Goat Breeding - A Collection of Articles on Mating, Kidding, the Buck and Other Aspects of Goat Breeding

By Read Books Ltd.

This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience. Each publication has been professionally curated and includes all details on the original source material. This particular instalment, "Goat Breeding" contains information on the buck, mating and kidding. It is intended to illustrate the main aspects of goat breeding and serves as a guide for anyone wishing to obtain a general knowledge of the subject and understand the field in its historical context. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473354562

Book preview

Walsh

Your Guide to Breeding.

WHILE I hope that you will start your goat-keeping with an in-kid nanny, so that questions concerning breeding will not trouble you during your first few months in your new venture, it is best, I suppose, to take first things first, and deal in this chapter with the mating of goats.

As far as milk production only is concerned, mating a nanny with any handy billy will produce the desired result. But where it is also desired to rear kids and improve one’s strain, rather more is involved. Only pedigree males from proved milking stock should be used.

Goat-keepers have been particularly fortunate in the matter of breeding in that, until the war, the Government subsidised a Stud Goat Scheme by which cottagers, smallholders, and artisan goat-owners could obtain the services of first-class pedigree stud males at fees not in excess of 4/-—fees which in the ordinary way might be two or three guineas.

While it is unfortunate that, owing to the war, the Scheme has had to be suspended, the majority of stud goat owners are still allowing services on pretty well the same terms; and such stud goats are to be found in practically every district. You can start with the veriest scrub nanny and by breeding consistently to pedigree males can have gallon milkers of your own within a very few seasons.

Normally goats breed only during the season extending from the beginning of September to the end of February. The period the kids are carried is approximately five months or 21 weeks. When you buy an in-kid goat, then, find out exactly when she was mated, and you can tell within a few days when the kids will be born. The following table will help you in this respect.

I said previously that goats normally breed from September to February inclusive. Goats can be mated before and after this period, but in season signs are not so prominent, and the results are not so certain. Also, no two goats are alike. Some, coming early in season, kid down in early spring (all to the good, the kids having the best growing weather before them); but others do not appear in any hurry, and in seeking their mates late in the season kid in late summer or early autumn—these are termed "winter