Reasons for marking:
• It is easier to handle wethers than adult bucks.
• Wethers do not develop the strong odour that entire males do – some meat consumers complain that buck odour contaminates the meat.
• Meat from wethers can be more tender than that from bucks.
• Wethers do not tend to fight as much or as violently as bucks.
• Wethers and does can be run together for most of the year. However, they do have different nutritional requirements (refer to the article Goat Nutrition), so separation will make it easier to manage their different needs.
• Wethers have a better dressing percentage.
• Some markets require male goats to be castrated.
Reasons for retaining entire males:
• Breeding purposes.
• Entire males have better growth rates than wethers.
• Entire males generally have a larger mature size and are leaner at any particular liveweight than wethers.
• Islamic customers require entire males.
• The behavioural problems associated with entire males are not expressed until the animals reach puberty, so if selling animals prior to this stage eg. capretto and some chevon products, marking is unnecessary.
• Avoiding the marking process reduces the level of stress imposed on young animals, hence they maintain their growth rate.
• At this stage, there is no market penalty for entire males.
