Choosing Your Buck Kid by Irene Ramsay

The buck is half the herd, we are told, and a lot has been written about choosing him through his milking background, etc. I don’t propose to cover that ground again. Over the years, one fact has repeatedly come to my notice. On every occasion when some delighted goat-keeper has been raving over the newly-acquired buck kid, which is to put his/her herd on the map, I have been treated to eulogies on the kid’s shoulders, legs, back, bone, pasterns, or whatever other part that breeder considers vital. When I inquire tactfully about the state of the kid’s genitals, the resultant gasp of stupefaction shows quite obviously that the owner has never even looked, and thinks I am rather crude for wanting to know.

Well, to put it crudely, NO BALLS, NO BUCK. I have seen beautiful buck kids, and bought one myself in the early days, all from reputable breeders, and one imported from Australia which had been inspected by vets as well, all of whom did not have what it takes between their back legs. I am certainly not blaming the breeders, because in each case the peculiarity had never occurred in their herds before, so they were unacquainted with the problem. But, having seen rather a lot of different types of abnormality, now, I feel qualified to give some pointers to identifying them, so that fewer people will find they have raised a buck kid who isn’t going to be any use to them after all.

BIRTH-DAY TEST
The first step is when a kid is born. Turn him on this back (when you are treating his cord, if you like) and check that he has two teats, one each side and slightly forward of the scrotum. If he has more than two teats, or one or both are double teats, or if he has no teats, bump him off. [Diagram 1]

His penis should be just behind the umbilical cord, usually about ½” (1cm) behind. If it is further back, bump him off – even if fertile, he would only be able to serve his first season (once he’s bigger, his penis wouldn’t reach the doe). [Diagram 11]

The tube running between the penis and scrotum, just under the skin, is called the urethra. Sometimes part of the urethra is exposed, that is, it is not covered with skin, and looks like a bubble. [Diagram 10] The kid will be infertile, so bump him off.

Now go to the scrotum itself. It should contain two testicles, which feel quite loose in the scrotum at this stage and can be moved round easily. Each has a cord running from it through the inguinal canal to the body cavity. This cord should feel long enough that you can let the testicles flop around between your fingers. If the testicles are held tight to the body, the cords are too short; he will be infertile, and probably has an inguinal hernia. (An experienced
doe will refuse to clean up, much less feed, a kid with an inguinal hernia; she is your best guide that something is wrong with him). Bump him off. [Diagrams 7 & 8]

If there is only one testicle in the scrotum (unilateral cryptorchid) bump him off. [Diagram 4]

He may be fertile but the fault is hereditary. With a vasectomy he could be used as a teaser. If there are no testicles in the scrotum (full cryptorchid) bump him off. [Diagram 5]

The tips of the testicles may be felt through the inguinal canal. He will not tease. If he has passed this test, feel each testicle in turn and see if it is possible to push it through into the body cavity. If you can feel one or both disappear quite clearly, he has a condition called ‘floating testicle’ and an inguinal hernia. The doe will refuse to mother him. Bump him off.

I have to say here that this type of condition can be treated surgically, but it is considered an ‘unethical’ operation by the veterinary profession. Some bucks have been kept, untreated, with this condition, and sired kids, but the condition is passed on to both male and female progeny, and the gut may at any time fall through the inguinal hernia, strangulate, and kill the animal with great agony. In a doe, because the udder is in the way of palpation, the strangulation appears to be a severe fatal colic. Both tight-cord and floating testicle kids, if undetected, are likely to be colicky and pot-bellied whatever method of rearing you use. If a buck kid is like this, check again to see if he does have anything wrong with his scrotum and testicles. If you are unsure about your findings on the kid’s scrotum (which you will be at your first attempt unless there is something drastically wrong) leave him for a week, and feel him again.

ONE WEEK OLD TEST
All the kids who have passed their birthday tests should be checked again in a week’s time. This time the testicles should be at least ½” long and ¼” thick, and will feel distinct from the cords. If they are smaller than this, he could have undersized testicles. If you are quite sure, bump him off; if not, give him another week and check again. If he still doesn’t feel big enough, compare with other kids the same age, and if you are sure, bump him off. [Diagram 9]

If one testicle is very much smaller than the other, bump him off. [Diagram 6]

Now check your kid when he is standing. A warm day is best, as the testicles will hang lower. If you could easily castrate him with an elastrator because the testicles dangle well, you know he is sound. It is not enough just to look, you must feel. [Diagram 2] If the cords feel wide apart but he still dangles, he is sound. [Diagram 3]

If the cords feel wide apart and tight to the body, or you cannot feel the cords at all, he is too tight and will be infertile. Bump him off. [Diagrams 7 & 8]

Feel along the urethra from the penis to the scrotum; it will be quite a firm ridge by now. It must run straight with no lumps, bumps, or wiggles. If it has a ‘knotty’ bit in it like a milk vein, along any of its length, including in the scrotum, the kid will be infertile. Bump him off.

