I have sold every kid I had listed on CL     I got the prices I wanted although I did a slight discount for the man who bought 7 of my smaller boys.  No trip to the sale barn with bucklings this year!!  YEAH !!

I am keeping 3 girls for myself, but have a lady coming who is taking my last 2 girls listed and I will let her choose between the 2 I listed and 2 of the ones I planned to keep ( if she likes them better).  They are equal in quality and all have mothers who I like to keep kids from.  So all in all a good year. 

So many want them for brush control and most of my boys ended up being banded for the buyers.   I wonder if the news has helped in selling goats?  We have had several stories in the local paper and on the tv news about using goats .

Is it like that for everyone else?

Goats aren't so popular down here...the ones I have seen are in pretty pitiful shape...I have to turn my head when I see them.  Goats are more popular over in Louisiana than they are in Texas.  There is a small herd of pet goats across the street from me.  Little Nigi crosses, and they are adorable and fat as mud, but they never get any attention, over stocked pasture and they have 2 Jerusalem Donkeys in with them.  I don't care for the owners...they never give them hay or limbs to chew leaves off of...makes me sad for them.

I'm so happy to hear the price of goats are going up.  I'm also very happy you got them all sold off your farm this year.  The ones I did take to the sale barn, it sickened me to the core to have to do that.  I'm so happy I only had to take 5 there over the 5 yrs we were in that area/state.   

Goats are plentiful around here.  I am always surprised when I sell any off farm    I am going to try and get them all sold like this next year.  I hate, hate , hate taking them to the sale.  So stressful and they look awful after the drive and well gosh darn it I want better for my kids.  I work really hard to raise a quality goat.  I may not have high dollar stock but I try to feed them right and meet their every need.  Sometimes I think they get better care than I do!!

I had one guy come and get 7 boys who was 3.5 hours away in Illinois!  I asked him if they have goats there and he said sellers just have 1 or 2 and he wanted more and from as few of sources as he could.

that's exactly how I felt about it too Julie.  It takes a lot of care to raise a good quality animal, and buying a better quality animal off the farm instead of the sale barn, is always better for the buyers.

I know good animals go through the sales, but with the stress, exposure to the animals that may not be healthy and have been in the pen before yours, well you run the risk of having a sick animal later on and bringing an illness back to your healthy goats.  Happens with all the animals.

I agree...years and years ago, back in the early 80's...the auction barn that was on our town was clean and reputable...you barely smelled the animals...there was a constant mist of fly spray that lightly misted above the animals enclosures.  The isle ways and cat walks were in great shape.  The arena nice and large and clean.  They use to take great pride in bringing quality healthy animals into the sale barns....then the Auctions raised their percentage commissions and farmers only took what they had to take to the sale barns.  Then the bigger auctions wanted you to put your 20 head of beefs in with a larger ranchers 100 head of beefs to be sold with them...thus bringing more money for the auctioneers, and giving the larger rancher the better name...politics I'm sure....Auction barns went to pot in a hand basket...they allowed these sickly animals to come in and be sold...where as before the vets would reject them. 

It was a sad sad day when the Rancher had to resort to that.