Thread: First blood and a proper trophy sized Billy

Originally Posted by planenutz

Only until they get shot.

Which out in the Whanganui means forever... immortal goats! Man there’s a lot of them out in those valleys.

We have domestic goats here that were born in 2006, and 2008. They live next door as pets, they are all wethers that I bred from Boer x Toggenburg. Good solid meat goats that do a good job, there’s a goat dairy round the corner that experimented with different crosses in the noughties to try and find a good mix of meat and milk production. The Boer genes never did deal with the footrot we get here with the soft volcanic soil and lack of rocks but the hybrids did much better. So these goats are 12 and 10yrs now and in fine fettle and will likely go another 6-7 years or so, like the ones they replaced, who were in their late teens by the time they made their trip to the offal pit. (They are used as boundary fence hedge trimmers, and a bloody good job they do too.)

Google says ‘15-18 years’ life expectancy, so that tallies well.

A stable supply of a variety of quality feed, mid-range temperatures, resistance to parasit es and good steep bluffy country bode well for a healthy feral goat in the bush. Good genes (milk, no footrot, thick hair) means they can survive in very tough places. They need thick bush available for shelter though as they hate the rain. The importance of rocky bluffs to goats can get overlooked, its a big part of the natural instinct, to have a rock wall behind them for protection and shelter, and also because without rocks goats hooves will get overgrown and cause them problems. When we go hunt for them in a new area, I’ll look for bluffs on Google Earth, never fails, they won’t be far away.