registered ones are from top bloodlines and I just hate to take them to auction, but the people here (Idaho) are stingy, and ask why I am asking so much for my goats ( $50- $100 for kids, $75- $150 fro milkers!!!)

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), August 11, 2000.

Rebekah, it is no big deal to ship. The buyer pays for everything. My vet charges 10$ for a health certificate, we ship Delta Dash, take a trial run and check your milage, I charge 12cents a mile, the folks there are super nice, the folks UPS you a kennel just bed the bottom with catlitter and then a layer of shavings. I have a copy of the paperwork taped in an envelope, but send hard copies by mail. I put in big letters do not feed without first calling, and my number and the buyers number and the kennel. You have to get them their by 8 am they have to be shipped with no lay overs and you must breed so that kids are shipped way before summers high temps start, here in Texas they won't ship out of Houston after June...period!! I am known as the goat lady their and they think it is quite amuzing that I am shipping goats, the head guy is a muslem, in his turban and all, and he still doesn't understand this :) I don't advertize in UCN or Dairy Goat Journal, you would really need to be showing at the National Level, and even though my LaMancha buck I owned for sometime had a spotlight sale doe, I wouldn't say my animals are the calibar that are expected when folks advertise there, there are some local folks who don't beat me very regularly who do advertise but they are on milk test, appraise and HES yearly. Something I continue to procrastinate about since my sales are already brisk. Don't let shipping stand in your way, you also need to offer some discounts, 4H, multiple purchases, folks who show and appraise and milk test. Recently have found out how easy it is to ship on ground, folks who do this all of the time, so there is even a route for your adults, who would cost a fortune to air. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 12, 2000.

My Goodness, where do you live? Around here any goats that are advertised in the paper are snapped up! I an always looking for doe kids in the spring to bottle raise. I don't ship milk so that is how I use my extra up. I also sell a few whethers (not bucks) every yearas pets, I have two ladies right now looking for pets, but mydoes won't kid til November.

-- Dianne (yankeeterrier@hotmail.com), August 18, 2000.

Ialso want to add that I take exception to Vicki's term of 'euthanizing' newborn bucks. Unless she is injecting a narcotic to end their lives, she is probably bashing their skulls with a hammer or drowning them in a bucket. To me that is a typical way to gloss over the death of any animal. Lets at least be honest and say 'kill'

-- Dianne (yankeeterrier@hotmail.com), August 18, 2000.

I take offense to you asuming anything ! When a new born is drowned it is usually before its first breath and why would you bash its head in when a slit to the throat would due .For some reason people think its ok to slaughter adult animals but not baby's .If there is no market for them what are you to due ? Can we send them all to you ?

-- Patty (fodfarms@slic.com), August 18, 2000.

Thank you Patty, and I use the term euthiniaze since I know there are 4H kids who read this forum for goat information. I do not sell wethers as pets, in all of the 14 years I have been in goats I know of one forever home that a wether got, where he died at a ripe old age. Most wethers as pets will live a horrible life of dog attacks, being tied to trees, and taunted by mean little kids. Most folks will at least take reasonable care of intact breeding stock since they will make them some money. I applaud those who are making a business out of pack wethers, it is just unrealistic to think that I could find homes for 20 or 30 wethers a year. They drink 75$ in saleable milk before they are 12 weeks old, I am then going to sell them to butcher for 35$ ? Yes I do drown them at birth, and since I assist at 99% of the kiddings here at the farm, all bucks that aren't pre-deposited or part of the soaking wet kid buck sale, have my hand placed over their mouths, so breathing is at a minimum, I place them in a 5 gallon bucket of water and place another 5 gallon bucket of water over them to weight them down. Yes my husband can and does, if he is out at the barn sling them into a post and cause death instantly, I am not good at this so I choose not to do this. There is a big difference between the reality of the working farm in which I have to make a profit or not be able to keep my stock, and someone who has a few animals as pets and family milk, if your doe isn't producing milk for your family because she is nursing 3 buck kids, you go to the local store and purchase milk. I don't have this luxury, my milk customers and milk contract would simply go elsewhere and I would be left with no profit to pay my bills. And it sure does seem recently whether we are on the religious, political and now the animal threads that there is very little compassion around here. It gives me no morbid thrill to kill these lovely kids, it is just truly a fact of life. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 18, 2000.

There are many commercial dairys here. Most send their buck kids to auction at a week or two old. I imagine most are raised for butcher. I sell my bucks and whethers at 'exotic' sales and swaps. I know some probably go to butcher but I am first hand aware of at least 6 that are kept locally as pets, some pull carts and one helps his owner plow his garden each spring. I have requests for about 10 buck kids this season to keep down scrub brush at a neighbors. I do not believe in butchering adult animals any more than babies, I have not eaten meat or bought leather clothing in 10 years.I do have a 9 year old pet saanen whether, Casper the Friendly Goat, who will die of old age on my farm. I'd be happy to take those boys, sure I can do something with them.

-- Dianne (yankeeterrier@hotmail.com), August 22, 2000.

I've heard of people eating newborn goat kids, frankly, even if I could kill the newborn kid, I wouldn't have the appetite for it... I send our buck kids to the auction between the ages of a week to 6 weeks. For the first week there is mostly colostrum, which we can't sell anyways, if the dam is a yearling milker, I will sometimes leave the kid on for several weeks simply because I don't like milking teeny teats and the kids tend to enlarge the teats a little bit. The meat market is good here, but unless you want to sell your nice milkers for meat, they are hard to get rid of. A local goatkeeper says it's because of the Y2K scare, people stocked up on animals, nothing happened, now the market is flooded. Sad but true, I just don't think it is realistic to expect to find pet homes for all the buck kids- hard enough to find homes for the doelings! One or two, maybe, but when you have twenty of them, it's another story.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), August 22, 2000.