To do so you must find a niche and learn everything you possibly can about it before investing in breeding stock (changing breeds, bloodlines and so on midstream is very costly). Be sure to investigate marketing avenues up front.

Then, buy the most appropriate breeding stock that you can find. If you want to produce meat goat kids for the ethnic market, buy healthy, productive does that doesn't require a lot of input. If you want to raise Miniature Herefords, buy proven, well-conformed individuals of popular bloodlines.

To be cost-effective, you must to learn to do much of your routine vet work yourself--and you need to understand which parasites afflict your chosen species and establish an effective parasite control program.

Plan to promote your enterprize however it applies to the species and niche you've chosen. Advertising needn't cost a fortune; a really good business card (distribute them every place you go) and an attractive, well-maintained Web site go a long way toward inexpensive farm business promotion. If you're selling market kids, distribute tidbits of barbecued cabrito at the county fair and take a tasty chevon casserole to potluck suppers. If you're raising Friesian horses, buy a booth at your state's horse expo and be friendly--strike up conversations with passersby. Take a pair of cuddly Babydoll Southdown bottle lambs to your kids' school or to storytime at the library. Brainstorm! There are lots of ways to promote farm products without going bust.

And plan to persevere. Hobby farmers rarely strike it rich overnight. When raising livestock there is usually a huge learning curve. Be prepared to weather early losses while you absorb the ins and outs.

If you provide a quality product that's needed in your locale, you produce it cost-effectively, and you get the word out so buyers know what you have for sale, yes, you can make money raising livestock (or any other small farm product for that matter). Been there, done that; failed a few times and prospered in others. It all depends on how much time, energy and money you care to expend to do it right.

Sue

P.S.

For more inspiration, read all about:

Angora Goats

Berkshire Pigs

Choosing Livestock

Alpacas

Meat Goats

I just read your post, and I can share with you what I/we do.  I work full time managing our Farm/Ranch.  We have angus cattle, Cashmere goats, Merino sheep and I raise and start Border Collies for the average Farm/Rancher.  All my income comes from the livestock industry; it is what I LOVE.

How many aces you have will help you determine what you can raise.  My first thought is Cashmere Goats. Range free Eggs and Roasting Hens.  These can coexist together and can provide a sustainable environment for your land. 

The Cashmeres are very very cute and do produce a good meat product.  They do not have the muscling that some of the meat breeds do, but my locker goats sell from $1 - $1.50 a pound.  This income I use of off set the cost of keeping the does and then once a year I harvest the fiber from them and this adds additional income from the animal.  Cashmere fiber in a cloud can sell on the average (your area may allow you to go higher) for about $13.50 an ounce.  You have your processing cost which can vary depending on who you use and how far you have to ship it to be processed, but I make about a 40% mark up on the fiber.

The chickens would allow you to produce a product everyone uses. If you plan on keeping our layers 2 years and replacing them, you can also produce a range free Roasting hen grown in a sustainable environment.  You can start you first set of hens get them up and producing, then as they approach the year and a half mark (or sooner or later depending) their laying will begin to space out at this point I would start up my next set of hens so as your others finish and become your first corp of stew hens, you have others to slid right in and take over.  You can build your market in a CSA fashion, where you market in and to your community.  (there was a super story in the fall issue of Hobby Farm on Fall Speciality Poultry.  This story it tells about building the market in your community.

This is just an idea but maybe it will help.  Have a wonderful day,

 

Lisa Knutson
Lisa's Cashmeres and Merinos
California

And NO, I'm not going to neglect the not perfect GV's. I want to also, someday, open a deal with some rescue, or auctions, where I get a misbehaved, wild horse and rehab. it and sell it and with the profit buy another misbehaved....see? I want to be someone who is a "last chance" saver!

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The horse stopped with a jerk, and the jerk fell off

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It's kind of like nuts-and-bolts, if the rider's nuts the horse bolts.

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Never drive black cattle in the dark.

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It's doesn't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

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Those $1200 goats are registered Boers and Kikos. People pay that kind of money for one (or more) of several reasons:

1) They're buying show goats. Show stock can bring really high prices. At the last (Boer goat) production sale I attended, a breeder sold a doe for $3800 and bucks sometimes bring much more than that.

