Excess goat kids

[Melissa'sDreamFarm]

Let me start this by saying I like BBQ goat. If this first sentence upsets you, don't read further.

My first goal in goat keeping was for milk and cheese. Because I know I will not be able to sell all or maybe any of my goat-kids and there will be too many goats for me to support on my farm, my plans were to stock my freezer. So for those of you who eat your excess goats that you don't sell, at what age and what is a good resource (book or website) on what to feed for better meat and a healthy goat to process.

I have a local processor who will "process" one of my Nigerian Dwarfs for $25. Does this sound like a fair price and what cuts of meat do I ask him to give me? We are a family of 3, should I get 1 or 2 pound packages?

ETA: I have never cooked any goat. I've only ate it at various friends houses.

 

[Rebbetzin]

hmm, I was just thinking there is probably not much meat on a dwarf type goat. Anyhow the ones I have seen don't look like they could produce more than a few good "soup bones".

One year I purchased a butchered goat from a local Middle Eastern Grocery. It was about 35 to 40 lbs dressed out... but very little in the way of meat compared to the bones. And that was a full sized goat.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

There are people who process cull NDs. Never done it myself so I can't help, but I know it's done. Kids supposedly dress out just like rabbit and I've seen references to folks processing anywhere from birth to 3 or 4 weeks when they would normally start getting grained or even up to 5 months. The younger they are when you cull the less resources you're putting in to them.

 

[AlaskanShepherdess]

Is the $25 they are charging just for processing all the meat you have already cut off, or is that for you taking them the dead animals and they butcher and process it for you?

Just a week ago we butchered 2 of our goats, a 6 year old doe that should have been culled long time ago because of poor genetics and a yearling buck that we tried to sell but were unable to.

We got a really good amount of meat out of the doe. Out of all the meat we processed that day 2/3 of it was from her easily. The buckling was definitely a dairy goat, he was not skinny, but he didn't have a lot of meat or fat on him either. If I had known I was going to butcher him some time before hand I would have started giving him grain to fatten him up.

Because Nigerians are so small... I personally think it was well worth doing on our own. It took really close to 4 hours to kill, butcher and process those two goats. Since there is so little meat on them, all we did was cut off the ribs, backstrap, and legs. There was small amounts of meat really close to the bones in the neck and spine so we cut those into pot sized portions and they will be for stewing/making into broth. The legs we left whole, and will barbecue them that way. The only thing we really could have processed more is the legs, and I honestly didn't want to deal with them, and we LOVE them barbequed so that is no problem here.

Seeing how little meat there is on them makes me want to get maybe a pygmy buck or something so I can get meatier babies. I brined the meat for 4 days and we love it!

 

[Melissa'sDreamFarm]

Here in order for a butcher to process you have to take a "live" animal. So the price was to kill and process a 40-50 pound goat. 1 and 2 pound packages of meat. We process our own chickens, but I'm having a hard time giving my husband the ok on the goats. I'm such a softy, but I'm being firm. Any excess kids not sold within 8 weeks must be butchered for meat. So how much past 8 weeks would you grow out a goat for processing and what would you feed it knowing it was for meat?

 

[freemotion]

When I was a child we ate the dairy wethers. They simply ate pasture/hay until fall. My father did all the butchering in the fall for two reasons....the cold made weight gain slow down for all the animals and we then relied on purchased foods, and the cold allowed for fly-free butchering. There wasn't a lot of meat on them but they sure were delicious. I don't remember if we grained them....don't think so, but we could have....if so, it was whole oats purchased directly from the farmer down the road at harvest time. Since they are dairy animals it may not be worth it to invest a lot into growing them out if your pasture/browse is good.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

Here in order for a butcher to process you have to take a "live" animal. So the price was to kill and process a 40-50 pound goat. 1 and 2 pound packages of meat. We process our own chickens, but I'm having a hard time giving my husband the ok on the goats. I'm such a softy, but I'm being firm. Any excess kids not sold within 8 weeks must be butchered for meat. So how much past 8 weeks would you grow out a goat for processing and what would you feed it knowing it was for meat?

Some folks butcher them at weaning. I think basically the amount of time you grow them out depends on what you want to put into them. Even with ample pasture their grain consumption is going to go way up after they're weaned.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

That price seems like a dream to me-our guy charges $75.00 (we buy cows and the price is much better for that).

 

[AlaskanShepherdess]

For a Nigerian you won't be reaching 40-50lbs for a number of months, I have not ever weighed any of my goats so I could be off, but I know I can still easily pick up my 3mo babies, and I cannot easily pick up a 50lb bag. I'll have to ask my husband how much he thinks Gusto weighed, because an 8wk old baby would certainly not be worth the $25 IMO. I just picked up a small for her age 2 yo doe this morning and she *may* have been 50lb.

 

[kstaven]

Never butchered a nigerian. But can tell you we have bred our dairy girls to a boer buck. At 50 lbs. the kids fetch $2.00/lb live weight destined for the meat market.


Here we would pay $1.50/lb carcass weight for cut and wrap.