Billy or buck, nanny or doe – that is the question. What difference does it mean? What difference does it make?
Yet it has stirred reasonable controversy between the Boer meat goat breeders, with their sophisticated “buck and doe,” looking down on the more common everyday purebred and crossbreed milk goat keepers who are quite content with the traditional ID of “billy and nanny.”
The thought crossed and recrossed my mind a few days back as I wandered, slipping and sliding, out to the barn to check and see if Oliver, our most recent handsome buck goat purchase, was passing out large Cuban cigars.
He wasn’t, not yet, but he should have been; within a 45-minute period, two sets of twins were born, and a third set came along in a five-minute lapse the following day. Oliver bla-aa-aaa-med the lack of cigars on the delivery service, but I, noting the guilty look in his eye, think he just munched them all for lunch.
Oliver, our new buck Boer goat, as you have probably already gathered, was purchased to replace Curly, who fathered ten well-coloured healthy kids the year previous, with nine out of ten being female. We have chalked that down to beginner’s luck, as we wanted to increase our breeding stock as quickly as possible.
To avoid inbreeding it was time to replace Curly, as people in the know were telling us that young Boer does become of age often well previous to their first birthday, but the preference leads us to believe that there are far less headaches at kidding time if not bred till they are one and one-half years old.
In the meantime, I have taken on the burden of watching these young goats play. They were up on their feet and walking wobbly-legged within 20 minutes of birth.
They were nursing on their own at half the hour and were jumping stiff-legged in play with each other without fail the following day. When they wanted to snooze, they headed directly under the heat lamp’s circle within hours after birth.
The Boer goat, a recent arrival to North America, was first introduced about three decades ago. They are fast growers, gain weight quickly, and are noted for the fact that the bucks do not give off the strong odour that other breeds do during the rutting season.
Though there are many colour variations, the main is white neck and body, with head and ears, which flop, coming in three dark shades of brown. They are a little fussy where they walk and usually keep themselves well groomed, neat and clean.
If you think watching their antics is a light-sided burden, come and try watching them act and react while leaning on the fence with me when we turn them outside to the fenced paddock in the sunshine next month.
I had a pet nanny goat that I bottle-fed for two years during my single-digit years. And to this day, I think there is not a more amusing, interesting, easy-to-keep animal companion than a goat.
Whether it be a nanny, billy, buck, or doe makes no never mind to me; the fact is I prefer our neighbour’s five-year-old granddaughter’s articulation as she waved her small hand while pointing a tiny finger, “That’s a daddy goat, that’s a mommy goat, and that’s a baby goat!” What better explanation can be made than that?
Oliver says “Blaa-aa-a!” In case you lack knowledge in Boer goat linguistics, that’s “Hi, how are you?” with a definite Boer accent.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105