Making a Living with Goats

What’s Up With Goats?

By Ken Spaulding

I consider myself a fairly knowledgeable person when it comes to the goat industry. I read just about all the online forums and have friends all over the country in the goat business. I have been raising goats since 1989 and in 2007 sold and transported more than 350 goats from Texas to the Northeast! I consider our operation “successful” by most standards, but still have to ask that same question over and over again: “What’s up with goats?”

Where is this industry going? Why are there so few farms raising hundreds of goats? Why does the focus seem to be on no more than 25 or 30 animals? Do you really think you can make money with so few goats?

All it takes is a Google search for meat goats or raising meat goats to bring lots of current information to your fingertips. That wasn’t true even just a few years ago, but there is now a great deal of factual information about raising and selling meat goats.

In my opinion, the United States is sorely lacking in both the number of goats available for slaughter as well as the number of dedicated breeders.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a simple Google search (interesting the things that come up). People are so worried about marketing their goats, while here is a quote saying that management is more important than marketing.

While marketing is important, it’s just a “small part” of the picture, LSU AgCenter agent Cleve Weisgerber said.

“Management is the key,” Weisgerber said. “You must produce a quality product before you put it on the market. Once you get a reputation for producing a quality product, marketing is easy.”

“Youngsters who raise goats learn lessons like being responsible,” Gryder said. (Howard Gryder, president of the Mid-South Goat Masters organization.) “They have to be responsible to take care of a goat — feed it and give it shots and things it needs to live. Young people who raise goats are young people who grow into responsible adults.”

Jack Black, a producer from Arkansas, said he goes to as many meetings as he can so he can learn more about raising goats.

“These are very informative meetings,” said Black, who has been raising goats for 20 years. “A lot of important information is available, and by attending these meetings, I can hear about it from the experts.”

This last statement gives proof positive as to why events like Stony Knolls Farm’s Goat School are so important. People seem to have this “go it alone” philosophy that, when it comes to raising animals for market, does not work! It is important to work together. Not everyone can have herds of 300 or more so that they have enough animals for slaughter, but just 20 breeders with 30 or 40 animals apiece can work cooperatively to have total numbers of from 600 to 800 goats. Simple, isn’t it?

There is a BIG move in the goat industry to promote shows and fullblood animals. There is very little room in that portion of the industry. As our military says, it’s the “boots on the ground” that count. The “show” market has only limited potential for profit. Remember, your competing against folks all over the country who have been at it much longer than we have. Only a few will do well, BUT in the meat market even the smallest of breeders stands a good chance of profit.

The largest consumer market for goat meat is in the Northeast, it ranges from Washington, D.C., to Boston, Massachusetts. However, when it comes to goat breeders, I believe, you can count the large goat breeders in this area on one hand and have fingers left over.

Where do you stand in this rapidly growing industry?

Goat Worth

This is getting to be one of the most frequently asked questions I receive. What price can I get for my goats? I think I saw a formula on the Internet (and we all know you can trust EVERYTHING you read online). Something like: Multiply my age times 3. Subtract the day of the month. Divide that by the pounds of grain fed each day and add $263 to that amount. Not a very smart formula, is it? Actually, though, the formula some people use to price their animals is not very much different. Okay, then, how can I price my goats?

This, of course, is also one of the most difficult questions to answer because there are so many variables. E.g., what are my expenses…? What are my goals…? What will I be willing to do to follow up with my customers…? Will I deliver…? Will I supply health certificates…? What type (quality) of stock do I have to sell…? What bloodlines…? How old are the goats that I have to sell…? Have they kidded before…? Are they good moms…? Do they have multiple kids…? Have these goats been purchased at production sales for re-sale…? What did I pay for them…? What did it cost me to bring them to Maine for resale…? What would I be willing to pay for the goats I have to sell…? What is the going price for goats similar to mine at other nearby farms…? (Remember, you don’t want to leave too much money on the table and you definitely do not want to UNDERPRICE your goats — that hurts everyone.) These are all valid and critical questions that you need to ask yourself. These are also NOT the only questions, because each farm is unique and each farmer must learn what is specific to their operation.

How does Stony Knolls Farm set prices? Did you really think I would tell? Not everyone gives up their biggest secrets, but I feel that it shouldn’t be a secret. We all need to remain competitive, we all need to price our animals fairly based on the quality and breeding of our livestock and, most importantly, we all need to give our customers a good experience. Bottom line is that it’s all about the goats and the customers. Take care of both of those and they will take care of you!

