[Old Shep]

It's worth noting often dairy males are culled at birth.

Is it possible to take in these male dairy goats and rear on to fatten them for meat?  It would be a pain to bottle feed them I know...


Also - with Boer goats do they have a problem with their feet?  I've had pygmies and angoras, both had terrible problems with scald - the angoras especially.

[Anke]

There are a few goatkeepers (including me ) that rear their (castrated) dairy males for meat - if you have the milk spare (or in my case no time to make cheese in the spring/summer) then these are reared together with the females, all are bottle fed. It is however not a commercial solution, as a) goat kids won't reach slaughter weight on grass and milk alone (unlike sheep) and will need a good concentrate ration and b) dairy male carcasses have more bone (same as dairy cattle vs beef cattle). So most of us do it for ethical reasons as well as being a fantastic meat that I couldn't buy locally. No idea what it costs though, and all of ours is for private consumption only.

I would have though you would struggle to do it as a business, unless you had a guaranteed outlet. One hears of a few people trying it and losing out by either buyers dropping out or worse - not paying...

[cuckoo]

Cuckoo, that looks a good weight. Our 100% castrated Boers were on average 26kg at 9 months. We will not castrate this year to improve carcass weight. Our birth weights varied for singles between 8 and 12 lbs.
Wrt to jumping fences ours have not. We have a plain wire at 3" at the base then standard stock fencing then 2 strands of plain wire. The top wire at approx 5 feet. We also have put an electric fence wire above than but not ever needed to switch it on.  One problem with sheep stock fencing is that horned kids will get their heads stuck.

I would recommend keeping intact - they convert feed to weight better.
Your birth weights are better than ours.
Look at your breeding stock - there are plenty of 100% boer goats out there but that doesn't make them a good meat goat.  There are also plenty of graded / % goats out there which are a lot better.  Invest in a good male - he will be worth it.
We feed ad lib creep from 3 weeks old. GLW goat grower and finisher. Once they reached a good size and weight the creep was stopped and were trough fed once a day (cant remember the amounts)
We also have a strict plan for cocci / worming / vaccinations / vit B12 injections / treatments
We rotate grazing

Ours don't tend to jump fences - we find a normal stock fence with a strand of electric on top and another half way up attached with long isolators is sufficient to keep them in and to stocp them putting their forelgs on the fence.  I was paid £2.50 per kg lifeweight for the two males above - they went to the winter fair at Stafford and I was very pleased with that amount.  That is what a commercial person supplying to the south east will pay so I think £2.50 live weight is fair.  I did pay for killing of that though as had already paid for them to be entered into the competition
We feed

[cuckoo]

It's worth noting often dairy males are culled at birth.

Is it possible to take in these male dairy goats and rear on to fatten them for meat?  It would be a pain to bottle feed them I know...


Also - with Boer goats do they have a problem with their feet?  I've had pygmies and angoras, both had terrible problems with scald - the angoras especially.

Yes you can take in male dairy goats for meat.  However, I have heard of them being anything from £15 to £25 at a few hours to a week old.  That with a sack of milk powder £30 doesn't make for much margin when you add other costs on to it.  However, if getting a guaranteed price then you can cost it out.

Re feet - we have boers and have had angoras.  Never had a massive issue with either breeds feet.  Perhaps the issue is more to do with where the animal has been ie has it been infected by previous contact with infected sheep?

Old Shep - I note you are in North Yorks - We are near Goole - if you are ever passing feel free to pm me to come and visit - there will be 15 - 20 kids running around at the beginning of april

[Old Shep]

Thanks cuckoo

[Sbom]

This is something I'm researching at the moment with a few to doing it on a larger scale..

what milk powder are they fed on? Only ever seem lamb, calf or the expensive multimilk?
are there actually goat weaning/finishing rations available? Would you finish them on adlib corn as well as grass/hay or even silage/haylage?
How do you go about getting regular buyers for the meat? We are not massively far from Birmingham , I wonder if I rang round a few butchers there I could get some interest...

[Anke]

Not an easy business to get into, as most meat buyers are after a bargain or two.... so unless you have a regular buyer who pays promptly, quite risky. Careful planning needed IMO.

Most people do it using lamlac for a few weeks, but making it up thinner for goats than for sheep and I wouldn't wean them quite as early as lambs. Then feeding on cattle rations - look into feeding guidelines for Boer goats, should get some info on there... goat kids mainly kept inside - so problems are cocci and other "indoor" issues.

We rear out boys for our own consumption only, as I would not be able to make money on them, but the meat is out of this world.

[Sbom]

They would be housed over winter and have access to a field in the summer. Wormed and cocci' as needed.
Thinking about butchers, restaurants and meat boxes.....still all in the early stages at the moment, loads of research to do.

[Anke]

There are no licensed wormers for goats that actually work, therefore no proper withdrawal times for meat consumption available. Not sure if this is a problem if you want to sell the meat at some point. Same for flukicides...

[MAK]

Milk fed goat in the supermarket at 72€. Sorry but I did not check out their weight. But the label said milk fed kid.

[Sbom]

There are no licensed wormers for goats that actually work, therefore no proper withdrawal times for meat consumption available. Not sure if this is a problem if you want to sell the meat at some point. Same for flukicides...

Hence the reason for plenty of research!

[fsmnutter]

Where no withdrawal is listed for a species, standard withdrawal is 28 days . If the meat withdrawal for the listed species on the bottle or datasheet is longr, common sense would suggest using that. No reason you shouldn't be able to put the meat into the food chain if taking precautions to ensure sufficient time passes to allow residues to leave the body.

[cuckoo]

This is something I'm researching at the moment with a few to doing it on a larger scale..

what milk powder are they fed on? Only ever seem lamb, calf or the expensive multimilk?
Lamlac is fine - fed as per goat instructions or some people use calf with good results or so I understand.

are there actually goat weaning/finishing rations available?
Yes - for example GLW and BATA do goat grower / finisher - pellets as opposed to nuts so can be fed from start to finish. Others use forfarmers cattle grower I think and also I understand mole valley do a goat grower ration too

Would you finish them on adlib corn as well as grass/hay or even silage/haylage?

I would feed creep ad lib from a few weeks old til finishing.  If grazing still offer hay adlib,  I wouldn't used haylage or silage due to problems of listeria


How do you go about getting regular buyers for the meat? We are not massively far from Birmingham , I wonder if I rang round a few butchers there I could get some interest...

Probably - if have 100% or very high grade boer goats I can put you in touch with someone who can sell them

[Sbom]

Thanks for that Cuckoo 

I'm trying to arrange a visit to a local boer meat farm 

I imagine it's an expensive venture to setup breeding boers from scratch which was why I was thinking dairy boys, as they are a bi-product like dairy bull calves. Will look into both set ups thoroughly 

[Lesley Silvester]

We rear out boys for our own consumption only, as I would not be able to make money on them, but the meat is out of this world.

Gave my OH braised chops for dinner yesterday. He said, "That was wonderful. Where did you get those lovely chops?"
"Out of the goat yard. They used to be Cassi."