# Price of bottle bucklings?



## bradgoats (Apr 22, 2015)

I am looking at some boer bottle babies just a few days old, can anyone help me with an acceptable price range? They will be for my kids 4-h whethers and are from some good lines. I know it is hard to price something but I don't want to pay waaaay too much!


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

I sell mine, no papers nothing for $50. The problem though, as a buyer, is the milk is going to cost quite a bit. I've never kept track of how much I spend in milk on my bottle kids but I'm pretty sure it is not cheaper then buying a weaned kid at market price. But the kids I sell go to this lady who has a bunch of dairy does so it doesn't cost much for her


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## nancy d (Oct 5, 2007)

A wild guess would be at least 50. and if your 4h has no horns rule they are going to have to be disbudded by the time they are a week old.
And they will need the sellers scrapie ID.


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## odieclark (Jan 21, 2016)

Depends-we have seen them at auction-rarely, but cheap-most times! $10-40. Bad part of auction is you don't know what you are getting and you rarely get cream of the crop!

Sometimes you can get lucky, though if you check with others who raise them nearby you maybe you can ask them? We have asked around by us, and have gotten lucky at times.

Also check craiglist and ask questions. Often the person has more than what they post and sometimes know of a neighbor as well.

At auctions the 4h kids drive the prices up, and can request select.


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## bradgoats (Apr 22, 2015)

I have a milk cow with too much milk for my family to drink so we are good with milk, I see bottle dairy bucks are usually 10 bucks around here but I am not sure they are much use later


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Perfect!! If she is a jersey they will grow like crazy! No don't spend the money on the dairy guys unless your just wanting a pet. That how I first got into goats, going to make my fortune in dairy bottle kids, it was pretty disheartening when they didn't even cover part of their feed bill.....and that's milk aside since I bought a Nubian and lamancha to feed them. I think they were 5-6 months old and I got $40-60 for them :/ if I didn't fall in love with the does my goating days would have been over lol. But here's so figures for you on the difference, so $40-60 and at 4 months old on my boer kids, just going threw the sale I'll get between $125-$150. Of course that's ball park prices sometimes I'll get more and sometimes I'll have one that is kinda a runt and get less. Last year I sold at low times and I averaged $135.50 a head


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## rebelINny (Feb 7, 2014)

Jessica did you sell at a local auction or through some other market?


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Jessica84 said:


> Perfect!! If she is a jersey they will grow like crazy! No don't spend the money on the dairy guys unless your just wanting a pet. Or a pack boy...


Fixed that for you Jessica lol


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## NyGoatMom (Jan 26, 2013)

^^ :lol:


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

thank you Jill! I can honestly see why they use dairy wethers for packing. There's a guy on the way to town that has a bunch of alpine wethers, those suckers are huge!! 
I sold mine threw auction


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## rebelINny (Feb 7, 2014)

Jessica84 said:


> Perfect!! If she is a jersey they will grow like crazy! No don't spend the money on the dairy guys unless your just wanting a pet. That how I first got into goats, going to make my fortune in dairy bottle kids, it was pretty disheartening when they didn't even cover part of their feed bill.....and that's milk aside since I bought a Nubian and lamancha to feed them. I think they were 5-6 months old and I got $40-60 for them :/ if I didn't fall in love with the does my goating days would have been over lol. But here's so figures for you on the difference, so $40-60 and at 4 months old on my boer kids, just going threw the sale I'll get between $125-$150. Of course that's ball park prices sometimes I'll get more and sometimes I'll have one that is kinda a runt and get less. Last year I sold at low times and I averaged $135.50 a head


Do you sell at a regular auction?


