Hardy Boer Meat Goats

Ken and Candy Ziemer

1656 MC 5040 Yellville,Arkansas 72687

(870) 449-6789 kencandy@critterridge.net

Our goal is to breed better Boer meat goats for efficient goat meat production on the rugged pastures of Arkansas and Missouri.

Our breeding program emphasizes hardiness and resistance to internal parasites. These are very important traits for the commercial meat goat producer. Goats make great pets and are fun to show in livestock shows. Unfortunately, people who raise goats for pets or for showing have a tendency to pamper their goats too much, thus, developing lines of goats that are not hardy enough to use as commercial meat goats.

Our twelve years of experience in breeding full blood Boers has shown us that the heritability of resistance to internal parasites in Boer goats is much greater than we originally thought it would be. We have made great progress in improving our herd for this trait. When we first started breeding Boer goats twelve years ago, we did not worm more than three times per year. Over the past ten years we have achieved enough genetic improvement for parasite resistance that we now worm only once per year. Individual Boer goats which require more frequent worming are culled. If one worms too often, one is breeding superior worms not superior goats.

The two most economically important traits in meat goats are hardiness and fertility. These two traits have the highest priority in our breeding program. We do not pamper our Boer goats. From early April till late August our goats receive no feed other than pasture, salt, and minerals. In late August we start feeding small amounts of grain before breeding to encourage multiple births. We are able to average 2 kids per doe using this system. When the acorns start falling we stop feeding because our Boer goats get plenty of nutrients from the acorns and pasture.

We do not use any medicated feeds or vaccines. We depend on our goats' natural immune system to ward off diseases. Boer goats which are not able to ward off diseases are culled. We recommend this practice only if one is producing breeding stock selected for hardiness and one can afford to lose a percentage of ones kid crop to diseases that can be vaccinated for.

We are also breeding our Boer goats for good meat conformation and rapid growth under economically sound pasture conditions. We have looked to the show goat industry to find bucks that can improve these traits. This has not been easy because most of the show bucks we purchased have had to be culled without using because they were not hardy. We have finally found a top quality show buck that transmits rapid growth and good conformation. He is SGR Cattilac Style. We currently have five top quality does out of Cattilac.

We are currently using the buck, WNDY Spot. He transmits hardiness and resistance to internal parasites. He also transmits correct two-teated udders which are rare in full blood Boers. SGR Cattilac Style transmits excellent meat conformation and very rapid growth. We plan to line breed to both of these bucks keeping our coefficient of inbreeding to 12.5% or less. Our goal is to combine all of these traits into a line of full blood Boers that breed true for each of these very important traits.

Come Visit Us and See Our Herd

We are located in north central Arkansas, twenty miles south of Missouri.

Ralph is four miles south of Yellville, Arkansas, on Highway 14.
We are two miles west of Ralph on County Road 5040.

kencandy@critterridge.net

(870) 449-6789