Goats for meat??

[LoneStrChic23]

How many of you here raise goats for meat or dual purpose milk/meat? How many of you like goat meat? How many of you raise goats strictly for dairy?

I posted this blog post due to a recent uproar my goat pics on FB caused:

http://noodlevilleadventures.blogspo...y-of-food.html

After the blog post I recieved a FB message informing me that those "in" dairy goats don't eat them and if I wanted to eat goat I should raise boers. When I asked what dairy people were to do with extra, unwanted males I was told to send them to auction, wether them as companions or offer them as free companions to goats I do sell....Yes I realize boers are better meat animals, but I think the freezer is a great outlet for unsold dairy bucks/wethers and even if they don't dress out as well, they still taste great

So...since several of you here have dairy goats I thought I'd ask and see how many of you actually plan on using kids as meat even though they aren't "meat" goats (I know at least a few of you do)....

I know some people have goats just as pets, I'm fine with that & totally respect them not eating them (any animal with "pet" status here never is eaten, they are burried..... regardless of how economical, I couldn't eat a former pet).....Just wanted to throw that out there so folks didn't think I was anti pet or anything like that..

[Gailann Schrader]

"strictly for dairy" is unrealistic, imho.

I raise to benefit my farm. Meat & milk. Replacement does as they come along.

Anything else is unthrifty and fooling yourself if you want to be self-sufficient...

[Reed77]

I'm getting into meat/show boer goats, I haven't eaten any of my home raised goat, but I look forward to it!

[KrisD]

Well our first babies years ago were obviously pets because they were the first. But come spring when my girls have kids, the boys will be in the freezer and the girls will either be kept or sold as future milk does. My family (parents, brother and sil are in an uproar over it) I told them they are welcome to donate to the Dooley Family Farm but otherwise the boys will be eaten!

[LoneStrChic23]

We put two in the freezer this year and I actually prefer it to beef (store bought beef anyways...myFIL put a jersey cross steer in the freezer and that was amazing beef!).

This next kidding season I'll offer the boys for sale as bottle babies at a low price if taken before 2 weeks old. After that I have a friend who will cut them for me & who ever is left will be freezer camp bound.

I don't want boers as my main goal is dairy, but to me it seems logical to eat extra males who don't sell so it kind of threw me for a loop that eating the extras seemed odd to another person..to each their own I suppose

[Goat Servant]

Our main goal is meat. For us, for customers. Goat meat is out of this world we eat more of that than anything else meat wise.
More than 70% of the worlds population consumes it. Come on America get on Boerd!!
We do show but that's just the icing on the cake.

[Rockytopsis]

I have dairy goats for milk and I have a meat buck I cross with them for meat. I drink the milk from my goats, and I eat the meat from my goats. I have one in the freezer now and ready to send another.
I sell goats for meat.
It totally messes with my mind when folks don't know where real meat comes from, be it goat, rabbit, chicken or cow.
Yes they are cute when little and yummy when grown.
Nancy

[Oat Bucket Farm]

Lots of people eat dairy wethers. We had a nubian/boer cross wether that we ate. He was delicious. I was blown away by how tasty goat meat is. I will happily eat any males that don't move out of here fast enough.

" those "in" dairy goats don't eat them and if I wanted to eat goat I should raise boers."

This is a totally ridiculous way to look this. It one thing to not want to butcher, it's a whole other thing to have no problem with butchering, as long as its the "right" kind of goat. As long as it isn't diseased, it can be eaten, even if it can trace it's ancestry back to a medieval dairy somewhere.

I do hope you recommended those people get their noses out of the air and start looking at things from a realistic angle.

[DamnearaFarm]

I plan to eat goats from dairy lines.

Someone is on their high horse (or goat?) from the sounds of it....

[TroutRiver]

I eat most of my male goats. Every once in awhile one gets lucky and gets sold. I agree that it's just not practical or realistic to think you can raise animals *only* for dairy, at least not if you want to break even on your costs. The boys are no good for dairy, so what else can you do with them? Holstein and jersey cows are not beef breeds, but bull calves still become veal and beef. They still have good meat on them, just not as much quantities as the breeds who were developed specifically for meat production.

As for people who are horrified at us eating our boy goats, I would say to them that me shooting a buckling here on my farm and butchering him for my own consumption is much more humane than sending him to an auction where he will have an incredibly stressful few days, only to most likely meet the same fate for someone else. I'm not trying to bad mouth auctions, I have sent animals to auctions before, but I do prefer not to if I can butcher them myself.

[Gailann Schrader]

...besides... you can't keep them ALL or we would be inundated with animals and have no food to eat.

Baby animals are cute. They're made that way so we don't butcher them immediately.