Market Mistakes

Over and over again I’m completely astounded by ads that I read in newspapers, magazines, and, of course, Uncle Henry’s (a New England buying magazine)! Spelling mistakes, incorrect grammar, phrases that don’t make any sense, and, worst of all, too much leeway in the pricing.

These are valuable animals that you own, don’t short-sell them! I copied this ad from Uncle Henry’s, see anything wrong?

“2 Boar bucks, 6mos Fullbloods, Boar Buckling 88% 06-02-05 bottle baby. Handsome boys. No reasonable offer refused, call eves pls, 20min from Bangor or 25min from Newport, B\O call …”

I found this ad to be a conglomeration of words with no distinct meanings. No reasonable offer refused?? What in the world are they thinking? What’s a reasonable offer? $50? $200? What then? BEST OFFER? Come on! Are your goats only worth the best offer?

I have seen so many ads for BOAR goats that it’s pathetic! For crying out loud, a boar is a male pig! Seriously, would you purchase a Boer goat for $1,000 from someone who can’t spell Boer?

When you are ready to start marketing your kids, please be careful what you write and how you write it!

Caprine Competition

Competition serves a purpose in all facets of business. Look at Walmart, for example. I remember when everyone was saying Walmart was going to put everyone else out of business. Did they? Not really. Now that they have been around for a while, some people won’t even go there! I, for one, would rather go just about anywhere else than big box stores! Do they still make money? Yes. Do they serve a purpose? Yes. Does everyone go there? NO! Are other stores cropping up? YES! Look at Target or Kohl’s, they are mega successful!

If a goat farmer should move in down the road from you, will he be competition? Not necessarily. If he is selling a different breed of goat he won’t compete at all, if he is selling the same breed, will he then be competing for the same customers that you have? Let’s look at this for a moment.

This farm suddenly moves in and it has whole bunches of goats that are white with reddish heads. You are nervous that he is going to put you out of business. What should you do? This is really going to put you on your toes, isn’t it? Do some research! Is he selling his goats to a meat market or is he selling breeding stock like you do? What makes your farm stand out from his? How does his stock really look up close and personal? Is he friendly, inviting, willing to share information? Is he selling fullbloods with great bloodlines or is he selling percentages? Are his goats big muscled, solid on their feet, and friendly, or are they skittish and mediocre?

This may seem like a silly question, but what does the farm itself look like? Is it clean, neat, and welcoming? What about barns, outbuildings, and storage? One term the insurance industry uses is “pride of ownership,” how does your farm measure up in this category?

Is there junk in your yard, do your buildings need painting, is your grass mowed, do you have cobwebs and such in your barn? Does your place look like summer camp for the Munsters family? After all, how difficult is it to put a rag on a broom and take the cobwebs down?

What are you doing to attract potential buyers? Do you have clear, concise advertisements, or are they over wordy with grammatical and spelling errors? Take a good look at your advertising, because this will separate your customers into classes and determine who will answer your ad and who will not! Remember, spelling shows knowledge! Not sure? Look it up in the dictionary! Using your computer? Hit spell check, for goodness sake! Boer is spelled B-O-E-R, not B-O-A-R! A BOAR is a male pig!

No matter what the size is, think of your farm business as just that, a business. How comfortable are you going into a store that is dusty, dirty, and smells bad? If a store sells beds and mattresses and you are looking for a table and chairs, are you going to buy a bed instead? No, you will go to another store and find that table and chairs!

Goat farms are the same way! If people don’t find what they are looking for, they will go to another that has the merchandise they want!

Dairy * Fiber * Meat

Different strokes for different kinds of goats.

Dairy Goats

Dairy goats are very unique! Some are smart, some are crafty, some are opportunists, and some are lovey. Goat milk can be used in several ways to turn your product into a small-scale business! Goat-milk soap is wonderful, goat milk is highly sought after, and goat cheese is an extraordinarily good seller. Check with your state department of agriculture to find what rules and regulations apply in your state. Some states are “right to farm” states, which means you can sell products on your farm without licensing, other require a rigorous licensing application, inspection, and testing.

Your Milk Is What Your Goats Eat: Feed, hay, and water will also affect the taste. If the goats are allowed to eat browse, this may also change the palatability. Flavor needs to be consistent if you are planning on selling it. When we purchase goat milk, it is frozen for the first three days for soap making, and then tasted again. Browse such as wild garlic, skunk cabbage, and plant life like that can really turn milk nasty in flavor!