I have once seen a kid whose bladder leaked into his scrotum. The scrotum was enlarged, and the kid could only urinate in spurts rather than a steady dribble. When the scrotum was squeezed, urine came out of the penis. Such a kid is infertile and the condition is fatal. As it can be a lingering death, the kid should be euthanased. If I was in any doubt about a buck kid’s genitals I would destroy him, and when the condition was new to me I would have a post-mortem done, out of curiosity.

SIX TO TEN WEEKS
By 6-10 weeks your buck kid should start spraying. Some start much younger. They may ride their companions at any age from 3 days on. They usually start to make buck noises at about 3 weeks. All this assumes that the buck kid has companions – kids of either sex, or lambs. If he is kept alone he may never do these things because he has not been stimulated. If he does have companions and does not act buckish, suspect that there is something wrong with him. Check his health first, and when the vet feels he is old enough (probably 4-6 months) have a sperm count done. Actually, apart from total cryptorchids, most infertile males are excessively sexy and for this reason are frequently kept as teasers.

Epididymitis or inflammation of the testicles occurs when the buck is producing sperm but his spermatic cords are blocked or incomplete due to hermaphroditism. The first indication may be oversized testicles or just that his wives are returning to service. Get a sperm test. If the buck kid you are doubtful about is your own breeding you can destroy him without much harm done, but as I said at the beginning, faulty bucks are often sold.

If you are unfortunate enough to buy one, the arrangement you come to with the breeder is over to you. Most breeders will offer to replace the following season, but this is not always practical for you. The breeder will appreciate a veterinary certificate to show the kid is a bad breeding proposition, and proof that he has been destroyed, castrated, or relegated to use as a teaser. (This last may require a vasectomy, depending on the actual fault). This is a courtesy especially if you are a great distance apart, and matters are being arranged by post.

Finally, I would advise anyone buying a buck kid from a distance, sight unseen, to choose either a disbudded kid or one with a horned parent. Then at least you will not have hermaphrodite factors to consider. Cryptorchids occur regardless of the horn factor. Extreme inbreeding also predisposes to abnormalities.

– Irene Ramsay.
Click here for all the Wisdom of Irene Ramsay articles

Irene asked that I include her email address for anyone that has queries. Her email address is shown below in an image, you may also use this contact form.

I am acquainted with Irene Ramsay through the Holistic Goats list on Yahoo Groups. I read all of her posts as they are always full of wisdom and natural remedies for healing. I am honored that Irene Ramsay has agreed to allow me to publish some of her articles on my website. I hope they will be as helpful to you as they have been to me. Thanks, Irene! Please note that Irene lives in New Zealand and sometimes the items she recommends won’t be available in the US under the same name. Copyright 1974-2020 Irene Ramsay. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy without express permission of the author. Thank you. Please note that Irene lives in New Zealand and sometimes the items she recommends won’t be available in the US under the same name.

Irene Ramsay on Copper Deficiency

Symptoms of copper deficiency:
Coat is rough and starey, faded in coloured goats, and greyish in white goats. Goat holds on to old coat much longer than usual and when it falls out the goat may be almost naked for a week or so because the new hair is not coming through readily. Sunburn on the naked skin slows down hair growth still further.

Ribs and vertebrae stick out very noticeably as the goat carries no extra flesh. Where calcium intake is compromised by lack of copper, you may find knobs on the ends of the floating ribs and the points of the jaw. Fractures of even such solid bones as shoulderblades can occur.

The head looks too big for the body.

Leg bones look very fine and joints tend to be enlarged. Again this is lack of copper compromising calcium uptake. Goat walks cautiously and doesn’t want to jump on and off heights. Probably won’t play much either because the bones aren’t supporting it very well.

Erect-eared goats tend to carry them drooped to 20 minutes to 4 position, and head low, may be permanent frown – signs of permanent headache. I’ve never had Nubians so I don’t know what their ears do with copper deficiency – I would expect them to go bald round the edges, though, same as erect-ears often do.

Severe anaemia – check insides of eyelids. Cream is bad, grey is worse, and green is just about totally lacking in haemoglobin.

