Buck destruction.

[SDBoerGoats]

I understand the concept of "rut".....I have to....I have a 3 1/2 foot iguana. Lizard males get a hormonal SURGE during specific times of the year, coming into heat much like a female does. He gets moody.....but even then I dont tolerate certain behavior.


Our bull will get more "bullish" when the cows are in heat. We keep this in mind. He can holler. He can pace. He can whine (boy can he whine). But, if he ever makes us scared........meat grinder. The first time. Period, no questions asked. If he ever gets snotty with the other animals, yup, you guessed it. A little A1 sauce fixes the problem.

We had a bull once who decided it was cool to tear up the trees when the heifer came into heat. He moved onto the barn when beating up the trees didnt satisfy him. We wondered what would be next after the barn didnt take care of his frustrations, and he became dog food. Oddly enough, ALL the heifers that we kept out of this bull ended up as culls because of their sorry attitude. One of his daughters actually KILLED another cow by ramming her repeatedly. She died where she stood right there in the pasture.

It will be the same with my goats. I can understand sexual frustration, I can tolerate noise and pacing, but I will not make excuses for an aggressive animal, under any circumstances.

I guess I sound heartless, I dont mean it that way. BUT the herds here..........are easy going and low stress animals. I dont hesitate to walk in and among the herd, with the cows, heifers, calves, AND the bull.

Do what you think is right, its your farm and your animals, so only you know the right answer. Just be cautious that you dont end up breeding him and ending up with a bunch of snotty females.

Well, I pretty much feel the same way. We raised cutting horses for years, had several stallions in training, but we only owned one. I tend to see bad minded stallions produce bad minded colts. The thing is, the bad minded studs didn't make a whole lot better minded geldings. But being a stallion made them worse. Our stud of course knew when mares were in heat, but he never acted up in the show ring, or at home, when he was being ridden or tied in the arena. He was pretty quiet in his pen too, and I can never ever recall being the least bit nervous when it came time to get him to ride, or to breed. And he was what was considered a "hot" bred cutting horse. So I totally get what you are saying, and I am in total agreement.

I am not comfortable with him ramming Sundance in the ribs, he can injure him, and I sure as heck don't like the destruction. I thought goats only came into rut once a year. I am planning on moving Sundance out tomorrow.

 

[ksalvagno]

Bucks coming into rut depends on the breed. Since Nigerian Dwarfs are year round breeders, the boys can be in rut at any time. The seasonal breeders should only be in rut during the fall. I really suspect he is bored or something. Or maybe he just doesn't like the other buck. Either way, this behavior is probably now learned behavior and he will continue it. It is good that you are moving your other buck out. I would worry about him being killed.

 

[quiltnchik]

I understand the concept of "rut".....I have to....I have a 3 1/2 foot iguana. Lizard males get a hormonal SURGE during specific times of the year, coming into heat much like a female does. He gets moody.....but even then I dont tolerate certain behavior.


Our bull will get more "bullish" when the cows are in heat. We keep this in mind. He can holler. He can pace. He can whine (boy can he whine). But, if he ever makes us scared........meat grinder. The first time. Period, no questions asked. If he ever gets snotty with the other animals, yup, you guessed it. A little A1 sauce fixes the problem.

We had a bull once who decided it was cool to tear up the trees when the heifer came into heat. He moved onto the barn when beating up the trees didnt satisfy him. We wondered what would be next after the barn didnt take care of his frustrations, and he became dog food. Oddly enough, ALL the heifers that we kept out of this bull ended up as culls because of their sorry attitude. One of his daughters actually KILLED another cow by ramming her repeatedly. She died where she stood right there in the pasture.

It will be the same with my goats. I can understand sexual frustration, I can tolerate noise and pacing, but I will not make excuses for an aggressive animal, under any circumstances.

I guess I sound heartless, I dont mean it that way. BUT the herds here..........are easy going and low stress animals. I dont hesitate to walk in and among the herd, with the cows, heifers, calves, AND the bull.

Do what you think is right, its your farm and your animals, so only you know the right answer. Just be cautious that you dont end up breeding him and ending up with a bunch of snotty females.

I'm with Redtailgal here - that buck would be in the freezer, quick and in a hurry. If not my own, then someone else's who likes the taste of buck in rut (and there are cultures who do). I just can not and will not tolerate a mean animal.

 

[mydakota]

Well, I am a newbie buck owner, so I have no experience, but I can tell you that I have had several stallions and I would not put up with the equine equivalent of this behavior for a single moment. One of the main reasons I have my animals--even my farm animals--is because I enjoy them. He doesn't sound enjoyable. He also sounds irritating and potentially dangerous. I think I would keep the mellow guy, and replace the other one with another mellow guy. My buck is only a yearling, but so far he has been a funny, affectionate, people-loving guy. I like him. I am not scared of him. He better stay that way.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

Well, I am a newbie buck owner, so I have no experience, but I can tell you that I have had several stallions and I would not put up with the equine equivalent of this behavior for a single moment. One of the main reasons I have my animals--even my farm animals--is because I enjoy them. He doesn't sound enjoyable. He also sounds irritating and potentially dangerous. I think I would keep the mellow guy, and replace the other one with another mellow guy. My buck is only a yearling, but so far he has been a funny, affectionate, people-loving guy. I like him. I am not scared of him. He better stay that way.

