Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Dillemma

I really want to keep the adorable new baby goat, who is now named Storm Cloud (Cloudy for short). I am trying six ways from sunday to justify it. If I had my own herd sire, I'd save $50 to $200 per year, depending on how many does I'm breeding. And I've always wanted spotty goats. Iris is from lovely spotty goat lines, but this baby is the first evidence that truly spectacular spots are possible in my herd.  

Spotty goats are very popular and I might have better luck selling them - though realistically, only if I had them registered, which is a big fat pain in the tuchus. I lost the paperwork on Iris, so I don't know how I'd go about getting her registered - maybe as "native on appearance" or something like that. But let's be honest, I'm not going to do that. And there isn't much of a market for goats right now anyway, in fact, none at all. In my area. 

If I keep him, he could breed everybody except Flopsy. I'm pretty sure it's okay to breed him back to Iris, his grandam. And they'd have gorgeous babies.

On the other hand, my other does are not Nubians. All of them would have little cross breeds, which are basically worthless. My best bet is to sell or trade him to a local breeder and ask for breedings back. Maybe my sister wants him. Doubtful, but a possibility. 

Okay. It's a plan anyway. 

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm... We are going to Monroe Sunday to look at a colored angora buck. IF we decide to get him, that's a BIG IF, then we would consider getting (or keeping) a Nubian buck too. Our own have some advantages, we already love them and they are here, we wouldn't have to worry about finding ours homes (which is tricky with the boys) and they will be registered, however we only have one (of three) does that we could breed any of ours too. Iris has a far superior udder and those spots, both would be nice to add to our herd. I'll talk to marcus.

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