Meat Goats

DayBird,

I raise Nigerian Dwarfs and Mini Nubians for the smaller homstead/farm and pet market. I had to find something to do with all the boys and offered them to a catering business. I would like to get restaurants interested in serving goat. To sell to the public I have a certified butcher. All goats are edible some just have more meat on them. I don't raise pygmies...don't like the way they but it was my understanding that they are more of a meat goat then a milk goat. It also my understanding that the 'Kinder' goat (Pygmy x Nubian) is a great milk/meat goat. I also raise Nubians as well as Boers and a couple of Fainters. I currently have 10 bucks for breeding.

Find the goat you really like and raise them. Create your own market.

I'm trying to find the goat I like. That's why I'm asking so many questions.

My wife wants does with floppy ears. I want a buck with long hair and big curlly horns. (I know most of you think I don't need a buck, but I really do want one.) We both want something that not many other people have, something with conservation needs. We both like the looks of the Myotonic and they're supposed to be easier to keep and house. Would the Myotonic Fainters not work as dairy goats at all? ALBC list them as being in need of conservation. Some breeds are hard to find in Alabama and there are actually several breeders of Myotonics here. I can't find any Dwarfs around at all. The Mini Nubians would be Nubian crossed with Dwarfs, correct? How much do they weigh? Are they better milkers than either parent breed or are they just bred for smaller size? What is it you don't like about the pygmies?

What breed would you suggest? We want something for dairy and for meat.

Thanks,
Robert

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I'm back...for now.

Soooo, you want something different eh? <smile> well, take a look:

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/goats/

Let you wife raise the floppy ears (Nubians) and you get yourself a really awesome Boer Buck NOT disbudded (I think you are nuts..horns are so dangerous and you can't put them in a stanchion to trim hooves or worm or medicate them)

Breed the Nubians to the Buck for an F1 cross and you will see nice kids perfect for meat and the Mothers (nubians) which are dairy will give you your milk.

How about getting a Boer buck and a Nubian Buck so they are able to be kept together (I prefer a min. of 3 bucks in an area together) and they won't have to run with the does and make them smelly and the milk taste awful.

Mini Nubians, Mini Alpines, Mini any goats are dairy goats bred to a nigerian dwarf buck. They are 3/4 the size of a dairy goat. I prefer breeding for blue eyes as they are my favorite as well as color. The blue eyes are so stricking. btw- fainters also have blue eyes. So here I have blue eyes mini goats with floppy ears! just too cute!

Yep, I go to that site everyday and just drool. I love the look of those big, stinking billy goats. I especially like the photos there of the Myotonic Fainting bucks.

We probably will get Nubians simply by default. It seems the only pure breds commonly available here are Nubians, Boers and some pygmies. There are lots of the F1 or "percentage" boer - nubian crosses. If we decide to go this route, we probably won't get a buck at all. We'll just use the neighbor's boer buck across the road.

If you could milk Myotonics or if we could find some Kikos, then we might consider those more. Or, we might just breed our own Kinders or try milking pygmies.

As for the danger of a buck with horns...we've got a giant python, a boa constrictor, a 40 pound wild cat and a multitude of birds that'd rather bite your finger off than draw their next breath. A big billy goat is really nothing compared to that cat. It all depends on how well you know your individual animals, how well you respect them and what their capable of, and being prepared for the worst. An intact buck is not a pet and probably never should be thought of as such. We're not new to this, we've had lots of goats in the past. We inhereted a huge herd of mixed breeds when my Grandfather passed away. We're currently without goats and are finding this a perfect opportunity to start again with purebreds but just can't make up our minds.

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I'm back...for now.

Hope those aren't typical stock auction prices ..
If they are, why wouldn't you buy your meat goats
at auction to slaughter for personal use or for
re-sale to the goat eating ethnic groups ?? Seems
it would be more profitable that way than raising
them yourself

Triff ..

Boy, what an interesting post and answers.

The one question that was asked but not answered was how goat tastes. People said it tastes good but no one mentioned that it depended on whether the goat was a wether, doe or buck. My first taste of goat had to have been a buck, really strong, didn't like it. I have since had wether and does and found the taste fine, kinda like a cross of lamb and venison, ungamey venison that is. Most ethnic groups like full bucks but you would probably have them in the freezer before that.

Keep in mind that if you do anything with mini, pygmy or dwarf, you CANNOT breed to the boer buck. The babies would be too large for the mom to deliver.
Any goat can give you milk, it's a matter of training them to be handled for it.
Minis and dwarfs are made to milk with large bags. Pygmies have tiny teats, harder to milk.

Last, and off the topic, try going gluten free. Most dairy allergies have wheat with it. I have found I have Celiac's after years of trying to find what is wrong with me. I know I am also allergic to dairy.

(78 parrots, huh?)