Worm count in my herd at its worst varied from nil to 7500 – the nil goat was sicker than the 7500, btw – most were about halfway between. Worm burden is uncontrollable in severe copper deficiency because the goat’s immune system is too far down to resist the little sods. Milk yields may disappear to nothing, though it’s surprising just how
long they stay in milk, even though looking like concentration camp inmates.

Depressed appetite.

Kids born with swayback (enzootic ataxia).

In really severe deficiency the animals may have chronic scours, sometimes of semi-digested food, because they haven’t enough blood and blood quality to make the gut work properly (luckily mine never reached that stage).

When most of these symptoms are present, you may then find bald tips to tails – my experience it’s one of the last symptoms to appear, and doesn’t always. Some of mine, the only decent hair left on them was the tuft on the tip of the tail.

As I wrote this off the top of my head, I may have missed a symptom or two, but these are enough to be going on with……….

The following letter was in reply to a vet whose colleague had seen some goats poisoned by copper treatment.

This sort of thing is what worries me when people want my copper regimen. It is meant for treating copper deficiency, and is at a level which will not cause toxicity in a deficient goat. Obviously, as your quote shows, it will cause toxic symptoms in goats which are not copper deficient. But trying to get it through people’s thick heads that the goats
must show several serious symptoms of copper deficiency before they start throwing copper about is very very difficult. It seems to be the fashion to think that a bald tail tip is copper deficiency, and in 99 cases out of 100, it’s nothing of the sort. A goat that is fat and shiny and eating and milking well is NOT copper deficient, however bald its tail – I’d be looking for a tail muncher.

I would want to be sure that the goat was exhibiting serious copper deficiency symptoms before giving copper. I do emphasise this to people, but have no control over how much of what I write is passed on to other people.

My dose rate for an adult dairy goat with copper deficiency is using 1% solution of copper sulfate, 20 mls twice daily for 7 days, rest 7 days, repeat 7 days, rest 7 days, 20 mls once daily for 7 days, rest 2 weeks, and repeat the 20 mls once daily for 7 days if necessary. Reason for the rest periods is to monitor the goats closely. If they don’t drop back in improvement and yield during the rest period, you stop dosing the extra copper. Strict record-keeping and observation is essential. So is not exceeding the correct dose. It is very hard to get through to people how invidious copper poisoning is. There’s very little between enough copper and too much, and a goat can tip over into toxicity without the handler realising it. Must say I have never seen discoloured urine in a copper poisoned goat myself, and
I’ve had to treat a few. Only one was mine, and I was using a high copper kelp powder on her, it was years before I developed the 1% solution method. Two of the others had been overdosed on high copper liquid seaweed. One had been accidentally exposed to Bordeaux mixture. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of anyone overdosing on what could have been my recipe. I can only keep emphasizing that people should not treat goats for copper deficiency unless they show several serious symptoms, and all the other things they have tried to correct the goats’ condition have failed.

– Irene Ramsay.

This article was originally published in New Zealand in 1980. Updated by Irene in January 2007.

Click here for all the Wisdom of Irene Ramsay articles

Irene asked that I include her email address for anyone that has queries. Her email address is shown below in an image, you may also use this contact form.

I am acquainted with Irene Ramsay through the Holistic Goats list on Yahoo Groups. I read all of her posts as they are always full of wisdom and natural remedies for healing. I am honored that Irene Ramsay has agreed to allow me to publish some of her articles on my website. I hope they will be as helpful to you as they have been to me. Thanks, Irene! Please note that Irene lives in New Zealand and sometimes the items she recommends won’t be available in the US under the same name. Copyright 1974-2020 Irene Ramsay. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy without express permission of the author. Thank you. Please note that Irene lives in New Zealand and sometimes the items she recommends won’t be available in the US under the same name.

Drying Off Your Milker – We Don’t

The common practice is to dry off your pregnant doe when she is three months along in her pregnancy. However, we ended up doing something different, and feel more comfortable not forcing our does to dry off.

Some believe that if you don’t force dry the doe, you will negatively affect her next lactation. However, there is another camp that believes if you force the doe to dry off, you will negatively affect her next lactation. Both camps say the next lactation will be less if you dry off, or if you don’t dry off. Which do you believe? I guess you just have to do what you are most comfortable with. A recommended method for drying off your doe is to restrict her grain, water, and just stop milking, period. Many believe that the udder must get tight and full, in order to signal the body to stop making milk. This can cause mastitis, and some prophylactically “dry treat” with antibiotics infused into the udder to prevent mastitis. We are not comfortable using antibiotics unless absolutely necessary, and certainly not into the udder “just in case”.

We originally intended to follow popular method of drying off at 3 months.

