How To Manage Goat Breeding Season

Many people think that breeding goats is super easy – let the buck live with the does and five months later you will have baby goats!  

While that is the most important piece, actually managing breeding season when you have 32 does and 7 bucks (3 of which are young and you aren’t using), is more complicated. Colter and Emery do a great job of explaining how we manage breeding season at Goat Milk Stuff in this video.

We’ve worked hard to breed quality goats that are easy keepers, easy to hand milk, and produce a large quantity of milk.  The boys (particularly Colter and Emery) make recommendations on which buck they think should be used with which doe.

I’m the one who makes the final breeding decisions, but the boys are the ones that insure the plan is properly carried out and bucks don’t get mixed up with the wrong does.  They have to be very careful when they are milking and moving goats around to remember which goat belongs in which pen.

DSC_1303_blog

Breeding season is a very important piece to managing Goat Milk Stuff. Without breeding season, there are no baby goats.  And without baby goats there is no fresh milk supply.  And without an adequate milk supply, there is not enough goat milk soap.  

We need to make forecasts for our soap demand and milk needs at least a year out so we can decide how many milkers we need and how many doelings to retain.  Keeping Goat Milk Stuff operating smoothly requires a lot of thought and a lot of teamwork.  There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle, but going from baby goats to goat milk soap all begins with breeding season.

PJ

Related posts:

Goats and Horns
How Many Kids Can a Bath Tub Hold?
Kid Crib
Zalaxy and Zelena
Jacinta
What is the Best Goat to Get?
Posted on
Category: Goats
*Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

4 thoughts on “How To Manage Goat Breeding Season”

  1. Hi there, PJ,
    We the Kiessling family have a few questions about your goats..:) We are just getting started on our little dairy goat farm. We live on an acre in Nevada. We have a fenced in area in the front of the house. The fence is stock panels similar to yours. It does not have any grass, however. Just sagebrush…:) The backyard is where we keep our 2 goats now. They are Toggenbergs. A doe & her doeling – mama is 2 & doeling is 8 months. The fence in the back is chain link. There is also a shed to sleep in. Our questions are: what are – in your opinion – are the pros & cons – of owning your own buck? The previous owner is older & she kind of talked us out of purchasing a buckling. Now, it is time to breed the doe (Bailey) & we are going to be without the wonderful milk for 5 months. And being a first time goat owner – we did not factor that in…:(
    We would like another opinion – someone who looks like they might know a little more….;) She just made it sound like buck were mean & nasty & gross, etc…………..But yours do not look like that.
    I would really appreciate any advice. Thank you & Have a Blessed day – Janet

    • What to do about a buck when you only have 1 or 2 goats is a difficult issue. I usually recommend that you buy a newborn buckling and bottle raise it. We have never had issues with bucklings being mean. The problem is that after 2 months you can’t keep it with the girls and it may not thrive if you keep it by itself. If you can keep it where it can see the girls is the best bet. Or you can get it a whether companion. Bucks will stink when they come into rut, but it is not bad when they are little. I recommend that you use him for breeding and then sell him and get another baby the following year. You can milk the dam for the first 3 months of her gestation. You only need to dry her off for the last 2 months of it. And honestly, while we miss having fresh milk, we always enjoy having a break from milking during the coldest two months of the year.
      Hope that helps!
      PJ

      • Thank you so much! And it does help! Right now, we are renting our house. It sits on an acre. In a couple of years – we are hoping to find a piece of land with more acres on it to house everybody on…:). And to expand our herd. Right now – we just do not want to put stuff on this land that we can’t take with us.
        BTW, what ways do you recommend on drying off the doe? Tips…..;)

        • We’ve never had an issue with it. We go down to once a day for a while and then just stop. Keep an eye on the udder to make sure it doesn’t get so full it is tempted to leak. If it does, milk it out once. PJ

Comments are closed.