What goat was I tricked into getting?

[justhatchin]

I would say NO! My pygmy buck is very possessive of "his" females and fights with any other buck thats 'of age' and the 7 month old is.
You will need a separate pen for the female when it is birthing time, it is not safe to leave the buck with her(at least in the last month) -I would separate the buck from the doe, then the bucks might run together with minimal fighting -some is always going to happen as they are setting dominance.

 

[griffin45]

The pictures are no longer there, but the question of putting the goats together is. MissPrissy is absolutley right! They will establish a pecking order and will live happily together. Goats are herd animals and need a herd. I have four seperate pens/pastures that all border each other. The only reason to keep them seperate is for quarantine. Keep them seperate, but together for 30 days and then put them together and let them sort out their dominance. They are really good at it!

 

[helmstead]

Hey - Miss Prissy - ahem...these aren't dairy goats, LOL...they breed year round! He'll need to separate the bucks together, and get the doe a girlfriend!

I cannot see pics here...but let me try to clarify.

Your average everyday person calls ANY goat that is "smallish" a Pygmy (also can be spelled pigmy, haha). Most of these goats are just small brush goats. Some do have some Pygmy in them, some are part Nigerian.

I have a GA Grade Pygmy (ahem...pigmy, LOL) who weighs 100 lbs but is only 18" tall. She's a HOSS...

Unless you are buying registered goats, which are considerably more expensive, when you buy a Pygmy goat you just don't know what you've got unless they come from a known herd.

Oh, and yeah...I stand where Miss Prissy stands on horns. No biggie, most of my goats are horned and we have no issues.

 

[MissPrissy]

If there is no plan to breed these goats he was "tricked" into bringing home I suggest whethering and running them as a herd. I thought I had suggested that before but see I left it out of my post.

 

[helmstead]

Gotcha

 

[Akane]

I would whether at least one of them even if you are breeding. You only need one male since you don't have a large herd of females and I doubt are seriously interested in producing various lines from your goats. If you want to breed keep 1 male (probably the smaller) and maybe get another doe or whether to keep with the female when you seperate the buck outside of breeding season. That way you have 2 pairs while they are seperate with no fights or breeding going on. They would also be more likely to get along together when put all together with only 1 intact male. If your not planning on breeding I'd just get them both cut. Bucks can be a lot of work and often not as good of pets as whethers.

Unless your getting registered stock nothing is guranteed. If you wanted a certain size you should have looked for full grown adults of that size or made sure the parents of the kid(s) were both the desired size. It's no one's fault but your own if you bring home unregistered animals without doing any research into them and are unhappy with the result. It's always a gamble to do something like that.

 

[Haviris]

The pics are gone, but pygmies that aren't disbudded will have horns and they can get quite large! 60lbs is probably about right for an adult male pygmy. And just a note that 7 month old is not full grown, he's still got alot of growing to do, he may end up just as big as the other boy.

That said I see alot of goats being called pygmies that are not, or atleast not full. Pygmies are popular and common enough and are generally the only mini sized goat most people have heard of, so they tend to call any smallish goat a pygmy.

 

[Fudgie]

I have 4 pygmy goats all running together 2 bucks and 2 does and they do fine. Like MissPrissy said they are a herd, just like you have 2 bulls running with 15 cows, it works. They know who is dominant and if the little guy wants to take on the bigger guy for top dog, well then let them...they aren't going to kill themselves.