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Yes anything I can't sell privately and don't want to keep goes to auction. Usually I only sell breeding stock privately since I live so far from most people it's actually cheaper for them to go to the sale to buy butcher goats by the time they figure in gas. Of course not all the ones that end up at the sale go for butcher but they still prefer sale yard buying over driving up here


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## rebelINny (Feb 7, 2014)

Just curious, as we have a bunch of Boer mix bottle kids we are raising. Trying to decide if we will get a decent price through the local auction around Easter or something else


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

I get the best prices right before Cinco De Mayo.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

When ever you sell make sure it's before cinco de mayo, the prices drop so bad after that and don't go up till October and then seem to shoot sky high after the first of the year. There's pros and cons with selling at the auction around a holiday I have learned. There's a lot of buyers but there is also a lot of sellers. I stopped trying to sell around holidays because unless you can get in to sell in the first part of the sale it's the same as any other day and depending on how many sellers it could be worse. BUT every auction is different. For mine there are only 2 big buyers that I think have their own butcher house or some kind of hook up and then the rest are do it your self butcher people. If the auction house isn't that far away and you have the time it wouldn't hurt to just go and watch and see what's going on. It's very interesting! One auction place here the way they do it is whoever gets there first sells first. The other it doesn't matter when you come they all go into the same pen unless you have a very large group then you get your own pen and sell first. I don't like the second place, it's dirty and nasty and no way in heck I would ever buy something back if it went for next to nothing. The first place is cleaner and have a bunch of pens and if I had to buy back (never have) I wouldn't feel totally grossed out having to bring it home and putting in a pen as far away from my other goats till the following week


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## rebelINny (Feb 7, 2014)

Good to know, thanks. Yeah all the goats are generally run together but the babies are separate. I would have such a large lot I think they would put them in one big group by themselves.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Make sure that's how they do it though, I know of one place back east that will separate goats by size and quality and put them all together with other goats the same size and quality


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## Lstein (Oct 2, 2014)

Every time I've sold bottle babies, I ask $50 each and usually make some kind of deal if they take all of them. That's for commercial grade boer cross kids. I would think if they have some name backing they could go for quite a bit more.


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## jaimn (May 16, 2015)

Jessica84 said:


> Make sure that's how they do it though, I know of one place back east that will separate goats by size and quality and put them all together with other goats the same size and quality


I know this is about bottle babies, but I had a friend that sold his registered, pregnant doe at a local auction - got $87 for her. She had been thrown in a group of 6 miscellaneous goats and sold as a lot. Just something I think about every time I think of selling at auction. It does work for a lot of people tho.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Oh I would be livid!!! and there was no chance of them buying her back unless they took the whole dang lot. I am pretty sure the sales are not supposed to sell different people's animals together. There isn't a sale that I know of that does that with cattle and I think because they know they would get in trouble. A lot of sales still think of goats and sheep as a joke and that makes me so mad especially because, at least here, they charge enough commission it shouldn't be thought of as a joke. I pay 10% commission on my goats and the highest I have ever paid on my cattle is 3%. I actually paid more commission in the end on my goats then I did on my cows and made way more money off the cows :/


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## Lstein (Oct 2, 2014)

jaimn said:


> I know this is about bottle babies, but I had a friend that sold his registered, pregnant doe at a local auction - got $87 for her. She had been thrown in a group of 6 miscellaneous goats and sold as a lot. Just something I think about every time I think of selling at auction. It does work for a lot of people tho.


Were the other goats that one was grouped with his? Because that's definitely not something that's standard practice here if they aren't.

Everything here is grouped (usually) by first: seller > sex > size/age.

Maybe we're the ones that are different up here? I don't know.....

Another thing I just thought of, usually the auctioneer will say something about lots that are "special"...have papers, bred, blood lines, for breeding stock, etc.

Is this not the case anywhere else?


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## odieclark (Jan 21, 2016)

So is a bottle buckling defined as a buck on a bottle? At what age is the buck when you are selling or buying it? 

I realize there are variations. But curious what the $50 is getting you? How old of a buck? What is the weight of it?


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

odieclark said:


> So is a bottle buckling defined as a buck on a bottle? At what age is the buck when you are selling or buying it?
> 
> I realize there are variations. But curious what the $50 is getting you? How old of a buck? What is the weight of it?


