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MEAT,  MILK,  AND   HAIR  GOATS
The Three Types of Goats

There are three types of goats: meat, milk, and hair (fiber) goats. Each type serves a specific purpose.

(1) Dairy goats. This goat's purpose is to produce milk; its body utilizes protein and other nutrients to make milk, not meat or fiber. 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 often line-bred or bred to high milk-producing buck genetics for maximum milk production and domesticated for ease of handling. A commercial forage-based management system is not ideal for goats that require a lot of feed, handling, and care.

(2) Hair (fiber) goats. Hair goats utilize protein to produce quality fiber. In the USA, Angoras are the best known hair/fiber goat. Forage-browse based Angoras generally have inadequate milk for raising more than one kid because their genetics have been focused on producing quality fiber rather than milk. Cashmere is a type of hair, not a breed, and many breeds produce cashmere during cold weather though it usually is not quality fiber.

(3) Meat goats. This category is where people get confused because most of the goats in the USA that are considered "meat" goats have been, during their development, crossbred with milk or fiber animals. Boers, Kikos, and even Spanish goats are significantly DAIRY in genetic make-up: Boers (Anglo Nubian bucks), Kikos (Saanan, Toggenberg, Anglo Nubian bucks), and Spanish (almost any buck of dairy genetics to try to put some size on them).

True meat-goat body conformation is short-legged, deep, and wide bodied, like Angus cattle, 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."

Because goats have been so extensively crossbred, finding genuine fullblood meat-goat genetics can be a challenge. I've been raising goats since 1990, and the only breed that I know of without any "dairy" or "fiber" genetics is the Myotonic breed. If there was ever a breed that is both misunderstood and unjustly maligned, it is Myotonics. Myotonics are the only 100% meat-goat genetics on this planet. Like lifting weights, the stiffening develops MEAT as muscles contract and relax.

Dual-purpose goats might be considered a fourth category, except (as the cattle industry also discovered) there is no such thing as a successful dual-purpose breed, i.e. a breed that produces equal amounts of two of the three types (meat, milk, hair). 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 developed. A long-term and well conceived crossbreeding program may produce a goat with hybrid vigor and a meaty carcass if the producer uses a fullblood meat-goat sire on other-breed does and the producer knows what he is doing.

Around 1995, I decided to develop a meatier commercial goat than the so-called "meaty" Boers that arrived in the USA by putting Tennessee Meat Goat™ genetics into them. (Tennessee Meat Goat™ is the trademarked name of larger and more heavily muscled fullblood Myotonic goats developed at Onion Creek Ranch in Texas by Suzanne Gasparotto in the early 1990's.) The result is the commercial meat breed TexMaster™ that has been breeding "true" (no outliers) for decades. Consistency of body conformation is the hallmark quality of a meat-goat breed. I have been selling fullblood TexMaster™ breeding stock for almost 30 years.

People who raise goats as pets . . . or for any reason other than slaughter animals . . . will occasionally have goats that need to be sold at auction. It would be wise to put some meat-goat genetics into these animals because they will bring more money. Buyers at commercial auctions are looking for goats that have more useable meat on them and less waste. To achieve that, fullblood meat-goat genetics need to be part of that hybrid mix.

Suzanne W. Gasparotto, Onion Creek Ranch, Texas 8.1.24