About meat goats and kinds -- we have weeder goats, a mixed up cross mess of Spanish & don't know what else. New to goats, we want to butcher one and try bbq. Wondering if we need to fill them out with corn and grains, get them fatter before slaughter? or... just pick the fattest one in the herd and go for it?
Also, when we breed them back, what would be the best kind billy goat to use? We plan to borrow or rent one. Our main purpose of goats is weed eating, but it would be nice to have some meaty ones.

We have about 70 goats on our front 40 acres. Most of those are Boers or Boer percentages. We started with Toggs and there are still four of those. Plus two Saanen does I got talked into. And one Nubian doe.

We eat one of the wethers every year. I could eat it for dinner ever day and not notice. My wife claims it "smells funny" when it cooks. And she can always tell if you try to slip it in quietly. She WILL eat it but she would rather have deer or beef. So I think it varies a little bit according to the tastes of the individual person.

We do breed our Boer buck to our dairy does. The Togg/Boer result is usually bony and not worth much. The Saanens are new this year so I'm not sure how their spring babies will work out. The Nubian was a surprise to me. The does herself isn't very big. But she has a HUGE baby boy. He's a wether now and he is going to be a whole lot of meat for somebody down the road.

I _wish_ the producers of goat meat saw prices even one quarter that high! I typically sell off the year's wethers in November. I have an older couple from Arkansas that drives to our ranch to weigh and buy them. I usually hope to get $1 live weight per pound from them. Sometimes I only get 0.90 a pound. If you raise them on grass and never feed them anything you had to pay for and IF you kill and butcher them yourself, I don't think you can find anything much cheaper to eat!

I don't think that's a valid comparison to the meat goat industry. When people were using emus or ostriches or bison, they were paying high prices for their seed stock and hoping to interest people in eating "something different." The only real way they could hope to make money was to sell some of their offspring animals to somebody else as "expensive feed stock." It's sort of a pyramid scheme since the early people do make money and the people at the tail end lose it all. But meat goats don't have to be expensive to buy. If you buy percentage animals especially. We've got a bunch of does that we paid less than $150 each for. And the market is already there. We don't have to convince a bunch of beef eating Americans to try it. The US imports a whole bunch of goat each and every month to feed to people living in the US who want to eat goat. The US meat goat industry is just trying to capture a chunk of the market now being imported.

Sure, you can lose a lot of money in Boer goats. Go to some auctions where they are selling "famous name" show goats. Spend several thousand on a buck. Spend $700-$1000 each on your does. Hope you will "get it all back" by selling kids to people "like you." The thing is, you aren't "a name." People may well be willing to pay thousands of dollars for goats from Mr. Famous Goat Rancher but they will look at yours and barely want to pay meat goat prices. Your only way out of that is to show your goats and become an established name. But how many of us really want to do that? I prefer to buy healthy, solid "meat animals" and sell their offspring in that same category. The wethers go to slaughter. Some of the does go off to be meat goat producers on somebody else's property. But I only expect to sell those young does for $150-$175. If that's your business model, then you can do just fine.

"Lose $20,000!" That's a laugh. I probably don't have $5000 in the whole herd!

Gregg

I have enjoyed reading all of your posts SO much..... it's exactly where my husband and I are at with our decisions.

Daybird... our goals are the same as yours, only we don't have any allergies here. But we want to raise the goats for milk and meat, and just trying to figure out the best path to reach that goal.

Getting this little buck is helping us get the goal clearer I think. I was told that his mother was "white, with a red head and floppy ears". That sounds very boar to me, but my little buck doesn't look like he has any boar in him. We're guessing he has more dairy genes, so our plan is to treat him as a dairy buck. Of course he has no papers , and we don't fully know his breeding, but the plan is to get a 1/2 way decent dairy doe for him. We don't know WHAT dairy breed. It'll just depend on what we find.

But..... we also want the meat, and REALLY want kikos. I will not settle for boars for the meat. If we don't get kikos, then I'll settle for eating the weathers or unsold does from the buck we have, and whatever dairy doe we got. I might settle for a 1/2 kiko doe, but then the goal will be to have a pure kiko buck. At this point my father-in-law works with someone that will sell him a 2 week old full kiko doe for $75. So our intention is to buy from him. I don't know when that will be.... don't know if he has babies now, or when he will.

SO - our goal....
2 bucks (kiko for meat, and current dairy? buck) - they can live together for company
2 kiko does (or 1/2 kiko, but no lower percent)
1 dairy doe

We can easily fence in 1 acre right here at the house, and plan to as quickly as possible. One quarter of it is getting fenced now. Eventually we'll have it seperated as 2 quarter acre areas, and 1 half acre area. If we wanted to expand, we do have 15 acres of woods that would be perfect for goats. But that will take time to fence off. I don't really see a need to expand beyond our own needs and use.