64 days gestation: We started a month earlier, to slowly ease Lightning into drying off. We began on December 20th by cutting down on her grain.

66 days gestation: December 22nd, I am not milking her out totally. She is giving us just over 5# daily with two milkings.

76 days gestation: On January 1st, we stopped the morning milking. With 1x a day milking, she continued to give us 2 to 3 pounds. I was very hesitant to follow the popular rule of “just stop milking” the doe in order to dry her up. I discussed my concerns with Irene Ramsay, who explained to me that if a doe has not dried herself up by this time, Irene does not force the doe to dry up. I was mostly worried about causing mastitis, as a common cause of mastitis is the udder getting too full. It doesn’t make any sense to me to force drying up. I know the common theory is the doe needs this time to produce healthy kids, but humans lactate while pregnant and even tandem nurse. Most of the time, the body knows to cut down on the amount of milk being produced.

So we decided to see what would happen, and continued to milk Miss Lightning. Over the next few weeks, her production slowly dropped.

103 days gestation: By January 28th, she was under 2 pounds.

112 days gestation: When she dropped to 1.1# on the 6th of February, we went to milking every other day.

121 days gestation: She gave us 3/10th of a pound on the 15th, and at this point we stopped milking her.

Lightning’s first lactation lasted 339 days. She produced 1704# of milk. Her daily average up to milking once daily was (1704 divided by 293 days) was 5.81#. Note: We pulled Lightning’s first kids, and bottle fed them, so we were able to get accurate amounts of her milk production from day 1.

Homemade Mastitis Test Recipe

Mastitis Test Solution – this recipe was found at a site that has since been taken down from the Internet.  You can see the original page at the Internet Archive.

1 gallon Distilled Water
4 teaspoons Liquid dish Soap like Ivory
1 teaspoon lye (Red Devil)
1 box Navy Rit Dye

Mix completely. To use put 1 teaspoon milk from one teat and 1 teaspoon solution into a plastic quart lid and swirl around. Slimy or curdled means Mastitis. Repeat for other teat.

Reports have been given that this product can be used without the lye. Lye used to be readily available at hardware stores, but has become increasingly difficult to find. It is available online.

Milk Testing – Taking a Clean Sample

These are the materials I take with me to the milk parlor for testing.

* unscented baby wipes
* bottle of alcohol
* roll of paper towels
* rubber gloves
* udder/teat salve

Step 1: Get your first doe on the stand and stanchioned in. Wipe her udder and teats carefully and thoroughly with one or two baby wipes. Get your strip cup and milk several streams of milk from each teat. You are going to take a sample from one teat at a time.

Step 2: Put your glove(s) on.

Step 3: Next, pour some alcohol onto a paper towel and carefully wipe the entire right teat, including a careful, gentle scrubbing of the teat orifice.

Step 4: Allow the teat to air dry. This is a VERY important step. Alcohol works by evaporation, and a wet teat can still harbor bacteria, which will contaminate your sample.

Step 5: Get another paper towel with alcohol and again clean the teat and orifice carefully. Again, be sure to allow the teat to air dry. Taking these steps helps to ensure your milk sample is perfectly clean. There’s no sense in sending in contaminated samples and getting all worried about the results just because you weren’t clean enough the first time.

Step 6: It helps if you have a helper about now. But if you are doing this alone, what I do is retrieve the Right Teat tube for this doe. I put the lid of the tube in between my front teeth carefully, and pull the tube away from the lid. Now you are going to express milk from the right teat into that tube, being careful to not touch the tube to any surface, and also trying to squirt the milk perfectly into the tube without touching the milk to the sides of the tube. Don’t worry if you didn’t do it perfectly, it is probably good enough, but that is what you are aiming for. When you replace the lid, be very careful to not contaminate the tube or lid opening.

Step 7: Replace the tube into the sandwich bag.

Step 8: Remove your gloves and go back to Step 2, this time substituting the left teat for the right teat.

Your samples should be refrigerated or chilled on ice as soon as possible, especially in warmer weather. Talk with the dairy lab guy about proper shipping methods if you need to ship. We are lucky that we live close to a dairy that he services, so he will stop by and pick up our samples but usually we drop them at the dairy early the morning that he is picking up samples.

If you find that your doe has a subclinical infection, the next step, if you are planning to use antibiotics, is to test for antibiotic sensitivity. This is the best course to follow, because then you are treating the doe with the proper antibiotic to kill the specific bacteria with which she is having problems. Otherwise, you are wasting money on antibiotics that might not work, and needlessly exposing your doe to antibiotics, which are detrimental to the body because they kill off ALL the bacteria, bad or good. Additionally, you are causing bacteria in her body to build up a resistant to this specific antibiotic. The concern about treating with antibiotics is that supergerms are being produced, and we are finding more and more that our old standby antibiotics are no longer effective at treating illness. It is actually quite frightening when you learn that there are some supergerms that cannot be treated with antibiotics, and it is possible to die if you are afflicted with these supergerms.

