Fundamental principles of successful goat meat production

 By Graham Culliford
Reprinted from Goat Rancher, October 1999

    The production of goat meat is increasingly becoming a viable agricultural enterprise in the Southeast United States. I want to examine some of the characteristics of goats suitable for meat production and then look at some of the management practices
that are required to produce goat meat successfully.
    Right at the outset, I want to distinguish between producing meat goats and producing goat meat. The distinction is important because at its heart lies the difference between the servicing of a haphazard and idiosyncratic localized market and the development of a sustainable land-
based industry.
    Just about anyone can produce meat goats. By meat goats, I mean the breeds of goat usually included within the generic catch-all of the phrase. In the United States, that pretty much encompasses any goat not bred for the production of hair or milk. Some ranchers will do it well; some will do it not so well. Some will opt for low input systems (such as the open range systems found in West Texas); others will elect a more intensive route (pen feeding and the like). They will find periodic markets for their products but they will generally be price takers from order buyers. They'll have periods of relative prosperity (particularly when there is a demand for breeding stock) and lengthy periods of penury. The enterprise will usually be conducted in conjunction with a wage-paying job or as a diversification of a larger agricultural enterprise.
    By contrast goat meat production requires a different mindset, and it's goat meat production I want to focus on. Goat meat production concentrates on a larger picture. It looks to the ultimate consumer rather than the buyer at the farm gate, focusing on the product that is to be harvested from the animal raised rather than the animal itself. If I were to define what goat meat production entails it would be along these lines - the aim of goat meat production is the production, in sustainable quantities on a replicable basis, of the product required in the consumer market by the selection of appropriate purpose bred goat types and the implementation of targeted management systems. Goat meat production can be an agricultural livelihood for those who have the opportunity for production on the appropriate scale. For those who opt for smaller scale production it will represent significantly enhanced returns against the production of meat goats.
    Two major factors have historically acted as barriers to capitalizing upon the opportunities that exist in respect of the production of goat meat. The most important of these has been the lack of a breed of goat suitable for commercial production. In the United States the market has been provided with the carcasses of Spanish goats of uncertain origin ranged under a variety of husbandry regimes, and cull Angora goats. Very small numbers of dairy goats have also been slaughtered.
    The second factor is a poor understanding of the management practices necessary for the profitable production of goat meat. Spanish goats have generally been ranged with little or no management supervision and with the rancher accepting high mortality, unthriftiness, poor body weights and slow rates of growth as the vagaries of a low cost/minimal input agricultural system.
    In the last decade, two occurrences have served to extinguish these barriers. The
first is the release into the United States of goats purpose bred for meat production. The Boer goat from South Africa and Kiko goat from New Zealand both exhibit production traits which can contribute significant improvements in feed conversion, growth rates, carcass conformation and production capacity to the base U.S. herd.
    The second is the development in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa of broad acre management programs for the production of goat meat. These programs have resulted from research undertaken into small ruminant production in those countries and have substantially altered the viability of production for goat meat there. In addition, there has been substantial research undertaken in the U.S. on goat health and nutrition. Today an understanding of the management principles necessary for goat meat production is available to North American ranchers.
    Now that the barriers have been overcome, goat meat production can be a profitable enterprise for American ranchers who have the land available and who are prepared to devote time and capital to put in place the necessary components of a goat meat production enterprise.
    Let me give some consideration to the three critical elements of goat meat production: availability of suitable purpose bred goats, appropriately targeted management systems and available viable consumer markets.

Characteristics of purpose bred goats
    When it comes to goat meat production, breed of goat takes second place to the characteristics required for commercial production. I want you to put breeds of goat right out of your mind and focus for a spell on the necessary characteristics.
    There are two critical characteristics required - without them the battle is lost before it is begun. They are rate of growth and ease of management.
    Rate of growth is of paramount importance. Producers often overlook the fact that it is not how big an animal grows that is important: it is how fast the animal grows. And it is the rate of growth at critical times in the animal's life that is the most important. The most important period is between birth and weaning. The next most important time is between weaning and six months.
    Why? There are three reasons: firstly, because the early rate of growth will go a long way to determining the size of the mature animal. Secondly, because a rapid rate of growth at an early age brings the animal to slaughter weight faster. And thirdly, because profitable markets for goat meat tend to focus on younger animals rather than older animals, rapidly growing young animals reaching slaughter weight faster will require less management inputs than slower growing animals.
    Ease of management is equally important. What do I mean by ease of management? Well there are a whole heap of factors involved but these are some of the more important:
¥ Resistance to internal parasites. Some goat breeds (and some individual goats within breeds) demonstrate a reduced requirement for deworming because they are less prone to internal parasite infestation. This translates into substantial saving in terms of dewormer and management time since they can be dewormed less frequently than goats without a reduced requirement for deworming.
¥ Soundness of hooves. Goats that go lame through footrot and/or footscald create a huge management burden. Sound hooves are essential. Animals with unsound hooves should be culled as a matter of course.
¥ Easy care kidding. Goats that require no assistance at kidding are to be preferred over those that require close shepherding.
¥ Browsing vigor. This is the ability to browse aggressively and traveling distances to do so. Aggressive browsers seek their own nutrition rather than waiting for it to be brought to them. Goats of a sedentary disposition are undesirable in production terms.
¥ Fecundity. This encompasses the ability of females to conceive twin offspring on the first exposure to the buck and to carry those kids to parturition and raise them unaided to weaning. Accomplishment of each of these factors aids in the minimization of management intervention - a more compressed kidding season, less bottle babies, more live kids.
    The commercial production of goat meat requires animals that display all these characteristics because the single greatest barrier to profitable production is the cost of the management inputs. Accordingly, the less management time devoted to individual animals, the greater the rancher's ability to concentrate on the management of the herd as a whole. And that is a major consideration where larger sized herds are being run.
    In a phrase, what you look for in a goat for meat production are hardiness, fertility and vigor.