I wanted to share these things with you, and everyone else. First is something I read last week..... found it on the web. It's a discussion on breeding first freshener dairy does to meat bucks. The people said a study was done that supposably showed that these does produced less milk. Something to do with the placenta? The breeding of the meat buck caused these does to forever be lower in milk production. Something to think about. Here it is..... Should you breed a first freshener dairy doe to a meat buck?

Then also, I wanted to give you a breeders list for Kikos - American Kiko Membership. You might end up finding a breeder near you. That is IF you want to look further into Kikos. They're becoming much more common. When Chad and I first started researching goats, and settled on Kikos, it was really funny because we suddenly found out our next door neighbor actually had one!! Then within the last year SO many people in this area have aquired them. But so far in the near towns it seems they only have the half kikos for sale. They're all stuck on the idea of "breeding up" their boar goat. I say, if you want something better than the boar, and WANT kiko, why don't they just get pure kiko and go for it? Maybe it's cost. They've already got a herd of boar, and seem to think they can move TOWARD full kiko slowly. So anyway, I can't seem to find anyone extremely close to sell me full kikos. They're keeping them all for their own breeding stock. AND... it seems the people around here are stuck on the idea of making something called a Genemaster, which is a 3/8 Kiko & 5/8 Boar. If you haven't read on it, you should. It's interesting, but it also (to me) seems like another one of those "fads".

We tossed around the idea like you..... have dairy does and a meat buck? Mix them up to get milk from mama, but slightly bigger than dairy babies for eating? But for us the answer was keeping it seperate...... a meat breed AND a dairy breed. The dairy for now can be less than perfect. There's only the 2 of us, so not much milk is needed. Goals on milk would be for us, and maybe for bottle feeding any extra babies. (Kikos I hear often have triplets.) But we want the best for meat... and I find the kiko to look very impressive for meat.

Sorry if my post was long. But I've found it to be a great topic, and had alot to say about what our thoughts are here.

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Beth

Owner of Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, dark cornish & white rock mix, Quail, and my first two young goats (buck & doe). We sell chicks, and are willing to sell fertile eggs.

We're having the same discussion here too. We have two dairy does, very nice, registered good milkers, blah blah blah. But we can't give the kids away as dairy goats. So we're probably going to add some meat goats, a buck and maybe a few does to up our number of kids. I'm really leaning toward Kikos rather then Boers. I have heard of some bad outcomes at kidding time with Boer bucks over dairy does. Not so much Nubians, but other breeds. The Kiko kids are smaller boned and are usually easier deliveries, so we're leaning that way. They also seem to be hardier, with fewer health problems, then Boers.

On the myotonics... We also have them and really like them. But, they are no dairy goat. I wouldn't even consider attempting to milk a myotonic on a regular basis. Their teats are teeny, really teeny. And I don't think you'd get much milk, maybe a cup or two a day. As a meat breed, I suppose they grow a nice carcass. But we can sell them for a lot more money as pets and breeding stock then we can as meat goats, so they are all for that purpose. I don't know if that market will always be there, but for now, they pay their way and probably pay for most of the dairy goat's way too. lol.

I have boer and kiko and crosses.They all have horns.The kiko horns are the worst because they don't curl back.They curl out and they are constantly wanting to get close.I have bruises always from their horns.They are not mean they just don't understand that they may be able to fit through my legs but backing out is not an option.They are better as far as worms and hoof trimming than the boers.The goats around here bring about 1.00 per pound.Regardless at the sale or off of the farm.I prefer to take them to the sale.I don't want anyone butchering on my farm...I have never eaten goat as I cannot bear the thought of eating my babies..

Just wanted to chime in here - I really appreciate this thread, and those links, Beth. I have nubians - some pretty nice milking nubians. I picked up my nubian buckling in Texas, and brought home a boer buckling (not papered, but could be) to keep him company, and potentially to produce some percentages on does that I want to keep milking, but don't want to keep offspring out of.

Now, I'm not so sure! I originally wanted to use them on 1st fresheners, but changed my mind due to birth weights, and not wanting to cause complications. I've been milking my girls three years, so if I do breed to my boer, and milk production goes down - I will really be able to notice it. I was planning on going on milk test next year, now I'm thinking I shouldn't breed anything to that boer that I'm planning on getting tested! Sheesh.

Dairy kid prices here are horrible. Anything that looks boer goes for much higher. I was hoping to take advantage of that........

Niki

I get such a kick out of anyone who raises, markets and sells *meat* goats....and doesn't eat the meat. Some meat goat breeders don't even know what goat meat tastes like! How can you truly market a product, if you don't know piddly about it. Its like selling milk goats and raving about the taste, then the buyer asks you if you've ever tasted it yourself....and you have to admit that you haven't. What does that say about *your* faith in your product?? Sorry, I just think thats funny. And chances are, if your neighbor is selling *everything* as breeding stock.....then he is selling some as breeding stock that should be culls. *Everybody* has culls, no matter how good and experienced a breeder you are. And culls should be eaten or sold as pets, not passed off as breeding stock. Not bashing your neighbor by any means. But there is no such thing as a herd with *NO* culls.

