What to do with my bucklings?

My Nigerian dwarf goat that I bought as a companion goat ended up being pregnant and kidding yesterday. She had two cute little boys unassisted.
I wonder what other goat herders do with their bucklings. Grow out for meat, sell, band?
If they had been does we would have added them to make our small herd alittle bigger but we do not want to keep bucks.

Hello Tori!  
I raise up the young males and harvest them when they are big enough.   I do not castrate them.   I just separate them from the females so they are no trouble and cannot breed.

Samantha Lewis wrote:Hello Tori!  
I raise up the young males and harvest them when they are big enough.   I do not castrate them.   I just separate them from the females so they are no trouble and cannot breed.

Okay, thank you. I think we are considering that very thing. A couple questions for you though, is it pretty difficult to keep the bucks from the does?
I could potentially put up a make shift paddock pretty far from the does but we don’t have any permanent fencing and have our does trained to electric netting.
Also, when do you usually harvest them?

Hi Tori,  
If you choose not to band, the meat quality is better with a somewhat earlier/younger kill, avoiding adolescence. If you think you might not get around to it before they go through adolescence, banding will buy you time. A wether goat (castrated buck) can also be used as a pack animal if trained to it, but while some friends of ours have gone this route, we have butchered the male kids. We have kept a buck for breeding in the past, but it's easier to cycle through different bucks to keep the bloodlines good. Letting one of our own bucklings mature would require new doe genetics, which is more of a hassle.

If you have really high quality bloodlines, though, keeping the best one as a sire-for-hire could be a path.

Congrats on the successful kidding, and good luck!
Mark

Mark Miner wrote:Hi Tori,  
If you choose not to band, the meat quality is better with a somewhat earlier/younger kill, avoiding adolescence. If you think you might not get around to it before they go through adolescence, banding will buy you time. A wether goat (castrated buck) can also be used as a pack animal if trained to it, but while some friends of ours have gone this route, we have butchered the male kids. We have kept a buck for breeding in the past, but it's easier to cycle through different bucks to keep the bloodlines good. Letting one of our own bucklings mature would require new doe genetics, which is more of a hassle.

If you have really high quality bloodlines, though, keeping the best one as a sire-for-hire could be a path.

Congrats on the successful kidding, and good luck!
Mark

Hey Mark. Thank you so much for your helpful input. I think we may give that a try. They are small goats but will most likely be hard to sell since they are a mix and nothing special in bloodlines. Growing them out and then butchering ourselves would be a really valuable experience.
This sure is an adventure!
Thanks again!

Samantha Lewis wrote:I raise up the young males and harvest them when they are big enough.   I do not castrate them.

Samantha, what general ages and weight ranges do you tend to butcher out your male goats at? I myself don't really align with sexually altering animals in this manner either, but am curious to know what ages and weights you're butchering males at, because I've only butchered does so far, probably in the 130-140lb range (maybe 150lb, hard to remember). They were Boer does.

Thanks.

My 2cts worth;  Harvest weight should be how heavy/big you are still comfortable when handling the animal. The advantage to "bonus" livestock headed to the freezer is you get a pass on the weight, if you get it too big and you get bonus experience , as opposed to having 10-20 to process and knowing after the 1st that " if only I had done this 2 months ago" and have a slog to get to the end.    Castration; the moment you think it, do it, whatever way you choose they all work.    waiting will get you more goats in the spring, the does will get to the bucks, and vice versa, and the bucks get the job done long before a novice believes they're capable. The only true way to separate breeding viable goats is with a freezer

Scott Leonard wrote:My 2cts worth;  Harvest weight should be how heavy/big you are still comfortable when handling the animal. The advantage to "bonus" livestock headed to the freezer is you get a pass on the weight, if you get it too big and you get bonus experience , as opposed to having 10-20 to process and knowing after the 1st that " if only I had done this 2 months ago" and have a slog to get to the end.    Castration; the moment you think it, do it, whatever way you choose they all work.    waiting will get you more goats in the spring, the does will get to the bucks, and vice versa, and the bucks get the job done long before a novice believes they're capable. The only true way to separate breeding viable goats is with a freezer

Thanks for your post.
So are you saying there’s no way for me to keep the two young bucks away from the does, even if I put them a couple acres away?
I didn’t want to castrate because it will hinder their growth rate. Or so I’ve read.
Thanks again!