Learn how to breed goats 4 different ways in this video.
If you have dairy goats, and want to milk them, eventually you will have to breed them. If you have meat goats, and want to keep having meat goats, you will have to breed them.
The point is most most goat owners will at some time need to have them bred. What is the best way to breed your goats?
There are a few different options for the homesteader looking to breed their goats.
- Own a Breeding Pair -Of course you can own a buck and a doe and just keep them together, and eventually they will breed. This works great if you don’t mind owning a buck. But bucks are a lot of extra work for most homesteaders. Usually though, as a small scale homesteader, there are better options that don’t require you to have a buck on your homestead.
- Lease a Buck – Many farms will be willing to lease a good quality buck to you for a stud service fee. You will need to care for their animal, and this will increase your workload on your homestead, but only for the short amount of time you have the buck on your property.
- Send Your Does for a Stay Over Stud Service – Some farms will not lease out their studs, but will have the option to leave your does with them for a time to be bred. Usually you will need to pay for the stud service and lodging, but this gives you a nice little break from your homestead work while your does get bred.
- The Goat Hookup – This is the hardest method of breeding your goats to get right… meeting with a doe ready to be bred and a buck in rut at a place, letting them together for an hour and hope a breeding takes. We have tried this, and sadly our goat hookup didn’t take.
Over the last decade of homesteading we have found the easiest, simplest way to breed your goats is to lease a buck or allow your girls to go off to a farm for a stud service. It is usually more cost effective to lease a buck to keep on your property or to allow your does to go off to another farm for a stud service. You save money not owning a buck, while also giving your does more time to be bred than just an hour meet up.
If you can, plan on breeding your does this fall, and look forward to babies in the spring!
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