I thought they were naturally hornless?
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Okay...nothing like answering your own questions, eh?! 
So, I decided to go to one of "the" sources on Obers since I had to discuss some other things as well. Anyway, I just got off the phone with Colleen Monahan...(just known a little bit for Obers), definitely this dairy breed has both horned and polled. She has both but disbuds ALL hers period. She told me that you can try to breed for polled but its genetics and there is never any guarantees. That said, she told me that this polled is a recessive gene so it is tough to maintain it.
As to those Obers & Alpines with horns, they do look absolutely stunningly gorgeous with them and I can see the practical side of thing with them. However, I have decided that I am going to have a hornless crowd as I have grandchildren coming in my not so distant future. I will be starting with some bottle babies next spring for sure but will be watching for just the right teenage wethers in the mean time. I just have to resist the urge and rush into things...just need to be patient to get exactly what I want.
So, I decided to go to one of "the" sources on Obers since I had to discuss some other things as well. Anyway, I just got off the phone with Colleen Monahan...(just known a little bit for Obers
), definitely this dairy breed has both horned and polled. She has both but disbuds ALL hers period. She told me that you can try to breed for polled but its genetics and there is never any guarantees. That said, she told me that this polled is a recessive gene so it is tough to maintain it. As to those Obers & Alpines with horns, they do look absolutely stunningly gorgeous with them and I can see the practical side of thing with them. However, I have decided that I am going to have a hornless crowd as I have grandchildren coming in my not so distant future. I will be starting with some bottle babies next spring for sure but will be watching for just the right teenage wethers in the mean time. I just have to resist the urge and rush into things...just need to be patient to get exactly what I want.
The size of the horns are linked closely with when they were castrated. The longer they go without being castrated the more the testosterone adds to horn, hair and bone girth growth. If I had to guess, Id say those boys were castrated around the 3 month mark. Here is a picture of Legion. He was castrated at 5 months. He is 16 months in this picture and you can see the girth of the horns is much more substantial. Though I do think that obers do have a smaller horn size over all vs alpines.
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Thx Dave; that makes sense. Legion is a really nice looking goat to be sure. Curious castrating him at 5 months...how obnoxious was he getting those last two month...both in smell and behavior?
I have committed to buying 4 pure bred bottle baby Obers next Spring(disbudded)...but 3-5 months will go by fast I'm sure. I will wait 3 months for sure but would really like to go the full 5 just wondering how rough those last two months are going to be.
Now...I just need to find a couple of older (2-4 yoa) hornless Ober wethers...packers or prospects.
Bottle babies dont really get rough or obnoxious during those 2 months. You are their mom and they always respect da mama I talk most of my buyers into castrating at the 5 month mark and non of them have ever been aggressive or bucky with their people. In fact I have 2 buyers (friends) coming up super early from Olympia WA. to have their 6 boys castrated by my vet. They couldnt find a vet over there to do it for less then 250 each. My vet charges 50.
The smell on the other hand... hehe ya you will get that for sure. Not as bad as a working buck in rut but bad enough to make you not really wanna hug em to much. I found that if you do lots of water training during the 3-5 month, that washes away a lot of the bucky smell. Just happens to be getting into the beginning of summer about that time and works great. Heck you can even take some shampoo with ya and wash em in a lake or slow moving river. Here we have the yakima river which is pretty warm and slow moving.
Thanks dawn I just got lucky with him. That and he is a pig when it comes to his food. I have a hike coming up with Curtis King the beginning part of Sept and just hope his fat butt (Legions) doesnt slow the hike down to much hehe
I talk most of my buyers into castrating at the 5 month mark and non of them have ever been aggressive or bucky with their people. In fact I have 2 buyers (friends) coming up super early from Olympia WA. to have their 6 boys castrated by my vet. They couldnt find a vet over there to do it for less then 250 each. My vet charges 50. The smell on the other hand... hehe ya you will get that for sure. Not as bad as a working buck in rut but bad enough to make you not really wanna hug em to much. I found that if you do lots of water training during the 3-5 month, that washes away a lot of the bucky smell. Just happens to be getting into the beginning of summer about that time and works great. Heck you can even take some shampoo with ya and wash em in a lake or slow moving river
. Here we have the yakima river which is pretty warm and slow moving.Thanks dawn
I just got lucky with him. That and he is a pig when it comes to his food. I have a hike coming up with Curtis King the beginning part of Sept and just hope his fat butt (Legions) doesnt slow the hike down to much heheMakes sense...I am going to shoot for 5 months.Bottle babies dont really get rough or obnoxious during those 2 months. You are their mom and they always respect da mama
Nice...I wish I was closer too.
I will have to check around.Makes sense...water is always a concern in Utah. Some years are better than others...not so much the last two.The smell on the other hand... hehe ya you will get that for sure. Not as bad as a working buck in rut but bad enough to make you not really wanna hug em to much. I found that if you do lots of water training during the 3-5 month, that washes away a lot of the bucky smell. Just happens to be getting into the beginning of summer about that time and works great. Heck you can even take some shampoo with ya and wash em in a lake or slow moving river
Thx again!
TOU
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