Why Are People Confused About How to Raise Meat Goats?

As a long-time meat goat breeder (January 1990), developer of two heavily muscled breeds of meat goats, and author of many articles on meat goat nutrition, management, and health, I frequently receive calls from folks who either want to begin raising meat goats or have recently acquired goats and are having problems with them. They can't find accurate information about how to raise meat goats properly.

I suspect that confusion comes from limited exposure to goats. Most people's first contact with goats has been to dairy goats. People tend to assume that all types of goats are raised similarly. Not true. There are three different types of goats: meat, milk, and hair. Each has its own specific purpose and management needs.

Dairy goats have the same health issues as meat goats, but management and nutrition are very different. They are hand tamed so that they can be handled easily and milked regularly. They are domesticated, which means that their instinct to adapt to living off the land has been bred out of them. They are often linebred for maximum milk production. Kids are bottle fed as a CAE-preventative measure. Dairy goats are housed in pens and stalls much of the time and lactating does are pushed on grain to produce lots of milk. Dairy goats have become largely dependent upon humans for food and shelter.

Veteran dairy goat producers know a lot about goat health because of the close proximity in which their goats live. Illness can be frequent and deadly if not controlled through diligent management, cleanliness, and medication. For these reasons, dairy-goat raisers tend to be super vigilant about illness and disease.

Meat goats are a different type of goat and require different management skills. They have been popular in the USA only since Boers were imported around 1992. Think of meat goats as "deer." They live, eat, and travel over large areas like deer. They need to feed themselves on forage/browse as much of each year as possible if the producer expects to make any money selling them. The goat raiser needs to have many acres of dry land so that the goats can avoid stomach worms and other illnesses that are common in wet climates. Forage/browse, not pasture, is needed so the goats can eat "from the top down" to avoid stomach worms. Crowding leads to contamination of the goats' environment, increasing the exposure to bacteria, viruses, and other types of infections. Crowded and wet conditions lead to worms and coccidia. Wet = Worms.

Adding to people's confusion is that the two breeds have been imported into the United States since 1992 do not possess true MEAT goat body conformation because their original SIRE genetics is dairy-goat based.

Boers are South Africa's significantly Nubian (dairy) based attempt to produce a dual-purpose (both meat and milk) goat. There is no such thing as a successful dual purpose animal; cattle raisers have tried it and learned it doesn't work. Genetics works in ways that emphasize either meat, milk, or hair and not combinations of these characteristics in the same animal. Kikos came into this country from New Zealand a few years after Boers were imported. Their genetic make-up is almost wholly dairy influenced (Nubian, Toggenburg, Saanen).I mention these two breeds because their body conformation is very similar to dairy breeds, leaving people confused and incorrectly believing that all goats are meat goats. Dairy goats have long legs to carry big udders; true meat goat genetics produce animals that are short legged, deep and wide bodied, and have milk-on-demand udders that are carried tight against the body to avoid being torn on plants during foraging/browsing. This body conformation produces more meat and less waste.

While all goat breeds produce some milk and some meat, specific breeds are MILK producers while other breeds are MEAT goats (or hair/fiber goats). Angora goats, for example, have been selectively bred to produce quality hair; as a consequence, they often have insufficient milk to raise multiple kids because their bodies utilize protein to produce hair rather than milk. Spanish goats are significantly dairy influenced, as they were originally about the size of a small Texas white-tail deer, so goat producers put dairy bucks on them over 40 years ago to increase their size and try to add meat to them. Dairy-goat markings and light body coloration are visible on today's Spanish goats, neither of which existed on feral Spanish goats.

For many people, their only exposure to goats is through goat shows. Show goats have largely been Boer or Boer crosses. Show goats are not meat goats, just as show animals in other species are not meat production animals.

There are three MEAT breeds in the USA. Pygmies, which hardly anyone takes seriously as a meat source, are mostly pet and show animals. Myotonic is the only breed that puts MEAT on its offspring. If a goat has meat on it, it has Myotonic in it. Tennessee Meat Goats™ are the larger and more heavily muscled fullblood Myotonics developed at Onion Creek Ranch in Texas starting in 1990. The third meat breed is TexMaster™, which was developed beginning in 1994 at Onion Creek Ranch in response to my deep disappointment in the Boers brought into the USA from New Zealand.

Many folks trying to raise meat goats wrongly assume they can be raised like dairy goats. Meat goats cannot be feedlotted. The barberpole stomach worm population that will build up in the pastures and pens will quickly produce a fecal egg load that management cannot overcome.

Meat, milk, and hair goats have distinct body conformations and are raised differently for specific purposes.

Suzanne W. Gasparotto, Onion Creek Ranch, Texas 3.1.25

The author, Suzanne Gasparotto, hereby grants to local goat publications and club newsletters, permission to reprint articles published on the Onion Creek Ranch website under these conditions: THE ARTICLE MUST BE REPRODUCED IN ITS ENTIRETY AND THE AUTHOR'S NAME, ADDRESS, AND CONTACT INFORMATION MUST BE INCLUDED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE REPRINT. We would appreciate notification from any clubs or publications when the articles are used. (A copy of the newsletter or publication would also be a welcome addition to our growing library of goat related information!)

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