Boer Goats For Beginners
By: Gary Cutrer, Associate Editor, Ranch & Rural Living Magazine
As Published In The November 1995 Issue (Vol. 77 No. 2)
Q: What is a Boer goat?
The Boer goat was developed in South Africa as a breed meant solely for meat production.
The term "Boer" refers to the descendants of the Dutch immigrants, or Boers,
most of them farmers, who settled the country; thus, "Boer" goat simply means
"farmer's" goat. Because of the intense selective breeding over the past 50
years or more by South African goat breeders, the Boer goat is considered far superior to
any other goat for meat production. It is known for rapid weight gain and heavy muscling
and has high fertility. Boer does typically give birth to twins.
Q: What's a Boer goat good for?
Because the Boer was selectively improved for its meat production ability and its ability
to pass on that trait to its offspring, along with other traits including pasture
hardiness, the addition of a Boer buck to a commercial meat goat herd can improve the meat
characteristics of the offspring without making them too "soft" to be pasture
goats.
Q: Aren't Boer goats from South Africa? Why did many come from New Zealand?
Although they were first developed in South Africa, for a couple of years nearly all Boer
goats in the United States came from New Zealand. In the late 1980's several frozen Angora
and Boer embryos were smuggled out of South Africa via Zimbabwe by New Zealand and
Australian companies. The smugglers were primarily after the Angora embryos because of the
high quality mohair producing Angoras bred in South Africa; the Boer embryos were just an
afterthought. The companies implanted the embryos into recipient does in New Zealand. One
Australian company got into financial problems and ownership of many of its embryos and
offspring went to the quarantine station operator, Rob Moodie of New Zealand, who named
his herd African Goat Flocks. The other major holder of African Boer and Angora goats in
New Zealand was Landcorp Farming Limited, a government-owned entity. Still another
Australian firm, Australian Breeding Management, had thousands of African Boer and Angora
goats, and those goats were recently released from quarantine.
Q: Can I import a Boer goat directly from Africa?
You can, although if you're just after a few head of breeding stock and you think you must
have an "African" goat, you ought to consider buying stock from a breeder who
already has brought in goats directly from Africa; it will be less expensive and much less
work. Until this year, the USDA required importers bringing sheep and goats from South
Africa to put them in a strict quarantine for five years. But in mid 1995 the USDA changed
the rules for sheep and goats imported from South Africa. Now live animals brought
directly from Africa only have to be put into a herd that conforms with the USDA's
Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification Program, or VSFCP. That program is a means the USDA
is using to try and detect and control sheep and goat flocks that might contain the
scrapie disease, which has no known cure and the cause of which is not really understood.
Offspring from the goats in those flocks, however, may be sold and moved freely. Goats
originally imported from New Zealand face no requirement to be put in a VSFCP herd. The
USDA plans to relax other import rules to allow free collection of embryos and their
importation from South Africa to the United States.
Q: I hear Boer goats originally sold for astronomically high prices. Why?
It was due a little bit to supply and demand and a little bit to psychology. When a new
(to the U.S.) animal species is introduced into this country, especially a species that
has commercial potential, often an artificially high "breeder's" or
"exotics" market develops for the animal. This happened with the ostrich and
emu, even with the potbellied pig and hedgehog. The Boer goat is a bit different, however.
When ostriches were imported into the U.S. there were few if any existing flocks of
ostrich. It took years for the breeder's market to be satisfied. But when the Boer goat
was introduced, there were already millions of goats in the United States. With embryo
transfer technology and artificial insemination, we have gone from a few dozen Boer goats
to thousands of full-blood goats in a couple of years. And people are still importing live
goats.
The psychology part of an "exotics market": People think they can make lots of
money selling high-priced exotic animals, especially when the animals can reproduce and
make more high-priced animals. The catch: To make money, you have to know what you are
doing, know the particular breed, and you have to get in the market very early-on. Timing
is everything; early bidding for a limited number of sought-after animals can go very
high.
Q: What do Boer goats cost? Are prices still high?
Boer goat prices are still relatively high but are approaching what you'd pay for a
quality registered Angora or registered dairy goat. They are nowhere near the steep
amounts paid during the winter and spring of 1994, when a bit of buying "frenzy"
took hold of some goat breeders and exotics traders. Before the frenzy hit, back in August
1993, the cost of buying a goat at an auction in New Zealand and transporting it to the
United States was about $8,000 to $10,000. At the time, people suggested that buyers who
spent $10,000 bringing in a Boer goat might ought to spend some time in the loony bin. But
those early buyers saw the potential worth of the breed. By March 1994, newborn Boer kids
were selling for $7,000 to $10,000 each. In one 1994 auction, $80,000 was reportedly paid
for a full-blood adult buck. Except for an unanswered private treaty offer of more than
$100,000 for a stud, $80,000 was about the highest price paid in this country for a Boer
goat. About mid summer of 1994, the Boer market declined to "only" about $25,000
to $35,000 per animal and settled there. In an auction during early 1995, full-blood Boer
goat bucks sold for an average of about $9,000 per head, while does brought about $11,000
per head. Prices continued to decline during 1995. As more and more kids reached breeding
age and were put on the market, going prices went lower. Then, too, demand for breeding
stock was being satisfied, so finding a buyer for purebred Boers was sometimes hard to do.
That has changed a little now. It seems like more farmers and ranchers in sections of the
country not normally thought of as goat country are hearing about Boer goats and the meat
goat industry. At a Boer goat auction in early October 1995 Boer prices stopped their
decline and actually improved. At that sale, breeding age does sold for $800 to $1,500 per
head. Adult bucks went for around $2,000 per head.
Q: Will Boer goat prices go even lower, and should I wait for that to happen?
Ever hear the old adage, "You get what you pay for."? Well, that saying applies
here. After the buying frenzy in early 1994, people began to wise up and be more selective
about how much they paid for what type of goat. Buyers no longer paid high prices just
because the goat was white with a red head and was called a Boer goat. Quality became
important. You could probably buy a so-so full-blood Boer buck these days for as little as
a few hundred dollars. Quality Boer goats, both bucks and does with outstanding
conformation and muscle mass and the ability to pass on those traits, still sell for
fairly high prices and will continue to do so.
Q: Do I need Boer influence in my herd to be a successful meat goat producer?
Nope. Not at all. Right now you could probably do well raising and selling meat goats
(providing demand holds at present levels and imports don't absolutely flood the country)
even if you raised wild, skinny, tough, unimproved meat goats. But as the industry
develops and grows, you'll probably want to add at least a Boer buck to your flock to
compete with the meaty animals sure to hit the market in the near future.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reprinted With The Permission Of:
Ranch & Rural Living Magazine
301 W. 1st Street, Suite B
P. O. Box 2678
San Angelo, TX 76902 USA
Phone: (915) 655-4434, Fax: (915) 658-8250
e-mail mailto:info@ranchmagazine.com
WWW URL: http://www.ranchmagazine.com