Our Farm Goals

• Raise quality Boer Goats as breeding animals for other farms and ranches

• Raise a few top quality show wethers priced so the average 4H/FFA member can compete with the ones paying $1,000+ for animals.

• Sell our animals at prices that allow a win/win environment for us and buyers

• Improve the quality of our herd each year

• No Flushing eggs from our does. Everything Natural.

• Develop high customer satisfaction with our buyers or web visitors

Everyone says they are focusing on "quality" but few breeders are defining what quality means to them. We wrote an article called "What is Quality?" in 2002 to define the type of things we believe needs to be considered in quantifying what is meant by the word quality in a specific situation such as raising boer goats. Now we are defining specific objectives, priorities and measurements for achieving our Quality Goals.

• This information was written on August 8, 2007 and we have set our target date for September 1, 2010. This is to give us three years to adjust, refine and cull our current breeding herd in order to achieve our Quality expectations.
• Priority One -  Develop hardy, healthy animals that require less labor and medical attention to offer desirable breeding boer goats. Some of the specifics we will measure in this area are:
  • More animals resistant or immune to internal parasites such as the Barber Pole worm.
  • Does having fewer kidding problems
  • Animals that do not require as much hoof trimming as often as the current herd.
  • Animals that do well living in the pasture and not just out of the feeder.
• Priority Two -  Focus on the most important body characteristics related to desirable goat meat according to the meat goat industry and not the boer goat associations. Here are three documents that help identify important parts of a goat carcass.
  • Proposed goat carcass standard.

  • Meat Goat Carcass Fabrication

  • Goat Carcass

    From these articles, we will focus on the following body features.

    • Ribs

    • Loin

    • Shoulders

    • Legs

    • Neck

    This means we will not focus on certain characteristics that are key areas in the boer associations.. Those characteristics are:

    • Width in the front. Very little extra meat is produced in breeding for greater width in the front and it may result in more difficult kidding. If you research bulldogs and their big head and wide front, you will find out almost all pups are delivered by c-section. (see example of bulldog breeding)

    • Long thin necks

    • Roman nose

    • Correct color

    • Large head hoping that means the animal will be big and wide. A large head can also be a problem in kidding.

    • How straight an animal walks after trimming hooves. This is covered in priority one where we focus on animals doing well making a living in the pastures.

• Priority Three - Fertility capability

  • Does that average 2-3 kids a season

  • Ability of does to nurse and care for all of her kids - functional, clean teats and adequate milk

  • Animals that have long productive lives.

• Measuring Success - Our measurements will be our Monthly Management Charts and Customer Satisfaction with our animals. We will also supply the individual Management charts for each animal to the new owners for their own use.

  Summary

  We are absolutely committed to achieving these quality objectives in our animals over the next three years. Many of our animals are already there but we have to let our potential buyers know what they should expect from our animals today and in the future.