Testing Out Teats: If the goat is lactating when you buy her, make sure her teats are not only working, BUT also are comfortable for you to milk! Short teats are great for a milking machine, but can be extremely hard on someone with large hands! And, of course, the opposite, large teats and small hands will cause some uncomfortable problems also.

Milking Machines: We mean a literal one. Do you really want or need one? They are expensive, and can be a lot of work to clean. Some goats don’t appreciate the noise they make. And, of course, hand milking makes for a close relationship with your goat.

Dairy Goat Grub

Dairy goats eat a lot. Plain and simple, they eat more than any other types of goats. They should consume one pound of grain for maintenance plus one pound for each three pounds of milk they produce. A gallon of milk weighs 8.6 pounds, so a goat producing a gallon a day should eat approximately four pounds of grain a day.

There is much written on the percentage of protein needed by dairy goats, but we found that an 18 percent sweet feed works terrificly.

Most goats are neat eaters and will consume all of the feed in the pan while they are being milked. That being said, let me tell you about the “Alpine thing.” Alpines are notorious slobs. They pick up huge mouthfuls of food, look around, and spill a good part of it all over the place. We solved the mess problem, somewhat, by placing a large bakery tray under the milking-stand head piece to catch the excess, which is then put back in the grain bin. It stays clean and off the floor, so this is a great way of alleviating waste.

Dairy Kids

We take our dairy kids away immediately at birth. We bottle-feed them and eventually, if we so choose, they could use a lamb bar. If you have never heard of a lamb bar before, it is a large pail with several nipples attached that can feed several kids at once. We prefer to bottle-feed them individually to keep them really sociable, and have had terrific luck with this procedure.

Babies eat about every four hours during the day. Most of them are terrific at sleeping through the night, or at least from about 10 p.m. to around 6 a.m.

For the first day or so they will consume approximately 2 to 4 ounces per feeding. By the second day they are eating more! Day 3 finds them up to around 8 ounces at a feeding. You will be amazed at how much these little pigs can take in!

We use normal baby bottles and nipples. Cutting the hole in the nipple just a little larger does the trick. I insert a small pair of scissors and just make a little snip. Works great.

Colostrum, the first milk, MUST be heated in a water bath. Putting colostrum in the microwave will yield a large, solid, yucky, yellow lump. Put some water in a pan and stick the bottle in it. Heat to around 101 degrees. Once the colostrum is out of the milk (usually by the second or third day), you can start heating the bottles in the microwave. I heat one bottle 1 minute 15 seconds. 2 bottles 1 minute 45 second, 3 bottles 2 minutes 30 seconds, and 4 bottles 3 minutes.

Don’t Bite with the Hand that Feeds!

A milking stand should be used for the sole purpose of milking and eating. The goats are happy to jump up on them because they know it’s a safe place, they will get food, and they will get the pressure in their udders relieved.

Using a fitting stand for hoof trimming, worming, and trimming is a much better idea because the goat does not get fed on it; you can do what needs to be done without problems. Fitting stands are available online in several different places and are normally made of heavy-duty steel.

A Hairy Problem

Some breeds of dairy goats can be quite hairy. Having a lot of hair on the udder and teats can be problematic because the hair gets pulled while milking. Goats don’t really like that and can potentially jump or, worse yet, put a foot in the pail! A pair of inexpensive clippers will take care of the problem.

Drying Off a Goat

Goats that are being milked twice a day will continue to milk until they are manually dried off. Drying off means to stop milking altogether in a way that will not make your goat uncomfortable or put them in danger of getting mastitis.

An often-asked question is “How do I dry my goat off.” This is what we do. About six weeks before the projected “stop milking” date, we stop milking in the evening. Just milk in the morning and give the milking girls a little more grain during the one feeding a day. We do this for about a month, then start milking only every other day for a week or two, then every two days for about a week, then stop completely.

We continue to feed on the milking stand year-round so that the girls never forget their order of milking, which stand they belong on, and are used to being handled. We can also keep track of pregnancies and imminent delivery signs. This has worked wonderfully for us!

Fiber Goats

There are two types of fiber goats, cashmere goats and Angora goats. And another that is starting to show up on the horizon is a cross between a Pygmy and an Angora, called Pygoras.

Fiber goats are gorgeous animals, but have a unique care system attached to them! They must be housed and yarded in good clean areas. They are extremely work intensive! Before you decide you want to raise fiber goats, please go and talk to someone who already has them. Do yourself a favor and know what you are getting into. I would also suggest that you know how to spin and work with fiber before starting with an endeavor such as this.

