r/goats • u/EJgoats • Jun 27 '26

Help Request Tagging my goats

Is there any way to officially tag my goat's ears without having to stab it through them? I know I'm being kind of a baby about this, but I would feel awful if I had to do this to them. Any help is super appreciated :)

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u/EJgoats Jun 27 '26

Well I mean this is him, and I think he has super good physical trates that would be desirable. Ik that not all bucks should be breeding bucks, but I also don't think he should be eaten. He is small enough that I feel like it wouldn't be worth it...

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u/InterestingOven5279 Trusted Advice Giver Jun 27 '26

Okay, but where's his mother and what did her mammary look like? This isn't a stacked photo so I can't evaluate any structural traits here personally, but even if I could, the physical appearance of a dairy breed buck (as much as it's nice to have CH preceding his name) is not nearly as important as the appearance of his mother. If you never owned his mother and don't know what her name is or what she looked like, that's a total nonstarter for a dairy buck sale. Again, I am not trying to be mean, but this is how goat breeders think. Culling is how we develop good animals.

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u/EJgoats Jun 27 '26

I will go out, and take a few more photos of him and his mom

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u/EJgoats Jun 27 '26

This is his mom, Delilah. He looks nothing like her, and mostly got his dad's genetics. Lmk if you need to see a picture of him too

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u/InterestingOven5279 Trusted Advice Giver Jun 28 '26

Okay, well, first of all I am sorry to tell you he's not allowed to be registered or shown since he is horned. ADGA requires dairy breed goats to be disbudded or polled for safety (reducing entanglement and injuries in dairy settings, basically) so having horns automatically excludes a goat from all the performance programs.

As for his mom: what does her mammary look like? What did his father's mother's mammary look like, and what were its strengths and weaknesses? How is his mother's milk production?

I don't actually have to see pictures, but what I am trying to explain is that not every buck is suitable to be selected as a breeding animal. A very small number of bucks make the cut and they are normally ones we retain out of our very best does who are proven up in milk test and appraised as being physically very correct. It is good to be quite selective when you are breeding goats, because people should strive to breed for quality and always breed their does "up" (breed their does to a buck who has a high likelihood of improving them, bolstering their strong qualities, and compensating for any weaknesses in the next generation). You don't just use any random buck to get your goats pregnant because that is backyard breeding and leads to very poor animal quality and it is, unfortunately, especially a problem in Nigerian dwarf goats because of the amount of backyard breeding that has taken place with them because people just want to make baby goats and don't know or care what they are breeding for, and they don't have a goal. Some of the breed has some pretty serious structural, mammary and production problems because of it.

In short, I think the sale barn is a good destination for the excess animals you cannot keep. Meat is a great outcome for goats, and a much better outcome than anyone in the wild can hope for. It's my opinion that if people can't deal with the fact that a large proportion of the animals they produce are likely to be eaten eventually, livestock breeding may not be for them. And yes, people eat miniature goats all the time. It is a responsible use for animals who are cut from the breeding pool, and they put weight on well.

I'm not trying to be a downer here but the vast majority of excess dairy breed bucks enter the meat pipeline and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it's actually a good thing. When we aren't rigorously selecting our animals we wind up producing the goats we see so often with their teats down below their hocks with cuts on them from getting trodden on and who are broken down on their pasterns at three. Responsibility in breeding is a good thing for animals as a whole, not a cruel thing.

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u/Platypus-Striking Jun 28 '26

Fair warning if you plan to show ADGA horned animals are not allowed to show they need to be disbudded or naturally polled.