The dairy lab technician will be able to tell you if the sample appears questionable, or contaminated. If it is, you may want to do a second test to make sure the doe really has an infection, before treating with antibiotics.

Step 9: Lastly, the udder salve. This is optional, but you might want to rub a bit on your doe’s teats, as alcohol is very drying.

Testing for Subclinical Mastitis – Using a Laboratory

If your suspicions are confirmed through the simple home testing of the milk, your next step is to have your milk tested at a lab. I prefer Dairy Herd Lab, located right here in Arizona. I have used them several times, and have been very pleased.

Please note that when taking milk samples you must follow a careful procedure of cleaning the udder and teats to insure that you do not contaminate your sample with bacteria. These are the steps I follow when gathering milk for testing.

The dairy lab I mentioned above will supply you with the correct tubes for samples.

Label the tubes prior to leaving the house. On the label you want the date, your ranch name/initials (or your name) the name of the doe and LT for Left Teat or RT for Right Teat. So your label might look like this:
6-22-06
USAY
Lightning
LT

Label two tubes for each doe that you are planning to test. The dairy lab owner says it is a good idea to test for mycoplasma initially. One tube of milk will work fine for mycoplasma and bacteria testing.

I like to put each of the two tubes into sandwich bags to keep them clean.

Next, I gather my materials. I like to use:

* unscented baby wipes
* bottle of alcohol
* roll of paper towels
* rubber gloves
* udder/teat salve

Step 1: Get your first doe on the stand and stanchioned in. Wipe her udder and teats carefully and thoroughly with one or two baby wipes. Get your strip cup and milk several streams of milk from each teat. You are going to take a sample from one teat at a time.

Step 2: Put your glove(s) on. Next, pour some alcohol onto a paper towel and carefully wipe the entire right teat, including a careful, gentle scrubbing of the teat orifice. Allow the teat to air dry. This is a VERY important step. Alcohol works by evaporation, and a wet teat can still harbor bacteria, which will contaminate your sample. Get another paper towel with alcohol and again clean the teat and orifice carefully. Again, be sure to allow the teat to air dry. Taking these steps helps to ensure your milk sample is perfectly clean. There’s no sense in sending in contaminated samples and getting all worried about the results just because you weren’t clean enough the first time. It helps if you have a helper about now. But if you are doing this alone, what I do is retrieve the Right Teat tube for this doe. I put the lid of the tube in between my front teeth carefully, and pull the tube away from the lid. Now you are going to express milk from the right teat into that tube, being careful to not touch the tube to any surface, and also trying to squirt the milk perfectly into the tube without touching the milk to the sides of the tube. Don’t worry if you didn’t do it perfectly, it is probably good enough, but that is what you are aiming for. When you replace the lid, be very careful to not contaminate the tube or lid opening.

Replace the tube into the sandwich bag.

Remove your gloves and go back to Step 2, this time substituting the left teat for the right teat.

Your samples should be refrigerated or chilled on ice as soon as possible, especially in warmer weather. Talk with the dairy lab guy about proper shipping methods if you need to ship. We are lucky that we live close to a dairy that he services, so he will stop by and pick up our samples but usually we drop them at the dairy early the morning that he is picking up samples.

If you find that your doe has a subclinical infection, the next step, if you are planning to use antibiotics, is to test for antibiotic sensitivity. This is the best course to follow, because then you are treating the doe with the proper antibiotic to kill the specific bacteria with which she is having problems. Otherwise, you are wasting money on antibiotics that might not work, and needlessly exposing your doe to antibiotics, which are detrimental to the body because they kill off ALL the bacteria, bad or good. Additionally, you are causing bacteria in her body to build up a resistant to this specific antibiotic. The concern about treating with antibiotics is that supergerms are being produced, and we are finding more and more that our old standby antibiotics are no longer effective at treating illness. It is actually quite frightening when you learn that there are some supergerms that cannot be treated with antibiotics, and it is possible to die if you are afflicted with these supergerms.

The dairy lab technician will be able to tell you if the sample appears questionable, or contaminated. If it is, you may want to do a second test to make sure the doe really has an infection, before treating with antibiotics.

Lastly, the udder salve. You might want to rub a bit on your doe’s teats, as alcohol is very drying.

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