Boer/Pygmy Crosses?

MidnightChickenLover said:

Well, It doesn't really depend on the size, per se, it depends on the amount of meat.

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I get what you're saying here...they'd be small, but they'd pack a whole lot of meat in a very small package.

It's a neat concept, but here's the problem...

It's only a neat concept until that animal goes to sale, at which point I gaurantee you that it would be TOTALLY LOST on the kill buyer.. He's not gonna look at that animal and think "Hey, I bet that animal would dress out at a higher percentage than your average boer..." Instead, he's gonna look at it in terms of total pounds dressed, and the smaller it is, the less it's going to dress out.

Like, if you could design a breed that dressed out at 60%, that's great...but if it only weighs 20lbs, that's still only 12lbs of meat to be had. To the kill buyer comparing that with one that weighs 60lbs and yields 24lbs of meat, the bigger animal yields 200% of the meat as the smaller one. It may 3-times the money for 2-times the meat, but the smaller animal is also gonna require nearly as much time on the table as the larger animal, it's gonna yield smaller cuts, and -- let's face it -- if you need x-pounds of meat, it's probably better to get it with only as many tenuous heartbeats as are absolutely necessary.

I *do* get what you're saying, though.. And if you can find folks out there looking to raise just a little bit of goat meat for their own table in their own small backyards, it might be a good cross...but I'm thinking there aren't a whole big bunch of folks out there doing that.

If this is something that you really want to try and it doesn't matter if it works out or not, then go for it and try. Although I would be sure to breed a Pygmy male to a Boer female. To me your biggest market for this would be the city folks who only have 2 in the family and want that grass fed or "natural" meat and don't have room/ don't want a full beef in the freezer. But, most people don't eat goat so you have to find people who would be interested in goat meat.

You could always start with butchering some and offering a package of meat to friends and family and go from there and hope that they like it enough to order from you and tell their friends and family. Then your business could be taking the goats to the butcher and the people just picking up the packaged meat from the butcher. They pay you for the goat and they pay the butcher for the processing fees of the goat they bought. That is what we originally did with a friend who raised Texas Long Horn cattle. We paid him for our portion of the cow and then we picked up our meat and paid the butcher for his fees. Never saw the cow alive and at that point didn't want to know.

If you want to do something different from the norm, then you have to be more creative in your marketing and find other avenues for sales.

aggieterpkatie said:

British bloodlines for many sheep are WAY shorter than that of American lines. Just for fun, look at these pictures. This is a British version of a Suffolk ram. This is the American version.

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What a difference! The UK version is a cobby little critter isn't he? Cute!

Just found a picture of PygBoer on CL...


He's intact. If you want him, he's only $25.

Between me and you, I can see WHY he's only $25.

Yikes..

Actually I breed a Boer Doe to a pygmy buck every year and never have issues. Also the kids are fantastic. They are perfect, yes it wouldn't work as well with a pygmy doe but a boer doe works great and I do have pictures of them. They are adorable and they grow very well. One of the kids looks like a purebred boer kid she had years ago, the other has the legs of a pygmy but otherwise mostly looks like a boer.

these are the kids the day they were born. They have grown quite a bit since then, but these are the only pictures I have of them I have on my laptop.

I have a boer in pygmy cross doe they r just bigger but short

I have a boer in pygmy cross doe they r just bigger but short