Getting baby goats to bloom is part of the goat selling business. You want to get the babies to have some flesh on them without them being too fat. You don’t want somebody to buy a prospect and it melt when they get it home. I’ve bought enough goats that I’ve had it happen to me. I personally like a prospect to be just a little bit green in terms of condition. Those kind seem to go to feed and improve once you get them home. The bloomy, pampered little goats always sell good, but don’t seem to go to feed as good.

I keep nursing does on full access to alfalfa hay and I feed them twice a day. The babies can eat with their moms as well as hit the creep feeder. I do move the babies into the barn when it is cold or wet. I don’t turn the does out on pasture while nursing as I do think if you give them too big an area, the babies are harder to bloom.

Several years ago, I looked at a set of goats in Texas. I questioned the wethers’ ages as they were big for their so called age. I was sarcastically told, “Those ages are right on. We just grow them bigger down here as our weather is better suited to growing goats.” I have been around livestock all my life. I’m not a dumb ass. I can tell when animals/ages have been manipulated. I don’t care if somebody does it, but I don’t need to be lied to or talked down to. I spend a lot of money on goats for myself and others. I still haven’t written a check to that breeder.

Point is, they need to have some bloom on them in order to help them sell. But they don’t need to be fat and they don’t need to be skinny. It is hard to read muscle in a skinny goat. It takes some effort to get it right. Some think that I need mine bloomier, but they turn out and feed. And they don’t crash when you get them home.