For me $50 is yes a little buckling on a bottle, and that's as soon as I can sell it last 24 hours....that way he gets colostrum. I don't like a doe raising more then twins, some do great others not so much so for me that's simply $50 with no money into it.....it's total profit and not even counting on having them. Meaning I have 70 does so I figure I will have 140 kids. Now some I won't put up for sale first thing and I'll wait a day or two to see if anyone has a single I can sneak it onto but after 2 days it's not worth trying.

With both sale yards I go to they will sell papered animals by themselves. The one I'm not fond of anything that is 'bred' or in milk will go in a separate pen and sold first as well as papered stock. The one I go to they will not say that anything is bred because there is simply no proof of them being bred. The ones in milk (by that I mean dairy does) they will actually show you that milk comes out. 
The sale in not fond of and sells everyone's goats together is the one that really treats it as though goats are basically a joke and I think I am the only one that has ever confronted him about it. Most of the sellers as well as buyers don't even speak English


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## Lstein (Oct 2, 2014)

odieclark said:


> So is a bottle buckling defined as a buck on a bottle? At what age is the buck when you are selling or buying it?
> 
> I realize there are variations. But curious what the $50 is getting you? How old of a buck? What is the weight of it?


 Mine are about a week old when they leave, during that time they are on the dam but when I get home from work I separate the bottle babies for the evening and get everyone to drink from a bottle then put them back with mama for the night/next day.

I just sell them all the same though, so they may get a nice doeling out of it for $50. I make everyone buy at least two. Though I've never had that problem, because usually I get a call 20 min after making an ad saying they will take them all.

I've been lucky so far with mine, I guess I've really only had three buyers for all the bottle babies I've had and they were all pretty knowledgeable enough...that is, know what to vaccinate and how in addition to banding.



Jessica84 said:


> The one I go to they will not say that anything is bred because there is simply no proof of them being bred. The ones in milk (by that I mean dairy does) they will actually show you that milk comes out.


I should rephrase that, I guess they say exposed now that I think of it.


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## rebelINny (Feb 7, 2014)

So get this...I found a buyer for an ongoing contract. All the Boer kids I can get to 80lb he will pay $3lb live weight


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

That is great!


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## Lstein (Oct 2, 2014)

rebelINny said:


> So get this...I found a buyer for an ongoing contract. All the Boer kids I can get to 80lb he will pay $3lb live weight


Wow, that's amazing!


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## RPC (Nov 6, 2009)

I sold a bottle buckling this weekend for 100 bucks


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## rebelINny (Feb 7, 2014)

Awesome RPC, can't beat that


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## RPC (Nov 6, 2009)

Kind of what I thought. He was 24 hours and cost me nothing.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

RPC said:


> Kind of what I thought. He was 24 hours and cost me nothing.


That's how I figure it as well. I actually wondered at one time if it would be money ahead to sell everything as bottle babies but I just don't have the heart to do that (not at all speaking badly of those that choose to pull kids). A friend of mine has her husband on the way to Oregon to pick up a bottle baby buckling. $700!!!! Yes it's 100% and has the papers on it but that is total profit for the buyer. But it seems some people don't take into consideration the price of feed when buying stock. I sure do and I wouldn't ever pay that lol


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## odieclark (Jan 21, 2016)

Wow! Gee for that price I might find something to sell!


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## RPC (Nov 6, 2009)

I only did it because a first timer had triplets. I personally hate keeping triplets on any doe so if there are 3 I will probably always sell one as a bottle baby. I left all 3 on the doe for the first 24 hours so they all got the colostrum. Then I let the boy pock which one he wanted. But I told him it had to be picked up the next day so it took well to the bottle because I won't bottle feed any myself. I am just not there enough with work and the fact that I don't live at the farm.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

That's how I do it as well and for the same reason. I went against my rule last year because I really hate bottle babies and I thought ok I'll keep them with mom and just supplement as well. One of my best does ended up all chewed up and got mastitis and I'm not even sure if she will be able to feed anything more then a single now. For her and her lines I will totally bottle feed a doeling but I learned for sure this time, never again!


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