Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Any goat farmers?

I can only imagine the replies I’ll get!

I’m seriously thinking of adding some goats at my farm. No more than 30. Years ago I helped my grandfather with cows and now we have converted the pastures to row crops. That is working out very well! I have about 5 acres that is on a hill and surrounds a drained farm pond. The pond was drained a couple of years ago and now is growing cane and brush. I have a natural spring that supplies the water to the pond so it not going dry, like I had hoped. The goats will be more of a hobby than anything but I’d like to make a profit selling them also. Thinking about Boer goats for meat. I don’t plan on milking any. Anyway I was wondering if anyone raises goats and might have some educational insight for me.

JcmCubic or something?

Gotta get them tall boots, big enough for your feets and their’s

so that they can’t kick ya in the nutts

Got to have secure fences. Anything less than perfect and they will get out.

You can tell the Spanish goats by their accent.

hth

I always heard that there was no such thing as a "goat proof fence."

The key being, to put the goats on the outside of the fence, works every time !

The old saying is that if a fence will hold goats, it will also hold water.
Horns and wires don't mix. If you have horned goats, you'll be forever getting them untangled from fences. A goat will stick it's head under a hot wire and stretch it's nose as far as it can until it hits the wire. Then it jerks back and the horns will catch the wire and pull it off the insulators.

They are fun to raise, though. Each one will have a personality, much more so than cattle or sheep. They're a lot smarter than cattle, too. Boers have short legs and can't climb like other breeds but they'll still get in trouble. The long legged breeds like to get high - like on top of your car.

Since you will have goats anyway, take a long look at having a few pack goats for hunting. You need the tall dairy breeds for that as Boers can't climb around in the mountains nearly as well. A big wether can haul as much as 50 lb so they can save a lot of work packing out meat.

Since you will have goats anyway, take a long look at having a few pack goats for hunting. You need the tall dairy breeds for that as Boers can't climb around in the mountains nearly as well. A big wether can haul as much as 50 lb so they can save a lot of work packing out meat. [/quote]

In Alabama I probably won’t have any need for pack goats but I have read and heard of renting out goats to clean up peoples property.

If you have anything nice.. pickup, trailer, tractor......anything, expect to see the goats on top of it. If your fence will keep the goats in by some miracle, the coyotes will just eat them there.

For weed control, throw a chain in a tire with concrete in it. When they eat that spot out....move the tire.

Some folks around here use them to control kudzu.

They're great for cleaning up poison ivy and oak. They love the stuff and they're immune to the poison. Just don't pet them after they've been in it because the oils will be on their hides.

I've thought of milking a nanny, trouble is, to freshen a nanny, you need a billy goat.

The trouble with owning a milker is that they have to be milked, twice a day EVERY day. You can't leave home unless you know someone willing to come do the milking. It's an end to camping or hunting trips, vacations away from home, etc. My wife wanted a milk goat until I convinced her of how tied down she'd be.

We used to raise meat goats.Sold them down in Chitcago to the ragheads.Was pretty good money to be made,but I will not drive down there anymore.

Yes, Rock!

We raised a few Boers for a few years. We had a regular stream of Mexicans and Muzzies come down the driveway wanting to buy a butcher goat for $25. The problem was that at the time, they were worth 5x that. They'd never want to pay the going market price.

There are probably several on here that could teach you how to rope them.

Bb

I worked with an old Italian guy that said the Over Sized boots were for Sheep
Boy could that guy tell some story's about his younger days in Italy herding sheep.
He would get all of us laughing and crying listening to him.

All breeds of farm animals have their national organizations and registries and Boer goats have theirs. The association decides what the breed standards will be and breeders are expected to breed toward those standards. With Boers, you run into a conflict. The standards say that all goats should have 2 teats but Boers commonly have 4. Goats with 4 are graded down in the show ring and their value is lower. However, Boers commonly have triplets and even quadruplets, much more so than other breeds. Does with only 2 teats have a hard time feeding them leaving the farmer with extras to bottle feed. A doe with 4 working teats is of more value to goat growers because she's capable of raising more kids and reducing the farmer's labor.

This isn't much different than how the AKC has ruined any number of breeds of good hunting dogs with their idiotic breed standards.