Well, this one’s a doozy. I’m trying to remind myself to write this in a way you guys who are not in the goat industry will understand and that’s a challenge in itself because I have spent more time away from the Non Goat World than I realized until recently.
Right now, let me catch you up - it has been insane here. We are, as usual, managing a ridiculous amount of kids. They are too young to go to the sale barn and therefore too young to sell as breedstock, so we have to just “keep the schedule”. Which is a VERY busy schedule considering everywhere you look there are goat kids of staggered ages. And they take much more work than adults because they require coccidia prevention every 21 days, worming every 30 days, and because we have some bottle kids (kids without a mom to feed them) we also have a lambar to manage all day long. Right now we are weaning some of them - the oldest bottle kid group. And yet the younger bottle kids will now require individual bottles OR I have to leave the older ones on lambar every day. For now, I’ve cut them back to not getting their lambar filled until noon every day. That forces them to eat more pellet in the morning when they’re hungry. This is fine for everyone except the very youngest who are just a few weeks old. Oh, and let me not forget that we were so overloaded we did what is a cardinal sin: we left triplets on 2 dams who are not proven capable of feeding all 3 kids. Fortunately 1 of those 6 kids has taken to the lambar because that will happen: kids who are hungry will go get milk wherever they can, lambar, another kids mom, wherever. Hey, when you’re starving, you’re starving.
But also there is weaning moms. These are extra work too because we don’t just move them to a pen with less food available, we check them for mastitis before we dry them up (make them stop producing milk). Boer people are pretty infamous for not managing mastitis and many don’t even check for it. Heck several don’t even know if they see a sick kid scouring who HAS been treated for cocci and worms they should next check mom for mastitis. But we do. And that means pulling the newly weaned mom up every 3 days for a teat milk test and seeing if she’s clean. Then it means her screaming for her kid for yet another day. This goes on and on until she is dried up.
And then there are sales. Geez, I really love or hate selling goats.
Let me say that again: I really love or I hate sales.
I’d much rather be buying goats but that hasn’t been on the table for years. That part is easy: discover what needs to be known about the goat, get your payment form straight and buy the goat. Go get it. Easy peezy.
Selling the goat is harder. Its trying to find the right fit for the right person. I will circle back around to this eventually but let me tell you: every person wants something different. Sometimes I have that available and sometimes I don’t. The trick is to not waste my or their time trying to sell them something they don’t want.
The other part that is horrible, and this is the part I’m going to talk about now, is getting the goat to the new owner. Its really ridiculous.
Ok so here’s what happens:
A person asks me what I have available (normal because this is how its done unless you go posting the goat everywhere which I have learned NOT to do for reasons I will explain another time). Sometimes it can be simple. The person will say do you have a young buck or a senior female or a whatever. They know what they want and they know their budget and they have thought about how they’re going to get the goat. Now that last bit is what is driving me slightly insane at the moment.
I normally do not sell this many animals in a short period of time. But we are dispersing the herd so it is a lot more animals and it has been a lot of sales for a few weeks now. Much of it has been really simple regarding Buyers. But I sense that's because the people we've been selling animals to lately know what they want. Its getting them where they belong that has not been simple.
Transport is really expensive these days and people don’t want to spend more on getting the animal to them than the animal itself. Also, professional Transporters are REALLY busy these days, schedule is harder than it used to be. So now people that would have transported are saying to themselves “For that much, I need to go get the animal myself”. Some of these rates are upwards of $1500. Nobody is going to spend $1500 to transport a $1500 animal. Its not logical.
There are a few transporters that have gotten the animal to the Buyer in decent condition, though ALL animals look rough after being on a trailer for a few days. But some people have gotten animals that look so poorly they questioned if it was really the same animal. That sucks. It just sucks. My answer to people buying animals and using transport would be “Do your homework, tip your transporter if they did a great job delivering you an animal that looks good, and be honest and tell other people if they did not do a great job”.
Sidenote: We ALWAYS send feed so the goat can transition to the new owners feed program gradually with no scouring. Well, NOBODY has gotten their bag of feed I sent. Nobody. What an abject failure. Know that if I were in the transport business that would not be happening.
On my end - the scheduling with a transporter is a nightmare. They don’t know their routes, they don’t have anything more than a week time frame they expect to be in the area, some have to be met hours away, and often the good ones are booked for months. I have about decided that I would have to intervene in some way if I were staying in goats. How I’m not sure, but possibly including routes for minimal extra charges and doing regional trips at different times of the year. But I’m not, staying in goats. This experience right now is just one more reason its not likely I come back into goats.
Let me give you a peek: we have been stood up, upcharged into “pickup fees”, and even attempted to be hustled into investing into their business. Beats everything I’ve ever seen. I’ll leave folks nameless for now but I have to tell you, the psychology degree in me is going hotwire with this one. I can’t believe some of these people out here trying to earn a living are winging it like this. I understand overloaded. I live constantly overloaded but with me, its because I am doing 35 things at once. Apparently there are more people who can’t do one thing and be focused on it, than I ever ever ever dreamed were out here.
The reason this is driving me nuts is that I am frequently annoyed with instances in daily life in which I find myself thinking, and sometimes saying to another person: “Dude, just do your job. You have one job, just do it, and do it well.”
I don’t care what your job is. Congressman, airplane pilot, heart surgeon, insurance salesman, accountant, office manager, Walmart checker, baby sitter, garbage man, whatever.
Just. Do. Your. Job.
You weren’t hired to do anything other than what you’re being paid to do, so do it. Or you won’t be paid again. If you have a hard time with this, ask yourself “Am I doing the exact job, behaving in a way, that I would pay me whatever I am being paid, for doing?”
Its really not that hard. You don’t get paid for all the things you’re doing and thinking about other than that exact job. So be committed as if your ability to earn income and pay your bills depends on it. Because it does.
There. See? Now I’ve given you guys a first real glimpse into this experience. I knew that would happen. I knew it was going to be a real wild ride dispersing a herd. So here is the first part of that.
Transport in 2024.
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