BUILDING UP A HERD
There is a slow way and a quick way to build up a herd of goats. As usual the slow way requires less capital. If you have but a few dollars you will have to begin with cheap goats, but to keep a poor goat is poor business. You can buy good, common goats for one dollar and a half or two dollars each and with time and patience build up from them a herd of Angoras by crossing. If capital is easier to command than years of time, you will begin with good Angora does which cost from eight dollars upward. If you begin with common ones, choose white, short-haired individuals. Keep only the best does in your herd for breeders; you will soon learn how to judge them by the quality of their fleece and the price it brings you per pound. In five or six years it is possible to build up a herd of fine mohair producers from common goats.
The hair grows coarser as the goat passes six years of age, so it does not pay to keep one too long. Buy young does. A goat's teeth tell its age up to the fourth year. If all the eight teeth are full-sized the goat is certainly four to five years old, it may be more.