Meat Goat Facts

J-M Luginbuhl

REPRODUCTIVE ASPECTS

FEMALE
Age of puberty		7-10 months
Breeding weight		60-75% of adult weight
Estrous cycle
	Length	18-22 days
	Duration	12-36 hours
	Signs	Tail wagging, mounting, bleating
Ovulation		12 to 36 hrs from onset of standing heat
Gestation		length 146-155 days
Breeding season		August-January
Seasonal anestrous		February-July
Buck effect on estrous		Positive
MALE
Age of puberty		4-8 months
Breeding age		8-10 months
Breeding season		All year
Breeding ratio		1 buck : 20 to 30 does

PHYSIOLOGICAL DATA

Temperature	101.7-104.5 F
Heart rate	70-80/minute
Respiration rate	12-15/minute
Ruminal movements	1-1.5 /minute

RULES FOR GOAT HEALTH

• Provide proper housing
• Practice good sanitation
• Provide adequate nutrition
• Provide clean water
• Observe how much feed (hay, minerals, concentrate) is left over
• Observe your animals daily
• Observe the feces of your animals
• Clean pastures and exercise lots
• Become familiar with the common diseases
• Investigate the source of strange smells
• Use your veterinarian for diagnosis

A HEALTHY GOAT

• Eats well
• Chews its cud
• Has a shiny coat
• Has strong legs and feet
• Is sociable
• Has bright and clear eyes

SIGNS OF ILLNESS

PURCHASED ANIMALS

• Isolate animals for a month
  • Vaccinate
  • Deworm
  • Test for certain diseases
  • Coccidiosis control program
  • Identification tag
  • Other

HERD HEALTH PRACTICES

Vaccination program

If possible always weigh animals prior to vaccination to 1) calculate and inject the correct dosage of the vaccine(s) and 2) assess body condition

Enterotoxemia and tetanus - Clostridium perfringens C, D + T

Adult males

Once a year

Breeding females

Once a year (4 to 6 weeks before kidding) or twice a year: 4 to 6 wk before breeding, then 4 to 6 wk before kidding

Kids

Week 8, then booster on week 12

If possible, always weigh animals prior to deworming to 1) calculate and inject or drench the correct dosage of the dewormer and 2) assess body condition. Underdosing of goats because of failure to weigh the animals or because of underestimating their live weight is a very common but costly mistake because this may lead to parasite resistance to dewormers. Therefore, determine dose according to heaviest animal in the group. On the other hand, overdosing of certain dewormers can cause health problems. If deworming animals before kidding, make sure that dewormer is safe for pregnant does.

Adults

• 2 to 3 weeks prior to breeding
• Avoid early pregnancy (20 to 60 days)
• 2 to 3 weeks prior to kidding or at kidding
• Strategic

Kids

• Day 30
• Day 60
• Strategic

During warm, wet weather it is advisable to take fecal samples 10 days after deworming in order to determine fecal egg counts and effectiveness of dewormer

Coccidiosis usually strikes young animals during periods of stress such as weaning. Level of control depends on the level of infestation

At weaning

• Coccidiostat drench
• Coccidiostat in water tank

At other times (if necessary)

• Mineral with Bovatec
• Decoquinate in feed

KID HEALTH PRACTICE

• At birth
• Dip navel in iodine
• Kids should ingest 10% of their live weight in colostrum during first 24 hours of life. Colostrum should be ingested or bottle-fed (in case of weak kids) as soon as kids have a suckling reflex. In cases of extremely weak kids, they should be tube-fed. The producer must be certain that all newborn kids get colostrum soon after birth (within the first hour after birth, and certainly within the first 6 hours) because the percentage of antibodies found in colostrum decreases rapidly after parturition.
• Castration
  
• Knife
• Emasculator
• Elastrator

  (The question is: why castrate if you will sell your buck kids for meat at 4 to 5 months of age?).

  If not castrated, buck kids should be seperateed from doe kids at weaning.