That 165# bullock calf is REALLY cute until he gets to be 1200# and tramples your children to death because he wants to play.

I like to eat what I produce. That way I know how they are handled start to finish.

[Alice In TX/MO]

We have eaten our bucklings, but we decided we don't care for goat meat much. I fed the rest of what was in the freezer to the dogs.

That said, anyone who attacks you for eating bucklings is uninformed and has a narrow view of the reality of dairy farms.

[ozark_jewels]

Yeah well, some people like to think the meat they buy from the store was produced by happy animals who were always treated the best.......*If* they even think about the fact that the meat was once a living, breathing animal!

I butcher dairy wethers(and sometimes unproductive does) every year. This year I'm raising 11 for the freezer. Delicious!!

Where does she think the ones that she sells at auction go?? To slaughter 99% of the time. And usually its not as humane as home-butchering can be.

Head-in-the-sand syndrome is high among small-time "pet" dairy goat breeders.

I posted a reply to your blog. I greatly enjoyed reading it by the way.

[farmergirl]

We have a small herd of dairy goats, and we either sell or eat the unneeded males. My DH loves cabrito.
We have even butchered year old intact males and ended up with edible meat. But normally we castrate the bucklings early and raise them up to about 6 or 7 months old and then it's off to freezer camp for them.

The organ meat we feed to the dogs raw.

BTW, I LOVE your blog! Do you mind if I link to it from mine?

[LFmenagerie]

Hey Farmergirl...The liver from the young ones it REALLY good!

Few are sold here. We just dont have the market or time to advertise. We know the meat is "clean" cause we raised them. Havent sent one to auction yet. They Taste good-specially the young ones. Cabrito-yes!!! Hamberger (we often mix with pork)sausage, oven roast, grill, backstrap cabobs marinated...mmmmmm

I'm going to look at your site now. Prob all of us that eat them get some neg feedback but so many people are disconnected from their food source and can't bear to think of it (shrug).

Added after reading the blog:

That is sad...and so funny. The chicken conversations are hilarious! I still enjoy peoples reactions in tasting goat milk for the first time. Almost every time it goes something like this - "Wow! It tastes like real milk." Then the sheepish look comes...

Pam V.

[Govero Farms]

WOW. I just read your blog. I had to laughed what the person said about eggs coming out of their butts. LOL..

WOW That is so sad that a lot of people dont realize where the food is coming from. I have noticed that there is so many of new generations like me and most of them have NO clue. And newer generations like my kids and I have talked to other kids and they have no clue. It makes me so mad. I get so sick of it. I feel bad for the new generations. What happened to our old generations. MAN.

[saanengirl]

I raise dairy goats, and any buck kids not sold or kept for breeding purposes are either go into the freezer or are sold for meat. Saanen buck kids are very fast growing, and are often a good market weight by weaning.

[TwosCompany]

Oh my, I've run into the same things here. We raised two steers for the freezer and I almost always got the same statement from people, "How can you DO that?! They're so CUTE!" Well, yes they are cute. All young things are cute. They WILL grow and be not-so-cute. I responded with graphic descriptions of how many factory-farmed animals live. Not nice, I know, but they quickly "get" why we prefer to raise our own and that the animals here live much happier lives that those that end up shrink-wrapped in the grocery stores. I have a family member who steadfastly refuses to eat ANYTHING that comes from our farm because, "it's not been inspected by the FDA."

[rabbitpatch]

When my FF had her buckling kid last month I was so excited. Of course, who wouldn't be excited at a new baby? Especially when (looooooong story) I've worked so hard to get this one! Of course I took pictures - posted some here and on facebook.

Several people asked me what the baby's name is. My answer was "He doesn't get a name." From the reactions I got, you would think I had told them I was planning to murder a human child. "Oh how could you?" "You're so meaaaaaan!" "You're going to KILL him?!?"

I finally got fed up with it one day and said "WHERE DO YOU PEOPLE THINK YOUR FOOD COMES FROM?!?"

I don't think it changed anybody's mind about how "mean" I am, but at least they stopped whining about it.

[RedSonja]

We've eaten two Nubian wethers here. They're yummy. As others have said, I'd much rather they have idyllic lives here, with no neglect or abuse, then a fast painless end, than go to a slaughter house where they're dirty, afraid, and crowded then butchered on an assembly (disassembly? ) line.

Pretty much any bucklings born here will eventually be eaten if not sold. If not for our first kid born here just last month having a home to go to as a future herd's future herd sire, he'd be banded and butchered as well. Maybe some day, a nice enough buckling will be born here to replace his sire and he'll get to live out his days intact and breeding does. Until then, bucklings get butchered.

-Sonja