March 2018 Issue |
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IN THIS ISSUE: |
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• Subscribe to Meat Goat Mania • Email Us • Onion Creek Ranch • Bending Tree Ranch • OCR Health & Management Articles • MGM Archive |
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MEAT, MILK, AND HAIR GOATS The Three Types of Goats In the species Caprine, there are three types of goats: meat, milk, and hair goats. Each type serves a specific purpose. This may seem obvious, but some people apparently don't understand these distinctions because they are using the wrong type for the wrong purpose. (1) Dairy goats. You can't put meat on a dairy goat. The goat's purpose is to produce milk and its body utilizes protein and other nutrients to make milk, not meat. The conformation of the dairy goat is long legged so that females can carry large milk-filled udders without damage from obstacles in its environment. The dairy goat is long bodied to accommodate long-legged fetuses in utero. Highly productive dairy goats are line-bred and domesticated, which makes them less able to adapt to a forage-based management program. (2) Hair goats. Hair goats utilize protein to produce quality fiber. In America, Angoras are the best known hair goat. Forage-browse based Angoras are known for inadequate milk production and therefore poor mothering abilities because they have been selected for fine fiber to the detriment of milk production. I've met Angora producers who routinely euthanized newborn Angoras if the litter contained more than one kid because the dam could not provide enough milk in the management system in which they were being raised. Note: Cashmere is a type of hair, not a breed, and many breeds produce cashmere during cold weather though it may not be quality fiber. (3) Meat goats. The body conformation is short-legged, deep, and wide bodied with milk-on-demand udders that are close to the body to avoid being torn on brush as they forage/browse. "You don't eat what's between the belly and the ground." Meat goat does do just fine producing milk for their kids but not extra for milking. Some people think that crossing dairy does with meat bucks is necessary to provide adequate milk. This is wrong. Meat-goat females who receive proper nutrition are able to produce milk, grow their kids, and maintain their own body weight. Does with three or more kids need help, regardless of breed or type, since in Nature half of them die while the strong survive. Multiple births occur in prey species specifically so the hardy can survive predation and starvation. A great deal of the confusion about meat goats stems from people wrongly thinking of them as the same as dairy or show goats. In order to make money raising meat goats, management and nutrition has to be handled differently. Dual-purpose goats might be considered a fourth category, except there is no such thing as a successful dual-purpose breed. Boers are South Africa's attempt to produce a dual-purpose (meat and milk) goat. Boer performance since its arrival in the USA around 1992 has disproved that concept. Successful breeding produces either meat, milk, or hair goats. Meat, milk, and hair goats have been developed for specific purposes. Crossbreeding one type with another type can dilute the genetics of the purpose for which they were originally created. A long-term crossbreeding program may result in an improved animal with hybrid vigor, but you must really know what you are doing and have the resources to stay in it for the long haul (decades). Beginning in 1995 I decided to create a meatier goat than the Boers that arrived in the USA by infusing Tennessee Meat Goat(tm) genetics into them. The result is the commercial meat breed TexMaster(tm) that I've been refining for more than two decades. Suzanne W. Gasparotto, Onion Creek Ranch, Texas 3/1/18 |
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