FLUSHING

Starting 3-4 weeks before the breeding season, and throughout the breeding season, increase the plane of nutrition of does to be bred

• Switch them to high quality pasture or
• Supplement them with 1/2 lb cracked corn/head/day or 1/2 lb whole cottonseed

AFTER BREEDING

During the first month of pregnancy

• Keep the plane of nutrition similar to that of flushing period

IMPORTANT PRODUCTION TRAITS

• Adaptability
  • Ability to survive in given environment
  • Ability to reproduce in given environment
  • Is a lowly heritable trait
• Reproduction
  • Conception rate
  • Kidding or prolificacy rate
  • Non-seasonality
• Growth rate
  • Pre-weaning gain
  • Post-weaning gain
• Carcass characteristics
  • Dressing percent
  • Lean:fat:bone
  • Muscle distribution

BODY CONDITION SCORE

• To monitor and fine tune nutrition program
• To "head off" parasite problem
• Visual evaluation is not adequate, has to touch and feel animal
• Areas to be monitored
  • Tail head
  • Ribs
  • Pins
  • Hocks
  • Edge of loin
  • Shoulder
  • Back bone
  • Longissimus dorsi
• Scale

  • Thin

    1 to 3

  • Moderate

    4 to 6

  • Fat

    7 to 9

• Recommendations

  • End of pregnancy

    5 to 6

  • Start of breeding season

    5 to 6

  • Animals should never have a body condition score of 1 to 3
  • Pregnant does should not have a body condition score of 7 or above toward the end of pregnancy because of the risk of pregnancy toxemia
  • A body condition score of 5 to 6 at kidding should not drop off too quickly

FENCING

PERIMETER FENCE

• Smooth electrified wire
  • At least 42 inches tall
    • 6 to 8 inches near the ground
    • 8 to 12 inches at the top strands
      • Example (inches from the ground): 6 - 14 - 22 - 32 - 42 - (52)

PERIMETER FENCE

• Woven wire (6" X 6")
  • Effective
  • Costs at least twice as much as 5 strands of smooth electrified wire
  • Horned goats can get caught
    • Place an electric wire offset about 9 inches from the woven wire fence and about 12 to 15 inches from the ground
    • Reduces control of forage growth at fence line
• Woven wire (6" X 12")
  • Effective
  • Cheaper
  • Horned goats usually do not get caught

INTERIOR FENCES

• Two to three wires (braided or tape) with tread-in posts
• Electronet

GRAZING MANAGEMENT

In a pasture situation, goats are "top down" grazers. They start to eat seedheads or the top of the canopy and progressively take the forage down. This behavior results in uniform grazing. Goats do not like to graze close to the ground. Grazing goats have been observed to 1) select grass over clover, 2) prefer browse over grazing, 3) graze along fence lines before grazing the center of a pasture, 4) refuse to graze forage that has been trampled and soiled. These observations have been put to use in the grazing management of goats: it is preferable to give them a daily allowance of forage and to move the fence accordingly rather than to let them roam freely in a large pasture. This type of management, called control grazing, was developed in Europe and is implemented very successfully in New Zealand and numerous other parts of the world. Control grazing results in better animal performance, higher stocking rates, and increased pasture productivity.

SO, YOU WANT TO GET IN THE GOAT BUSINESS

Are you really, really ready?

• Are your fences, pens, chutes goat proof
• Is your grazing land adequate
• Do you have sufficient supplemental feed on hand
• Is your predator controller in place
• In your medicine cabinet, do you have
  • Dewormers
  • Vaccines
  • Iodine
  • Antibiotic ointment
  • Insecticidal powder
  • Thermometer
  • Stomac tube
  • Hoof trimmers
• Have you discussed your new venture with your local veterinarian?
• Have you alerted your next door neighbors to the possibility of excessive noises, exotic odors, sexual activity during the breeding season, animals getting out, and allayed their fears of the spreading of diseases?