How old should your buck be?

[that's*satyrical]

Before he is ready to go? Should you limit how many does he is bred to til he gets to a certain age? My guy was born last August & he tries to breed the babies all the time but seems intimidated by the older does.

 

[ksalvagno]

If you have a huge herd, then you would probably want to limit the breedings with a younger male. But if you have a small herd, then it probably wouldn't matter. Not sure on age. They aren't fully mature until age 2 or 3 but people are fully using them before then.

 

[that's*satyrical]

Thanks Karen. This is my little guy. I can't wait to see what kind of babies we get from him. Hoping for polled, blue eyed kids that grow up to have gorgeous udders & nice conformation. Don't want much eh? lol He has the genetics for it so I think he can do it! Here is a pic of him.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

My Boer bucking was born end of January 2011, and he bred a couple of does in July, when he was 6 months old. His first doe produced triplets! Most of the does were pulled out to get ready to go to fair, so he didn't breed any others.

 

[that's*satyrical]

Wow I guess his parts were working well enough to throw triplets!! lol That is good to hear.

 

[elevan]

The quantity of kids isn't determined by the buck but by the doe. The buck determines gender.

They can be sexually viable as early as 8 weeks. I would think that 6 months would be a minimum that I would attempt to purposely use a buck.

 

[that's*satyrical]

He is 7 1/2 months. I would like to use him soon. The buck would still need to get 3 healthy spermies to fertilize the eggs though so he does determine the number a little bit. If the doe produces 4 healthy viable eggs & only one healthy sperm makes it to fertilize one of the eggs you would only have a singleton. The other 3 eggs would just die off.

 

[redtailgal]

Actually thats satyrical any male that only put out 1 healthy sperm would be declared sterile.

A teaspoon of ejaculate contains many thousands of sperm (and according to the link provided below, in a weeks time a male goat can produce as mush as 25 BILLION sperms). This is why AI has become so popular.......many females can be serviced from the sperm from one ejaculate session.

It's like the male says "GREAT! Lets have 25 billion kids, but then the female trumps him by only putting out three eggs, and allow those eggs to choose the most viable sperm out of the millions.




http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/goats/Reso enNuti.pdf edited to correct the link: http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/goats/Resources/GoatArticles/GoatGeneticsRepro/GoatSemenNuti.pdf

 

[that's*satyrical]

Actually thats satyrical any male that only put out 1 healthy sperm would be declared sterile.

A teaspoon of ejaculate contains many thousands of sperm (and according to the link provided below, in a weeks time a male goat can produce as mush as 25 BILLION sperms). This is why AI has become so popular.......many females can be serviced from the sperm from one ejaculate session.

It's like the male says "GREAT! Lets have 25 billion kids, but then the female trumps him by only putting out three eggs, and allow those eggs to choose the most viable sperm out of the millions.




http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/goats/Reso enNuti.pdf edited to correct the link: http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/goats/Resources/GoatArticles/GoatGeneticsRepro/GoatSemenNuti.pdf

True, but I didn't say he only HAD one healthy sperm, I said only one made it to fertilize one of the eggs And technically the egg doesn't choose the sperm it's the first one to eat through the vitelline membrane that surrounds the egg, generally the strongest of the batch. The chances of only one making it would be greater if there were less to begin with, so that would be my concern with using a younger buck. That he wouldn't have enough yet to get the job done.

 

[AdoptAPitBull]

You may also want to wait till at least 8 months or when you can see his conformation developing as an adult. Sometimes they look perfect as a kid, and grow up a little awkward. If you breed too early, you may have just introduced a fault to your future kids that you weren't fully aware was there. Just something to think about.