Courtesy of Danielle Langloism, Wikipedia CCLGoat Breeding: Know Your Limits
Since today celebrates the day of love, let’s talk about the love of goat breeding — responsible breeding that is.
Most goats breed as the daytime hours grow shorter, which in the Northern Hemisphere results in January-April kidding — an often nasty time of year. So before you breed your herd, think about the end result and how you plan to cope with it.
Don’t breed more does than you can manage. If you breed 10 does and all have triplets, can you deal with that many kids? How many can you bottle feed successfully? How many can you keep warm? Are you willing to spend hours in the barn feeding babies and putting your normal life on hold for 10-12 weeks?
These are questions you need to ask yourself long before kidding season begins. Realizing after the fact that you’re in over your head will turn the fun of caring for goats into a hellish experience and endanger the health of your kids and your does.
Letting nature take its course will kill weaker kids. Are you prepared to dispose of the carcasses and deal with the emotional toll of those losses?
It’s crucial to plan ahead and to be prepared for any eventuality. You need your limitations: physical, time and financial, and breed responsibly based upon your strengths and resources.
Just because you have those 10 does doesn’t mean you should breed all of them at the same time.
Eds. Note: Mary Humphrey, an experienced farmer, at Annie’s Goat Hill explains in this post why she bottle-feeds many of her babies and at one time ended up with 19 in her house.