Yes, there are Boer breeders who eat their goats. We eat Boer and dairy and crosses. They are all good. A Boer buck crossed over onto dairy does can create some really good eating goats. They are meaty with a large frame and they grow fast on all that milk. I have used my Boer buck on yearling first freshening dairy does and they did fine. Not all Boer kids are bigger than dairy kids, it depends on your buck. Some bucks throw big kids, some throw average kids. I have really liked the Boer/Saanen, the Boer/Oberhasli, the Boer/Lamancha, and the Boer/Nubians I have owned.

Your wife could have her floppy-eared Nubians and you could keep a Boer buck with horns(I would take a disbudded Boer buck over a horned one anyday of the week, simply for ease of working him, but thats your choice), and you would both have what you wanted. Need to keep another buck or a wether as company for the buck. Hope you find what you want. I love the Boers and the Nubians. And the Lamanchas, and the Saanens........and, and, and.....

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Emily Dixon
Ozark Jewels
Nubians & Lamanchas
www.ozarkjewels.net

"Remember, no man is a failure, who has friends" -Clarence

I just wish I could get my husband 'converted' from beef. It would make more sense $$-wise to eat the culls ourselves than to sell them. The prices here on dairy anything is horrible.

He hates butchering ( I don't blame him, but once it is dead I do alright). On our small acreage it makes more sense to butcher goats than a steer. I wonder if we just did it - made the switch, without a beef 'back up' if we would adjust? lol. The butcher charges a lot to butcher a goat here.

Does it make any sense to use the boer buck for offspring we would use for meat ourselves? Any advantages? My husband thinks we should sell him, and just use our nubian buck. I think he's kind of cute myself - and he's gentle. The boer buck, that is.
Niki

..

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Diane Rhodes
Feral Nature Farm
LaManchas, MiniManchas and Boers

Since this post (10/06).our herd has really grown and we have enjoyed eating alot more goat. We butcher our own. I have found that the LaMancha/Boer cross to be a good one as the does are grest milkers as well as meat producers and the wethers from this cross are nice and meaty.

I agree that Boer meat is tastier and we don't care that we are eating expensive breeding animals, lol, we are raising animlas for meat on our farm first and foremost. We have a fridge overflowing with milk, and our dogs are fat on it. I am presently milking three does twice a day and will be milking even more next spring.

We also raise free-range chickens so with the goat meat and huge amount of milk, the chicken meat and eggs, we have a good bit of food to depend on. Add dry beans, rice and pasta to a garden and a person stays well fed.

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Diane Rhodes
Feral Nature Farm
LaManchas, MiniManchas and Boers

Yep... this is our goal too. We have the chickens, and now one goat. The garden does ok, but we really need to get the ground improved with manure. We also have 3 bee hives. I'm diabetic, so can't have the honey, but my husband goes through 6-10 pounds of honey a month. (Seriously!!) He likes his coffee VERY sweet.

Every bit we raise or grow ourselves I see as money in the pocket. Especially with the honey. We save about $50 a month when we have honey to harvest. The chickens will have given us about $1,000 profit (after paying for the feed) by hatching out chicks. We haven't bought meat from the store for atleast 6 months. We've either raised our own meat chickens (at @ .70 cents per pound in feed cost) or traded baby chicks for bulk meat from a guy that gets it discounted. Traded chickens for the goat, and plan to eventually get our milk, meat, cheese, and yogurt needs filled with the goats. Maybe even the soap too. My husband is learning so much about "self-sufficiency", and REALLY wants us to get to a place were we have very little dependance outside our little place. He's even wanting to get our power needs from somewhere other than the power company - probably go with wind rather than solar. Now if we could just get more connected with other farmers to do other trades, especially garden trades or labor trades, I'd feel we had things rather complete.

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Beth

Owner of Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, dark cornish & white rock mix, Quail, and my first two young goats (buck & doe). We sell chicks, and are willing to sell fertile eggs.

I guess we are getting a wee bit off track from the original thread, but I wanted to add that we do almost all of our grocery shopping at the Dollar General. Our basic grocery supplies are very cheap. We have bees too, 100 hives, but they are not ours, they belong to a bee man who uses our chemical free land in exchange for free honey, all we can use in a year plus plenty to give to family. Keep on with the goats, you will be surprised with what good providers they are. Takes a few years to get the management and whole milking thing down, but it then becomes second nature. I can do it in my sleep....and often do

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Diane Rhodes
Feral Nature Farm
LaManchas, MiniManchas and Boers