Management principles for goat meat production
    Now I want to give some consideration to what's involved in the management of goats for meat production. And the first thing I want to emphasize is that management means integrated herd management, not the management of individuals or small groups of animals. Too often in the United States I find that the mindset is on the management of individuals, not on the management of the whole herd.
    In a goat meat program, the rancher is the CEO of a production enterprise. He's got to have an overview of the whole operation. He's got to have a strategic management plan that projects at least a year into the future. He's got to have a basic set of financial projections that he can compare his actual returns against. He has to be prepared to take the advice of a management consultant when he needs it. When a rancher focuses too closely on individual animals or small groups he becomes a personnel manager, neglecting his tasks as financial controller, production manager and marketing manager.
    Management for goat meat production means focusing on the herd as a whole. That entails notionally separating it into groups of like animals - the larger the better, the fewer groups the better. Like animals require like management. The more similar the management, the less work it entails. The less work it entails the less manpower required. The less manpower required the more profitable the enterprise.
    The rancher should never fall into the trap of discounting the worth of his own time. Time spent working goats unnecessarily is time that has been squandered and is time that might have been spent more profitably, on the ranch or off it.
    Let me give you some of the principles I employ in the management of large herds (by that I mean anything from a thousand breeding does upwards). But, they are also the principles I advise folks with only a hundred does to use. And they apply equally well if you have only twenty does.
    First, separation into groups. The primary separation is males from females. Entire bucks (that is, uncastrated males) have no place running with females of any age. They should be kept separate and apart save for the period of time when they are actually going to be asked to earn their keep by serving the breeding females. Time and duration of mating is a management function, not a happenstance of nature. Bucks allowed to run with females without constraint make for unwanted pregnancies, prolonged and out of season kiddings and handling difficulties.
    The secondary separation is grouping of females. Firstly, all females of breeding age should be run as a single group. Secondly, all kids (doe kids and wether kids) should be run as a grow-out group. Since this group is going to contribute the majority of your animals for slaughter (the balance being cost for age and dry does) these animals get the best attention. The simple way to manage this group is to send for slaughter first the wethers then the does until you are left with the number of doe kids that are required to provide replacement females for the breeding herd.
    These are the basic divisions I make. At mating time there may be more to accommodate single sire mating programs, or artificial insemination programs or the like. But these are the basic ones. Three groups-three programs.
    The next principle is to establish the time of mating. Mating marks the commencement of the annual production cycle. The time of mating establishes the time of kidding, hugely influences the time of weaning and provides a fairly accurate indicator of when you will have animals available for slaughter. Here're the crude rules of thumb I use to calculate the date on which mating will commence. I take a date when I know that there is going to be good spring growth for the part of the country I'm working in. Let me use our ranch in Texas as an example (and bear in mind that here I'm dealing with Hill Country brushland, not improved posture). That date is the date that will determine all the other dates in the mating calendar.
    I know that by April 1 there will be good spring growth, providing there has not been a devastating winter drought and that there has been reasonable rainfall. So April 1 is the date upon which I want to wean so that the weaned kids will have the benefit of the best feed conditions that the year is likely to produce. Also, they will have the opportunity to grow apace before the devastating heat of June, July and August.
    From April 1, I count back 90 days. That is going to give me the commencement of kidding date. That takes me back to January 1.
    From that date, I count back five months. That is the date upon which I want mating to begin. That date is the first of August. On that date, I introduce the bucks that I want to use in my mating program for the year to the does that are to be mated.
    I leave them running with the does for 32 days. That represents one and a half reproductive cycles. That means that all my kids will be born roughly within a one-month period. That reduces the amount of supervision they will require at kidding and gives me a kid crop that can be treated as a group, not as a collection of individuals. That means that I will be able to deworm, vaccinate, castrate, mark and wean to common dates because all the animals will all be much the same size and age.
    After 32 days the bucks are removed. Their job for the year is finished.
    The third principle is to ruthlessly cull unproductive animals. Unproductive animals are females that:
    ¥ Fail to conceive within the 32-day exposure period. Providing they are not being asked to conceive outside a seasonal mating period, they are not sufficiently fertile to warrant maintaining in the herd.
    ¥ Fail to carry their kids to parturition. Unless, of course, there are good reasons for the does aborting - outbreaks of toxoplasmosis, campylobacter, border disease and the like or savagely inclement weather affecting unsheltered stock.
    ¥ Fail to raise to weaning any kids they carry and bear - but once again outbreaks of disease (coccidiosis, for example) or very bad weather may be taken into account.
    ¥ Produce offspring with genetically undesirable traits (hemaphrodatism) or with physical abnormalities (parrot mouth).
    And any mature male that fails to aggressively cover at least 100 females.
    None of these animals are worth retaining in a commercial herd maintained for goat meat production.
    The fourth principle is to replace at least 20% of the breeding females annually. If enhanced production is the aim of your program, then you have to be consciously improving the quality of your doe herd. This is best accomplished by choosing a single trait of commercial significance and selecting replacement breeding females from within your female kids by ranking them according to their performance in respect of that trait and selecting the superior performers.
    I use rate of growth, usually that between birth and weaning. I use a computer program, which ranks all the offspring and then selects the number I require. These animals are run through to breeding age at which time they are substituted for the animals that are culled for poor productivity. In this way I reduce the generation interval, and keep my doe herd comparatively young.
    The fifth principle is that animal health programs must be prophylactic, not remedial. Most animal health programs involve deworming and vaccination. The golden rule in respect of both is that if you are deworming or vaccinating because you think the animals look as though they need it, you are too late. Animal health programs need to be planned for the forthcoming year, and implemented in a considered manner.
They are designed to prevent worm build up, not to treat it; to prevent bacterial conditions, not to treat them. Animal health programs must be multifaceted and not rely on drugs alone - they should include pasture rotation and other management approaches to minimize the risk of health challenges.
    These are basic principles - principles that must be applied in all goat meat production operations. Each operation wiII require its own degree of fine-tuning to suit its circumstances, size and location. Obviously these principles don't tell the whole story, but they are all factors that must be taken into account if you want to operate a commercially successful operation targeting goat meat production.

