11/23/04, 08:58 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Michigan
Posts: 81
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Gathered all my notes, folders, and printed materials . . .
I have a plethora of printed materials on meat goats and ethnic holidays/traditions:
The consumer groups with a penchant for goat meat are defined in part by faith rather than race. These religious groups are:
Christianity (Eastern and Western)
Islamic
Judaism
The western religions use a solar calendar, while Eastern ones use a Lunar calendar; therefore the dates of their "holidays" will change year to year. For the remaining year of 2004 and 2005 these will fall on:
Hanukkah December 9, 2004
Eid al Adha January 21, 2005
Islamic New Year January 31, 2005
Western or Roman Easter March 27, 2005
Passover April 24, 2005
Eastern or Greek Easter May 1, 2005
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) October 4, 2005
Ramadan (30 days) October 4, 2005 through Nov 3
Eid al Fitr November 4, 2005
Hanukkah December 26, 2005
Three Islamic celebrations are significant to goat meat consumption. Ramadan, the month of fast, is a period of fasting for all Muslims. They are required to fast from sunrise to sunset. The daily fast is followed in the evening by celebrations and meals. Id al Fitr, of the festival of breaking the fast celebrates the end of Raamadan and last for 3 days following Ramadan. Id al Adha, the festival of sacrifice, is a remembrance of Abraham's offering of his son, Ismail as a sacrifice to God.
Rosh Hashanah celebration lasts two days
Hanukkah - Jewish "Festival of Lights" lasts 8 days
From Cornell U:
Western or Roman Easter; fleshy, milk fed kids with relatively light colored meat, 3 months old or younger. Acceptable weights generally range from 20 to 50 pounds with 30 pounds considered optimum.
Eastern of Greek Easter; similar to Western. A slightly larger milk fed kid around 35 pounds is considered optimum.
Navadurgara or Navratra Dashara or Dassai is a Hindu holiday honoring the goddess Durga. Goats are slaughtered from the 7th to 10th day of the holiday in which they celebrate with curried goat. Female goats are not accepted. Relatively tender male goats are generally used. Size depends on the number of people being fed.
Ramadan; male and female goats accepted with all their milk teeth (not older than 1 year). Males can be whole or castrated. Overly fat kids are discriminated against. Optimum live weight about 60 pounds but weaned kids from 45 - 12o are accepted by different buyers.
Id al Fitr and Id al Adha; prefer yearlings that are blemish free. Animals with broken horns, open wounds, torn ears or physical unsoundness generally do not meet the buyers criteria. In some cases, castrated males are frowned upon as well for this feast.
The Christmas market is for milk fed kids and can be a light as 18 pounds.
July 4th are animals wanted suitable for barbeque, generally cabrito or young bucks, does, and wethers with 1 or no sets of adult teeth are chosen.
Goats for the Caribbean holidays are for young, smelly 60 pound bucks. However, older goats of both sexes are often in demand and may prefer to buy them rather than pay the extra price for prime young bucks.
The Chinese market is a preferred range of 60 to 80 pounds live weight and in good health are required.
The Hispanic market is for 20 to 35 pounds live weight of milk fed kids for cabrito and larger goats for seco de chivo.
From time to time you will want to google search for ethnic holidays for the exact dates each year since the lunar sightings will mark the beginnings of the eastern religious "months". I know there are probably Jewish calanders posted as well as Muslim.
Hope this helps - should there be any questions or want the links to where all this info came from, feel free to PM or e-mail me.
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Trish
Lazy Goat Farms
Pygmy Pets R Precious
Sitting with my goats after a long hard day is the best medicine for the mind and laughter for the soul !!! 
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Thanks.
:waa:
