Hardy Boer Meat Goats

Ken and Candy Ziemer

1656 MC 5040 Yellville,Arkansas 72687

(870) 449-6789 kencandy@critterridge.net

Helpful Information on Boer Goats and Meat Goats

From Our Experience:

In this web site we are publishing some articles with helpful information on raising meat goats. These articles are based on 42 years of experience raising goats in northern Arkansas. Keep in mind that our goal is to produce quality breeding stock for the commercial meat goat industry. For that reason we raise our goats under conditions similar to those in a commercial meat goat operation. We have included only information that can not be found in other publications on raising meat goats. For the beginner needing more complete information on meat goats we recommend the following links:

ATTRA (the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service,) a USDA funded nonprofit organization, publishes and distributes"An Illustrated Guide to Sheep and Goat Production." This publication can be down loaded free of charge from their web site at http://www.attra.ncat.org. This guide has useful information on all aspects of raising goats. Their web site also has information on growing certified organic goat products.

LangstonUniversity at Langston, Oklahoma, is the world's leading institution for goat research. A whole lot of information on meat goat production, including a new Meat Goat Production Handbook, is available through their web site at http://www2.luresext.edu/goats/. They also have a web based training and certification program for meat goat producers.

The American Boer Goat Association has a lot of helpful information on raising and marketing both commercial meat goats and registered Boer goat breeding stock at http://www.abga.org.

Hoof Trimming:

Hoof trimming is a very time consuming job and time is worth money. The commercial meat goat producer who has 300 to 1,000 goats running on 600 to 2,000 acres can not trim hoofs. I know producers in this area that have that many meat goats.

Some goats need to have their hoofs trimmed every two to three months, others never need them trimmed. After we had been breeding full blood Boer goats for about six years and had built our herd from a foundation of seven does to about twenty five does, we noticed that we had six does that needed to have there hoofs trimmed every three months. After we examined the pedigrees of these six does carefully we found out that one was one of our foundation does and the other five were daughters and grand daughters of that one doe. Needless to say we culled those six does and a few others since them that needed to have their hoofs trimmed.

None of the does in our present herd (except for three of my grand children's show goats) have ever had their hoofs trimmed. Our does run on ten acres of steep Ozark Mountain pasture that has lots of limestone out-croppings. Our bucks, which only have 3/4ths of an acre with no rock, need to have there hoofs trimmed about once per year. Show goats, which are confined to small pens and fed high power rations, need to have their hoofs trimmed often. Pictured below are Ozark Mountain automatic hoof trimmers.

The American Boer Goat Association web site has a good article on how to trim hoofs (http://www.abga.org/tattoos.php?pagename=hoof.htm.)

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.