Simple aims for herd improvement
    Enhanced production is the consequence of herd improvement. Every commercial enterprise should have a clear understanding of the herd improvement aims they are targeting and the manner in which they are going to be accomplished.
Herd improvement can be accomplished by focussing on two simple propositions:
    ¥ Increase rates of growth.
    ¥ Increase kidding percentages.
    The former can be accomplished by breed selection to attain more rapid rates of growth. The latter can be accomplished by retaining female replacements that are twins and the daughters of twins. By selecting females with strong twinning dispositions, a single gestation maximizes the number of offspring available for slaughter or retention in the herd. The rationale for this approach is that a single female having a single kid has put on the ground say 44 pounds of liveweight at 100 days. A single female having twins (allowing for a slightly slower rate of growth) has put on the ground 2 x 40 pounds = 80 pounds of live weight for the same 100 days. The latter female is therefore infinitely more profitable.
    As a standing rule of thumb, I work on the principle that if your kidding percentage is below 100% then you are unlikely to make significant profits in goat meat production. If your kidding percentage is around 130% then you are well in the ballpark for making money in this enterprise.
    Remember, commercial goat meat production aims to produce the maximum weight of meat in the minimum time for the least possible cost. Programs targeting this outcome are the ones that succeed in profitable production.
    Finally, a brief word about markets. Worldwide, goat meat is the most widely consumed of the red meats. In the majority of countries, however, it never rises above commodity status because of the low gross domestic product (GDP) of third world countries and their subsistence forms of agriculture. The exception is the Middle East, where high GDP and religious fundamentalism have combined to develop a more discerning market. The Middle East market is characterized, however, by seasonal demand and a marked preference for live animals.
    Generally, the best markets for goat meat (and by best I mean most profitable) exhibit the following characteristics:
    ¥ A developed economy with high per capita income.
    ¥ Significant concentrations of ethnic communities, in particular Islamic, Hispanic and Asian.
    ¥ Relatively well developed distribution systems allowing a reliable flow of product to the consumer.
    The U.S. demonstrates all these characteristics. It is the only country in the world with a substantial third world population earning first world incomes. The cultural and religious diversity of the U.S. population ensures that there are continuous religious and cultural festivals occurring annually to smooth seasonal demand.
    But more importantly, there are not sufficient goats in the United States to satisfy the current demand. And there are not enough goats available elsewhere in the world to fill the U.S. shortfall. Those countries which might conceivably fill that shortfall have either insufficient goats to do so, or cannot comply with the stringent slaughter requirements imposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
    But most important of all, the price received by the U.S. producer is the best in the world. It is approximately three times that received by producers in Australia and New Zealand for the same animals.
    There are now production cooperatives being formed in the Southeastern states in an endeavor to regularize the supply of goats into the marketplace.
    The challenge today is to enhance production and reduce production costs to capitalize on the high prices in world terms available in the U.S. market.

    (Graham Culliford is the managing partner of Goatex Group LLC and of Tasman Livest