Alpine mountain goat: description and conditions of keeping ibexes, cost

In nature, there are animals that can move where, according to the laws of physics, it is simply impossible to stay. We are talking about the Alpine ibex. Its second name is ibex. These representatives of the fauna are among the most dexterous climbers. Among the rocks, they hide from natural enemies, because few predators can climb a vertical stone wall. In appearance, these animals resemble the mythical ibex.

Description and characteristics of the animal

Mountain goats are medium-sized artiodactyl animals. Alpine ibex has a well-defined sexual dimorphism. Goats are smaller than goats. At the withers, the females are no more than 70-80 cm, their weight is about 40 kg. The growth of males is 90-100 cm, weight reaches 100 kg.

The main difference between individuals of different sexes is the horns. In goats, they are small, from 15 cm to 18 cm, look like daggers and are slightly bent back. Ibex male has huge, up to 100 cm long, horns, curved in a semicircle towards the back. Goats older than six or seven years old can weigh 10-15 kg.

Muzzles of goats are decorated with a small beard, goats do not have it. The tails are short, the hooves are narrow and very strong. Powerful neck and shoulder muscles make climbing rocks easier.

The coat is thick and hard. In the summer, goats have a reddish coat, while in males it is colored brown. The limbs and tail are darker than the hair on the body, most often they are black or brown. In the middle of the belly and near the anus, the coat is lighter, almost white. Alpine goats molt and become gray in winter.

Pros and cons

Undoubted advantages of the breed are unpretentiousness and endurance. These animals do not require insulated rooms. A group of ibexes in an unheated barn can tolerate winter frosts down to -25 degrees. Mountain goat milk has a fat content of 3.2% to 4%, it is tasty, sweetish, used for a variety of purposes, including for baby food. These animals can interbreed with domestic goats, improving livestock quality.

The downside of keeping in captivity is that at temperatures above +25 degrees, appetite and productivity decrease in animals. In addition, they are inferior to dairy breeds of domestic goats in terms of the amount of milk. On average, females give about 700-800 liters of milk per year. For comparison, you can bring the Saanen breed. Her annual milk yields are 1000-1200 liters.

It should be noted that Ibex males have a specific smell. Urine contains a special secret, they mark everything around with it. The aggressive nature of adult males is also a significant disadvantage of the breed.

Selection rules

You can buy both a young kid and an adult animal. Do not buy a newborn baby. It will have to be fed with milk manually, and this must be done by the hour.

The better decision would be to buy an adult goat with a goat or wait until the baby is 45 days old. At this age, their stomach is already capable of digesting roughage. The udder of a nursing goat should be soft, with no signs of mastopathy.

When buying an adult animal, you must definitely inspect the hooves. If they are ugly and deformed, it is better to refuse the purchase.

Conditions and care

To keep alpine goats in a home farm, you need a windproof barn with an area of at least 2.5-3 square meters. m per head. The air in the room must be dry. Permissible humidity is 40-60%.These animals do not tolerate dampness. It is desirable to raise the floor by 15-20 cm and make it out of wood. The barn must be well ventilated. It will be provided by two small windows, one of which is located at the bottom, and the second at the top.

Important! In the presence of drafts and increased dampness, even hardy mountain goats can get pneumonia.

Despite the fact that animals tolerate stall keeping, grazing on pastures or arranging spacious walking yards near the barn is desirable in the summer.

When keeping at home, it is important to take care of the hooves of the animal, clean and trim them in time. In some cases, young animals aged 3-14 days are subjected to a dehorning or decoration procedure. Such animals grow calmer, and the absence of horns in adults protects the livestock and people serving it from injury.

What to feed

Under natural conditions, mountain goats feed on grasses such as bluegrass, fescue. They eat the branches of shrubs and trees. These products are also included in the diet of animals at home. For the winter, it is advisable for them to prepare meadow hay, cut and dry branches of linden, birch, hazel.

For a year, one animal in a stall can eat up to 450-600 kg of hay. If it is possible to graze the herd before the onset of frost, then the amount of hay is almost halved. When calculating the daily amount of hay, it is necessary to take as a basis the consumption of 2 kg per head per day for the entire stall period.

You must include in your diet:

• grain;
• hay;
• juicy root vegetables and vegetables;
• 200 g of compound feed per head, it is especially needed in winter;
• water with any sweet jam, give in autumn and spring.

Both stabling and grazing animals require table s alt.

Goats of this breed are especially sensitive to water. If it is not possible to equip nipple drinkers, then water containers should be washed daily before filling with water. In winter, animals can pour out warm water heated to 35 degrees.

How to breed

Alpine ibex reach sexual maturity in their second year of life. It is desirable to mate goats no younger than a year and no lighter than 35 kg of weight. Males can be allowed to breed after reaching two or three years and kept separately. Only he althy individuals participate in breeding.

The hunting period for mountain goats falls on December-January. In the wild, rivals who have reached the age of 5-6 years have powerful and strong horns. It is they who arrange fights for the right to possess a female.In a home farm setting, the goat and goat are placed in an isolated stall. When kept together, free mating of animals is possible.

After 150-170 days after mating, a kid is born. If the male covered the female in late December or early January, then the offspring should be expected in late spring or early summer. The newborn is covered with fur, eyes and ear canals are open, its weight is 3 kg and it is ready to follow the mother almost as soon as it dries. Adult females are quite prolific and, when kept at home, very often bring twins.

Frequent diseases

Mountain ibex suffer from both contagious and non-contagious diseases. For humans, tick-borne encephalitis is the most dangerous, the carriers of which can be these animals. The goats themselves do not get sick. In regions that are disadvantaged by this indicator, goat milk should be boiled.

From non-contagious diseases most often in mountain goats there are cases of tympania.It is caused by feeding legumes in their pure form, grazing after rain in fields sown with alfalfa, peas, and soybeans is especially dangerous. Prevention of the disease is feeding hay to alpine ibex before pasture.

Alpine goat valuation

The cost of an Alpine goat depends on its purebred. The price of crossbred kids starts from one and a half thousand rubles. A purebred baby can cost 10,000 rubles. Gender, age, pedigree and place of birth of animals are of great importance when evaluating the value. If Alpine ibex are born on a foreign specialized farm, their origin is documented, then the price of such animals can be quite high.

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