Author Topic: Dual purpose goats (Read 2113 times)

mariegold · « **on:** January 08, 2013, 02:17:05 pm »

Hello I would like to set up a small goats meat enterprise but I would also like to produce milk and cheese for my own use and for my neighbours in our little hamlet of 20 people (was thinking about setting up a cheese enterprise but soooo many rules and regs). Can anyone reccomend a good dual purpose breed or even a good cross breed that would suit my needs? Thanks so much

Anke · « **Reply #1 on:** January 08, 2013, 04:33:03 pm »

There are no dual purpose goats, like you can find in the cattle world. However you can run easily a dairy goat enterprise and mate your dairy (British saanens, Toggenburgs or even better Anglo Nubian) nannies to Boer (meat) billies. You would then use ALL (male and female) offpsring for meat, and milk your nannies. Every so often - if you want to increase your number of breeding females - you would mate one or two to a really good dairy male (that's so that you get the milk quantities, Boers and Boer crosses will not have decent enough amounts of milk to run some kind of dairy enterprise).

ballingall · « **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2013, 07:33:24 pm »

Ditto everything Anke said. Invest in a few good dairy females, and maybe a boer male ( or try and find someone nearby who will let you use them for stud).

You'd be best to take the kids away from the mum's, and bottle feed/ bucket feed/ multi bucket feed them. That means you can give them an exact amount of milk, and not have the kids helping themselves to extra from mum, that you could be using for making cheese.

Beth

colliewoman · « **Reply #3 on:** January 08, 2013, 07:49:34 pm »

^^^^100% what they said!

i have 3 lovely dairy type nannies who through one fault or another I cannot sell the offspring of as milkers (they carry fishtail teats for an example)
I mate them to a Boer billy and they produce some CRACKING kids! They grow like weeds! Because we don't need vast amounts of milk for the table we let the kids stay on them (not practical for a dairy unit) and the mums are so milky they produce plenty for the kids and for us.

The lady who had our kids this year was absolutely over the moon with them and is keeping the females to put back to a boer to see if they retain the milkyness and do their own kids as well as our mums did.

I think they are adorable kids too

sokel · « **Reply #4 on:** January 08, 2013, 08:58:47 pm »

Agree with everything that has been said.
We have Toggs for the milk and have our own Boer Billy and 3 Boer nannys.
We are crossing our dairys this year with the Boer for the meat side, as the female kids will be registered as 50%with the BBGS we are getting a lot of interest already from people wanting them for future Boer breeding

Anke · « **Reply #5 on:** January 08, 2013, 09:25:11 pm »

So can you breed for a "British Boer" like you can breed up to BT, BA, BS and BG?

sokel · « **Reply #6 on:** January 08, 2013, 09:52:51 pm »

No there is only type of Boer but thenanny crosses are registered depending on what percentage of registered Boer is in them.

ballingall · « **Reply #7 on:** January 08, 2013, 09:57:01 pm »

It all works on percentage I believe. Don't think you can get 100% without mating two pure's together, but you can get up to the high 90's- 97.5 etc I have seen in adverts.

Beth