# Raising Dairy Bucklings for Slaughter



## IAGOATFARMER (Apr 6, 2018)

I am looking at purchasing a group of bottle dairy bucklings to raise for slaughter. Looking for advice as far as when to castrate, when to wean off of milk, and any other advice one might have for this. I have access to a Lak tek milk machine and would like to use this if at all possible. I have raised a lot of sheep on the lak tek machine, and through reading it looks like the goats do just fine on it also as long as you get the machine calibrated for goats. I am not new to goats as i run about 30 nannies of 3 different breeds. Just looking at a new project with the dairy bucklings.
Thanks in advance for the advice.


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## SalteyLove (Jun 18, 2011)

Will you be using powdered milk replacer or cows milk to raise them?

You'll want a creep feeder of free choice medicated (coccidiastat) grower pellet for them to reach butcher weight much faster. 

Where/how will you be selling them? At what weight? 60-80 lbs would be typical to run through an auction. But if there is a very specific ethnic population in your area - they each have preference on age/size/intact-ness of their goats.

I wouldn't bother with castration as the stress will only hurt your gains and they should be processed before autumn/rut in all likeliness. 

There are a few other good threads here on the subject, I will try to find them & post links for you.


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## IAGOATFARMER (Apr 6, 2018)

SalteyLove said:


> Will you be using powdered milk replacer or cows milk to raise them?
> 
> You'll want a creep feeder of free choice medicated (coccidiastat) grower pellet for them to reach butcher weight much faster.
> 
> ...


I will be using powdered milk replacer. 
I will have a medicated creep feed. Should that be offered free choice from day one?
The marketing plan is through the local sale barn at that 50-75 pound weight depending on what the current pricing looks like.
What time frame would i be looking at to get them to that age would you say? i know this is a tough question to answer but just looking for a rough idea.
Thank you


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## Old Post Farm (Nov 15, 2017)

how old are they right now?


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## IAGOATFARMER (Apr 6, 2018)

2 days to 10 days old


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## SalteyLove (Jun 18, 2011)

Typically they begin to use the grain in the creep feeder starting around the 2 week mark. 

I would guess depending on their genetics they would be marketable at 5-7 months? Hopefully some dairy folks can give us a better idea of weights but it also depends on breed. I would suspect that Nubians are the fastest growing.


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## lottsagoats1 (Apr 12, 2014)

I usually ship my to freezer camp at 6-7 months of age. Nubians and Lamanchas and crosses of the 2. I usually get 50-60 pounds of meat from each buckling or wether. I leave them on their mom until they are shipped, so between that, genetics and the creep feeder, they grow well.


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## capracreek (Apr 5, 2016)

Hope it all comes together for you


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## ArborGoats (Jan 24, 2013)

lottsagoats1 said:


> I usually ship my to freezer camp at 6-7 months of age. Nubians and Lamanchas and crosses of the 2. I usually get 50-60 pounds of meat from each buckling or wether. I leave them on their mom until they are shipped, so between that, genetics and the creep feeder, they grow well.


If you are getting 50-60 pounds of meat as your yield do you happen to know how much they weighed when you took them in? 110/120?


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