If I were raising meat goats for my own consumption and to sell to neighbors for their own consumption, following the law, of course, would cross bred goats be adequate or are full blood goats still recomended? thanks Karen B

-- Karen Burrell (burrell_karen19@hotmail.com), March 07, 2001

Answers

Bohr x will give You a good solid meat baby. We are breeding to a fullblood heard but the percentage does give good babys too. The weight at birth is 50% more on the x babys. The higher the percentage the heaver the baby in most cases. God Bless and have a fine week.

-- Charles steen (xbeeman412@aol.com), March 07, 2001.

I'd go with a cross. Reason being, they are generally healthier animals, sturdier, and produce more meat. I've always had great luck with Boer crosses, too.

The public isn't going to care much as long as the meat doesn't have a lot of fat and tastes good!!! (crosses may be cheaper in the beginning, too....)

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), March 07, 2001.

I agree with Sue.Boer x Nubian grow faster and larger than fullblood Boers.The Nubian side gives a larger,taller frame to pile the Boer muscle on.Extra milk from the Nubian helps too.If I were trying to build a meat goat herd I would cross Nubian,Boer.Save the doe kids and breed those back to a Boer.I think the 3/4 percentage gives the best possible meat goat.

-- JT (gone2seed@hotmail.com), March 07, 2001.

You'd be surprized what kind of meat you can get from non-boer crosses if you just look at the big, round, kind of coarsly productive members of the dairy goat family. Our goats are comprised of the biggest, most productive dairy goats my friend who developed the breed (Santa Theresas) could find. There are La Manchas out there with wide loins, Nubians with deep butts.. these are the goats judges hate since they probably have loose udders because of low, meaty escutcheons. The meatier "dairy" goat will have a steeper rump and thicker shoulders too. Our goats give sterling amounts of milk from loose udders and we get identical if not better dressouts than pure and cross Boers.. but we DO feed well since we are milking. You can develop your own strain of goats just by selecting from thick, strong, wide, meaty dairy goats. The old style La Mancha crossed with the Frosty Marvin type Nubian is a really good start.

-- Ellen Wright (gardenfarm@earthlink.net), October 27, 2001.

Hi,

I am an absolute new comer to the field of Bohr goats- can anyone point me to info about raising them and the economic viability of the meat business? And what can be done with the milk?

Thanks, Doug

-- d weers (dweers@yahoo.com), November 15, 2001.

Doug go over to groups.Yahoo.com and put Boer into their search engine, more groups with more information than you could assimilate in a year. goatandsheeprancher is my favorite. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 15, 2001.