Cashmere goats: All goats produce cashmere under their hair (except Angoras) during the winter. Cashmere goats were bred to produce more of this very valuable fiber. During the spring, this cashmere is shed. It must be combed out of the hair, then sent off to be de-haired because it will be loaded with guard hairs that MUST be removed. It is then cleaned, carded, and often combined with a soft type of wool to make yarn.

Angora goats: Actually grow hair; this hair is more commonly known as mohair. They grow their fleeces at a rate of one inch a month, so must be sheered twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. The fleeces can then be sent off to a processor to be skirted, cleaned, washed, carded, and finally made into either spinable fiber, called roving, or yarn for knitting or weaving. Mohair must be combined with another fiber, because anything made from it will “grow.” Sweaters or any other garment made from pure mohair will stretch completely out of shape, become long and funny looking.

Shearing is a back-breaking job requiring some expensive equipment. I would encourage you to find a good shearer before you even purchase Angora goats. A lot of sheep shearers will not do goats because of their thin, fragile skin. Goats also require a special type of comb, which sheep shearers usually do not have.

Also, keep in mind that nothing will cut into your profit more than an expensive shearer or having lice in your fleece.

Meat Goats

Meat goats are very easy to keep and maintain. They need feed, browse, and hay, and like any goat, plenty of clean water. These are probably the least work-intensive goat. We found that feeding them in the morning, making sure their hay feeders and water tanks were full, kept them nicely through the day.

Every three months they need worming and hoof trimming. You can’t ask for much easier maintenance than that! They can be the most difficult to worm and hoof trim because of their size and muscle. A good, strong fitting stand is a must in this situation!

The Other (Other) White Meat

“If you want to know who eats goat, it’s anybody but white people, descendants of Northern Europe,” said Susan Schoenian, a sheep and goat specialist with the University of Maryland Extension Service. “Now all the immigrants come from every other part of the world, and they all come from goat-eating parts of the world.”

I must at this point disagree with the above statement. We have found that as the importance of health and especially the rates of cholesterol are becoming more important, so is the use of goat meat. Goat meat is lower in cholesterol than chicken or turkey. Many cardiologists are now recommending that beef be replaced by goat meat in the diet. And, the Food Network has worked wonders in the goat-meat business by featuring many, many recipes using this great meat!

Get Your Goat to “Freezer Camp”

Finding a good processor is a must. Federal law states that goat meat cannot cross state lines unless it is USDA inspected; however, meat only needs to be state inspected in order to sell locally. Our processor charges one rate to cut, wrap, and flash-freeze our chevon (the proper name for goat meat). There is an additional charge for sausage casings and spices.

We always make an appointment ahead of time and bring the goat there just before it will be dispatched to eliminate any anguish on the goat’s part of being separated from its herd and sometimes its family.

Goat Meat Markets

Restaurants, both high quality and ethnic, will be interested in your goat meat.

Farmers’ Markets. Make sure you have the proper licensing before you bring your meats to a market!

Sell meat off your farm with proper advertising.

Some grocery markets may be interested in your meats, especially health-food-type markets.

Goats Are Good!

They can be used in a variety of ways and can be complementary to many existing livestock enterprises.

* Land cleaning

* Fire suppression

* Orchard pruning

* Weed control

* Marketing goat meat to restaurants

Goats = Green

With the use of the goats, herbicide and pesticide usage can be virtually eliminated. Unlike a bulldozer, they control brush and weeds without disturbing the existing grass and soil. They also do not leave synthetic chemicals that can run off into lakes and streams or be ingested by a cow or other animal. They do leave behind lots of useable fertilizer that breaks down quickly and easily!

Goats, Cows, and Sheep, Oh My!

Goats are ideal candidates for multi-specific, many-species, rotational grazing. The goats can be rotated in to eliminate most of the undesirable vegetation (from a cow’s perspective), and then the cows can come behind them to graze the grass without having to pick through as many weeds. Stocking rate: two goats per cow.

Goats are, by preference, browsers rather than grazers (stomach analysis shows approximately 72 percent browse, 28 percent grasses). They balance their diet with a variety of grasses (including tussocky and woody species discriminated against by cattle and sheep), weeds, shrubs, and the leaves of larger trees that are within reach. Goats can therefore be introduced to many cattle and sheep properties with no or minimal reduction in primary stock numbers. In times of drought, goats will generally prove hardier and more reliable as breeders than other livestock.