2) They're very correct, very meaty bucks from fast-gaining bloodlines that people buy to breed to commercial does so that the does produce muscular, fast-gaining meat goat kids for market.

3) They breed replacement stock. In other words, they're producing the bucks in point #2 as well as high-end bucks and does for other breeders' breeding programs.

Meat goat kids are usually marketed at 60-80 pounds live weight (sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on what ethic group will be buying the finished meat), so the faster they reach that size the sooner they can go to market and the less money producers have in them, hence the desire for fast gains.

The biggest goats I've ever heard of were mature Boer bucks running about 300 pounds. The average, meaty Boer or Kiko buck is more in the 225-250 pound range. Your goats will probably be full height at 18 months or so, but they'll contine filling out until they're three or four years old.

What breed(s) are your wethers? You've picked great pets--I love my goats (and no, we don't sell any for meat)! I'm raising pack wethers too, in fact my two oldest are more or less in training now. They're 3 year olds, so they could have been trained a lot younger but I just haven't had the spare time. They are 3/4 Boer and 1/4 Nubian brothers, Salem and Shiloh. I also have a Sable wether, a Nubian wether, a 1/2 Boer and 1/2 Saanen wether, and a Boer-colored boy who was seized in an animal neglect case so I have no idea what his true background is.

Your goats should do okay on grass, weeds, and browse this summer--just watch them and if they start to lose weight, you'll need to buy them some hay or hay pellets to supplement what they're finding on their own. If you can get a loose (not a salt lick type) goat mineral for them, that would be really good too. Just put some in a box and let them nibble whatever they want. If you can't find goat mineral, a loose horse mineral will do.

You could cut and put up your own hay based on weeds, but it's a lot of work. You have to cut it and then turn it once a day for several days until it's totally dry before you can stack it, otherwise it will mold. And it probably won't be very nutritious. You'd be better off buying hay because they'd get more nutrition from that. Whatever you feed them, feed from a box of some sort so they don't walk on the hay or (especially) poop in it. Goats can be pretty messy and if hay gets dirty they will starve (literally!) rather than eat it.

Timothy is great for goats. Since you have wethers, avoid alfalfa if you can because feeding it is implicated in the formation of urinary calculi (stones in the bladder and urethra) and they can quickly lead to a particularly nasty and painful death. You can read more about it here:

Urinary Calculi in Sheep and Goats http://www.sheepandgoat.com/articles/urincalc.html

Urinary Calculi in Goats http://www.tennesseemeatgoats.com/articles2/urinarycalculi06.html

Also, if you can get good hay, don't feed them grain. Again, more about that in the above articles.

You might want to download the following 47-page .doc file to use as a goat-keeping reference. It's one of the best, basic goatkeeping guides I've seen and it revolves around using goats to graze brush:

Goats in the Woods Workbook www.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/goatsinthewoods/technical_materials/workbook%20for%20practitioners.doc

I hope this helps!

Sue

I don't really plan on eating mine, but I'm thinking about getting more someday when I have more land.  How much does a goat sell for just for meet when it's in that 80-100lb range?  Do the different breeds taste any different?  Thanks!

Poor hunters must resort to farming:(

That's good advice--goats are always happiest when there are at least two to keep each other company.

Mixed breeds are good! Several of mine are mixed. Many packgoat enthusiasts mix breeds on purpose to bring out the best of several breeds.

The price of meat goats varies a lot from place to place, so it would be hard to say what they'd bring where you live. If you go to this Web page (www.goatconnection.com/usda_market.htm) and click on any of the USDA buying centers listed, you can view up-to-date market prices for that area. Keep in mind that prices are shown per 100 pounds, so for instance if a report reads (I'm getting this from the Springfield, Missouri report) "Kids 40-77 lbs 92.00-117.50", it means the kids weighed 40-77 lbs but the $92.00 to $117.50 would be for 100 pounds of goat, so you have to do some math to find out how much they sold per pound.

If you want good information on raising meat goats, check this out: http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/meatgoat.html

Or, you can download the Penn State meat goat production course materials for free (without taking the course) at: http://bedford.extension.psu.edu/agriculture/goat/Goat%20Lessons.htm

There are lots of really useful goat resources online! 

Sue