Nigerian Goats

cassie said:

Thank you.

Click to expand...

No problem.

Did you get your goaties?

Hi
i have bought a pair of the small goats
i live in Bulgaria and they are quite rare
i have a boy an a girl non related can i keep them togter??? they are 8 months old???
if i cant keep them together is there an injection to stop the male getting horny ,i know there is one for dogs

do they only produce milk when pregnant or is there every day ?

so but i know very little about therse i bought them for my grankids when they come
judging by the thread you alll keep them for milk

chrisarvor said:

Hi
i have bought a pair of the small goats
i live in Bulgaria and they are quite rare
i have a boy an a girl non related can i keep them togter??? they are 8 months old???
if i cant keep them together is there an injection to stop the male getting horny ,i know there is one for dogs

do they only produce milk when pregnant or is there every day ?

so but i know very little about therse i bought them for my grankids when they come
judging by the thread you alll keep them for milk

Click to expand...

Welcome to the world of goats! Just a quick note, in the future, you will have better luck starting a new post than just jumping on an old one. That being said...

Can you keep them together? Theoretically yes, but it is highly discouraged. Right now, they are sexually mature enough to be bred, but without knowing their size I can't say whether or not the doe is big enough to be bred. If you keep them together, the buck can and will harass the doe all year long, resulting in back to back to back breedings. This is incredibly hard on your doe. Not to mention if she has any daughters, he will breed them when they are too young and the resulting kid would be very inbred.
As for an injection? I have no idea. The only options for "birth control" for goats in the U.S. I've seen is to A - castrate the male or B - seperate the male and female (buck and doe).
Seperation... that bring me to another point. If you seperate them, you really need to get each one another goat to live with. The doe needs another doe or a wether (castrated male), and the buck needs a wether. Goats do not do well living by themselves. And no a horse, sheep, dog, llama, insert some other animal breed here, is not an acceptable companion. Goats are herd animals.

A doe must kid (have babies) before she will produce milk. Most folks breed their doe once a year, and dry the doe off 2 months prior to kidding. They need a couple months break to replenish their bodies and finish growing those babies. If you do not want babies, some does can be persuaded to keep milking through. Meaning, you just keep milking them and not breed them. Some does dry up on their own, and some will keep milking. If you do milk through, generally they will slow down over the winter, and pick back up in the spring.

I am not familiar with Bulgarian goats, but you didn't say what breed you have, just that they are "small goats". Here in the U.S. we have the Nigerian Dwarf that was bred to be a miniature milk goat. As such, you are correct in that most people keep them for milk. We also have a breed called the Pygmy, and they were bred to be a miniature meat goat. They are mainly kept as pets or for butchering. The point of telling you this is that you may or may not have a milk goat breed... I don't know. If you have more info on that, it would be great. If you do have a milk goat breed, and you choose to have the doe have babies (which there is a fair chance that she is already bred if the buck and doe have been running together) you may need to milk her.

If you have any other questions, please let us know!