“Speaking of pig, I gotta get off of this computer and go fire up the smoker for some ribs.”
We’re in, ‘BLT While We Can Get Them’ mode this week!
Great info about the goats, too. Thanks! I spent summers on my Aunt’s farm tending goats. I hate them. Unless hers were the most ill-mannered goats of all time, I just can’t do it. Can’t stand the smell, can’t stand their cheese - and I LOVE cheese!
I have a feeling we’re getting some, though. Beau has a steep hillside where they will be very happy. ;)
We had a few dairy goats. It’s the boys that smell when they’re in rut. Same with all goats. With meat goats, I won’t have to interact with them much.
We had two does and two bucks for dairy goats.
Doe #1 queen of the flock and smart but a bitch
Doe #2 sweetheart
Buck #1 loud and horny
Buck #2 dumb as a box of rocks
None of us took to milking the does and then we moved here and had no fence. They finally found the neighbor’s deer food plot and he wasn’t too happy so they had to go.
For meat goats, there’s;
Boer - high maintenance and developed in South Africa desert but they get fat quick and are what most meat goat breeders use
Savanah - lower maintenance, all white, slower growing
Kiko - very low maintenance, slower growing
Myotonic aka fainting goats - hard to find them bred for meat qualities but they do exist - lot of women breeding them for coat color, blue eyes, small and friendly - easy to fence in due to mytotonic condition
Spanish Goats - hard to find bred to good meat quality as they’ve been used for brush goats for many decades
50-70 lbs brings the highest $$$ per lb($2.00 - 3.00 depending on time of year - Spring is highest) which is about 5-6 months old. The reason Spring is highest price is due to muslim holidays. Kinda bugs me to think I’ll be feeding muslims but 80% of goat meat sold in the US, gets imported from New Zealand so they’re going to get goat one way or another. Hispanics eat it too and refer to it as Cabrito.
Unlike most dairy breeds, I think all the meat breeds will breed year round. That might mean locking up the buck until your want them to breed. That can be hard because they’re quite driven. Goats don’t do well alone as they’re social so you need a companion for a buck. I don’t remember the term for a fixed buck but that’s what people usually use. Normally bucks go into rut in September here and then the gestation period is 150 days. I’m basing that on dairy goats though. Not 100% sure about meat breeds. That means babies in the coldest part of winter, February or so. For the most part, no intervention is needed and at that time of year, they’re penned up close to the house to make it easier to go out and feed them. If they’re out in the field and you don’t know where a doe birthed, the kids could freeze to death depending on the weather and how good of a momma the doe is or isn’t. They normally have twins and a doe that consistently has only one kid should get culled. Triplets are not too uncommon. There should be a kidding pen for the does and kids for a short time so the kids don’t get trampled. They feed off of momma for 4-6 weeks or so and by then, here at least, green stuff is starting to pop up. If you bale hay, that helps. If you have cattle, they can run with cattle and won’t take much of any food away from them. They eat a lot of stuff that cattle won’t. Goats generally just need a three sided shed where they can get out of the rain and have a wind block. They hate the rain and can get sick and/or too cold from being wet. They’re not like cows and horses that can stand in the field in all weather. Of course they would probably survive since they’re not too far off from their feral/wild cousins but they won’t thrive and you could lose some which is money lost.
This is all off the top of my head and my research was done for Missouri, not the Great White North ;)
I think most of the meat goat herds are in TX, TN, AR, FL and MO - most to least.
Certain breeds of sheep do well on the same kind of rough pasture that goats like. And sheep’s milk is supposed to be extra sweet and creamy. Might that be a compromise?