I noticed the most recent picture of the Boer National champions and couldn't believe my eyes! Now, is it just me, or their breed standard? Because to my eye, the backs are so crooked, that I would cull such an animal for meat as soon as possible. Are toplines just not a big deal with Boers?

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), August 30, 2001

Answers

I simply do not get Boers. I just think they are really ugly, so I wouldn't be a good candidate for seeing breed aspects that are desirable. Maybe the crooked backs are why they are meat goats???;).

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), August 31, 2001.

I have a photo of a very well bred fullblood Boer, who was excused for having a dippy chine as he was an aged buck. An aged buck????? He is 2!! I really do think that most of the Boer's I have seen have horrid conformation faults. Horrible feet, with claws and weak pasterns, you know where the front of the foot buldges over the front toes? Weak chines, hatchet rumps, and most are so fat it is disgusting! They jiggel when they walk. Don't even get me started on extra teats! Alot of the does have displaced obamossums, where the stomach has come through the side of the stomach lining, making a buldge that looks like they are bred. The biggest problem is they have taken range animals and made them into grain fed hot house flowers, that live off of drugs. The amounts and kinds of drugs these folks use on everyday things, (DEX, Nuflor, Banamine) I have used but a handful of times in my herd over the last 15 years. LA200 is given like candy, and Cydectin, a wormer with a carrier that goes through the hide of a cow, has a carrier much like DMSO which is an industrial solvent, and they put it down their goats throats! yes we know it works as a wormer, but it is so new, and they wonder why their goats die of unexplained wasting...........perhaps its liver or kidney failure, something has to be filtering all these chemicals! O.K. I am done.............:) Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 31, 2001.

I really don't have any familiarity with Boer goats other than knowing they're primarily a meat (as in large sized) breed but it's been in the back of my mind that when I get the fencing run on our new place I might want to acquire several. Now I'm not sure if this is a good way to go, particularly given the kidding problems that I'm given to understand the Boer breed sometimes has. I've seen pamphlets from the Florida cooperative extension service about Spanish meat goats which are also supposed to make a large butchering size so I'm wondering what opinions the folks in here might have concerning them?

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), September 02, 2001.

Live Oak, there is nothing that compares with the amount of meat that boers will put on their kids though. Bred to dairy or spanish, if you want meat, boers will do it for you and they don't have to be full or purebred to do it, the burst of growth in kids is really quite remarkable. I have very large Nubians, and boer kids outweigh my buck kids by twice, at least at butcher time. Holding onto them longer they will not exceed the heighth of my Nubians, though they hold more meat for awhile. As adults my Nubian bucks are as big as Boer bucks, though most boers are grossly overweight, jiggly with a large roll of fat at point of elbow. Raised correctly, on good browse, good hay and grain only for does nursing kids or for quick growing youngsters, boers shouldn't have any more kidding problems than any other breed of goat. Its the miss management that is killing them. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 02, 2001.

Vicki- I'm glad to hear that it's not just my prejudice! Those crooked backs really bug me, why isn't anybody interested in breeding that out, it looks so unsightly!

Do you think that the breed was better in general before it became so popular in the US? I am wondering whether the high incidence of faults is due to a lack of culling, due to the extreme value that they had? Maybe the same cause is behind the overkill on medicating- they simpply couldn't afford to let a $50,000 animal go down the drain, and they panicked and dosed him like crazy whenever he got the sniffles, and this type of thinking carried on as the herds grew larger and the value went down? When you think about it, how many people would buy stock where a few thousand was a good deal , and then turn it out to pasture and make them eat pasture and let the weak ones die? How long would it take for our dairy goats to turn into a breed of culls if we never culled unless we absolutely had to, and pampered them like that, and kept stock and rebred it even if it only gave a pint of milk a day, becasue the doe was just too valuable to get rid of her, whether or not she was worthy of being in the breeding program? And the bucks! Think of the damage that could be done to any breed by simply keeping or selling nearly every buck for breeding!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), September 02, 2001.

Vicki,

Now that I think of it I don't know how old the Spanish meat goats were that I saw but they were pretty danged big compared to the local scrub goats I see in pastures around here. Do the Boers really get that much bigger than the Spanish?

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), September 03, 2001.

$50,000.oo for a goat? What does that run per pound? Why in the name of all that is sane would anyone buy a $50,000 goat? Must be the same people who bet 20k on a single number and color in Vegas. I am really not in the same league. IF I had paid that kind of money for a goat you can bet that I would be really reluctant to let it die. Heck, I am reluctant to let anything die. Sorry....I had NO idea that people spent that kind of money on these goats.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), September 03, 2001.

That kind of price was when the breed was still a novelty in the US and breeding stock prices were at a premium. I don't know how much the best stock sells for now.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), September 04, 2001.

Yes Liveoak, you have to feel of boer kids to even believe it! Putting a boer buck on a spanish doe, or even a scrub goat gives you excellent meat kids. I haven't seen enough Kiko's to even know what they do though I know the TMG (fainters/myotonics) are much slower growing, which sort of defeats the purpose.

My feelings on the original boer was that the ones put into quaranteen for embryos were culls to begin with, with a way to small gene pool. My daughter used to date a guy from Alegeria, his mom visiting my farm was agast at how much we fed our goats, how big we let our Nubians get, just for milk :) She also was appalled at my friends fat boers, and laughed at all the extra teats saying it caused "udder sickness". So yes the Boers in her area, which are very common backyard goats, are smaller, not fat, and do not have 4 or 5 or 6 teats! So yes they were culls. It is also the reason the Fullblood South African bucks now are worth so much more. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 05, 2001.

I'M KIND OF DISSAPOINTED IN ALL THE NEGATIVE INFO ON BOER GOATS.THEY ARE A BEAUTIFUL ANIMAL WITH LOTS OF MEAT,THICK COAT AND GAIN WEIGHT VERY RAPIDLY.I HAVE SEEN KIKO'S THEY LOOK LIKE A REGULAR BILLY GOAT.THE CUTIEST IS THE PYGMY,OR DWARFS.I HAVE ABOUT 300 BOER,25 KIKO'S,AND 150 PYGMY GOATS I LOVE MY ANIMALS.EACH HAS ITS OWN NAME AND ARE REGISTERED.ALL I REALLY WANTED TO SAY IS IF YOU LIKE BOER GOATS GREAT IF YOU DON'T WHY TALK ABOUT THEM.WHY NOT TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU LIKE.GOD BLESS EVERYONE AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY.

-- THOMAS STANFORD (TWLOVESDJ2002@AOL.COM), September 13, 2002.

There are many responsible goat farmers that don't over-condition their Boer Goats and raise Boer Meat Goats as close to possible as intended by nature. I NEVER use womers, drugs or antibiotic's, nor do I vaccinate. Some would argue that this is irresponsible, but as a matter of personal preference, I'd only eat and sell goats that have been raised free of drugs, and on drug free does. I have NEVER lost a goat to any illness. I let any colds etcs run the course.

I DO test for CAE and CL annually even though I've never had a positive in my meat or dairy herd.

My herd is rotated to new pasture/browse frequently, and as a suplement receive alfalfa hay, and the nursing does receive 2lbs of grain a day as well as the Alfalfa, and 10 peanuts each.

My market goats are at 80 lbs by 4 months. I do all this on 10 acres. I am proud of my successes in goat farming.

-- Linda (bouncey392002@yahoo.com), July 04, 2003.