"American Small Farm" magazine article Meat Goats Offer A Very Bright Future

Editor's note: Goats offer a variety of products for human consumption. More than 60 breeds of goats serve in the production of milk, meat, fiber and skin. There are quite a few breeds of goats that have the potential to offer good quality goat meat. We think goats should be considered in the many small farm plans. This month we will look at the opportunities for meat goats. In August we will look at the opportunities for dairy goats.

Jack and Anita Mauldin's Double J Boer Goat Farm is located near Georgetown, Texas. They were featured and on the cover of the March 2003 American Small Farm magazine. I tell you this because their boer goat we site (www.jackmauldin.com)  has a wealth of information about goats including meat goat business planning, goat management and health. You will learn a lot from it.

Jack says, "The meat goat industry is one of the fastest growing agriculture areas with a very bright future. However many people considering the meat goat industry for possible business opportunities do not have the appropriate view of the industry potential. We will take a logical approach to trying to help newcomers to this industry better understand the current market and future growth opportunities."

One thing Jack says he has heard over and over again is "The trend of buying and raising boer goats is just like the emus several years ago."

"We hear that from relatives, friend and people considering getting boer goats." he says. "There is only one thing similar to the different animals and that is the prices were very high when they both initially cane into the U.S. and those people potentially made some very big profits and then the prices started dropping. The simple reasons for those high prices were because of the low number of animals available in the U.S. and the difficulty in getting them here."

"Now let us look at the difference between 'creating a new consumer demand' vs. 'trying to meet the demand of an existing and growing consumer demand," Jack says, "Personally, we did not ever get into the emu business, but we have heard lots of horror stories from people that lost a ton of money in it."

"Consider what the market was for emus prior to the fad hitting the US," he says. "You saw them in the zoo and that was about it. The US population was in a healthy food phase and chicken was one of the healthiest meats to eat. Now if people like a small chicken for meat, they they will surely love meat from a big chicken. Not really. There was never a real market for emu meat prior to their being brought to the US and a market was never developed. It is very difficult to create a new consumer demand."

"The meat goat industry is built around ethnic demand and social traditions for the product." Jack explains. "As more immigrants come to the US, the demand for goat meat increases. The largest goat-consuming ethnic populations in the US are Hispanics, Moslems and Caribbean Islanders. And there has been dramatic growth in the immigrants to the US and the are coming from countries where goat meat is a central part of their life.