Sundance so far is a doll. He is just over a year, but he bred does last fall and his disposition is the same. I was just curious if this was considered normal for a buck, my SIL feels it's macho for a buck to be this way, I don't. I wouldn't tolerate it in a stud horse and I sure don't want to put up with it in a buck. Since he is the first buck we have ever owned, I didn't really know if this was supposed to be accepted, I SEE the difference between him and Sundance, and believe me, Sundance is my pick. Sadly today, for no reason, my yearling doe that was bred to Sundance, just fell over and died while eating at the manger. She was due the end of this month.

 

[mydakota]

I am so sorry to hear about your doe! What a terrible thing to have happen.

 

[Roll farms]

Get rid of the buck.

We had a big, gorgeous solid black FB buck who made really nice kids. He tore down a new welded gate in the barn, dented up the metal in the same barn (when it was new), would beat up on / chase the other bucks from feed, but the worst thing - at breeding time, he decided for whatever reason that he hated Raven, a yearling black boer doe. He hit her in the shoulder area and broke her neck. We had to put her down after several days of hoping she'd improve.

We suspect she wasn't yet in heat and he was 'punishing' her for not allowing him to breed.

He'd already been 'sold' at that point, and was to be picked up when we were done w/ him. Needless to say, I WAS DONE when sweet Raven died.

The folks who bought him have lost 3 goats to Train.

Get rid of him before something 'worse' happens.

And I'm sorry you lost your doe.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

Thank you all for your input. It's so good to hear from others who know goats that I am not just a whiner, that this buck really has some hostility issues. He's not happy right now alone in his pen, but I am no longer worried that Sundance will suffer some kind of internal injury and die from being rammed into the side of the barn!

 

[Queen Mum]

I don't think that getting rid of a buck or killing him is always the answer. Nor do I think those "aggressive bucks" are really "dangerous" or "aggressive" that need to be meat. You can convince yourself he is dangerous. Yes, you can cull him, or sell him or eat him. He sounds like an out of control adolescent in need of some training to me.

I liken them to Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs. People buy them because they are beautiful dogs and wonderful cute pups. But then they become abused, often abandoned, because when they are adolescents they turn into destructive barking maniacs. These poor animals are called dangerous and aggressive and stupid and nasty and all manner of things. They are none of these things. What they really are is ill mannered, and untrained.

Many bucks go through stages at a young age. Ramming and destruction CAN be a stage for a young buck. AS can be head butting and other aggressive behaviors.

In nature all that ramming has a purpose and the other older bucks in the buck herds control it. They grow out of it and learn to manage it or they don't survive. Unfortunately we humans have interfered with the natural order of herd training when we separate bucks and does from a herd and keep them in pens and out of the fields and off of mountains. So we don't leave them to learn from each other. THUS we have the option to replace natural herd training ourselves. Younger ones can be trained and can change those behaviors. AND the training is often very successful. If the training doesn't work, THAT is when they need to be culled.

I have to say, I have gotten some pretty nice animals from people selling "bad nusances" they weren't willing to train.

 

[Roll farms]

Not everyone has time to "train" / deal with a destructive buck. People who work full time can't 'hope' he doesn't misbehave and kill something while they're away and not there to 'correct' them. It's not 'wrong' to get rid of a problem animal if you haven't got the time to deal w/ them, or if you're worried about your other animals. At 2.5 yrs old, he's not a 'young' buck anymore, he's got bad habits, possibly a bad attitude, and has proven he's destructive.

You can call it whatever you like, and excuse it however you wish...but I won't bother w/ a mean buck.
Especially when there are truly many, many more out there who'll never give you an ounce of trouble.

And, I disagree, some animals are born 'bad' and no amount of 'work' will fix it. I feel the same way about humans. It's sad, but true. Not everyone is a 'fixer upper'.
I agree that many dogs / breeds are misunderstood and rehomed / abandoned for that reason....but that's comparing apples to oranges and distracting.

Life's too short to spend it worrying about my other animals or people who might get hurt.
We've had 2 mean bucks. The one I spoke of before, and a Kiko buck who went after my daughter with blood in his eyes and his head down, at a full run.

HE WOULD HAVE HURT HER.

I didn't have to convince myself of that fact, I saw it w/ my own eyes and had to nearly break my arms dragging him away from her. It took 4 men to load that buck the next day.

I didn't have to train the other bucks I've owned and currently own, in over 13 yrs of experience w/ bucks.