So the reality is, people eat goats. Just like people eat cows or chickens. And meat is the fate of many a male goat (and bull calf). We will raise about 40 meat goats this year and sell them mostly to restaurants in the San Francisco area (perhaps have one at my wedding in May?).
We pull the intended boys from their mothers after 3-4 days, when their mother’s milk is clean enough to go into the milk tank and sell. The boys then learn to drink from a beer bottle filled with milk from other freshening does. (Freshen means a doe (cow, horse) has babies and starts producing milk.)
Then the meat boys graduate to the bucket. The bucket has ten nipples sticking out of it, so it is like a milk buffet free-for-all; easier and faster for the farmer and the kid. These guys get 2 buckets a day and they certainly loudly demand their meals.
It has been a quiet couple days on the kidding front; only one set of twins in three days. Some of the youngest kids finally aren’t so much white. This soft little guy’s dad is our other herdsire, Sting, who is an alpine buck.
We are resting up for a kidding storm to match our long awaited rain storm – 26 does are due to kid in the next week!
