Miniature goats for meat?

[TheBanditQueen]

That is terrible! I'm so sorry. It is indeed freakish how those things happen.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Thank you... life does go on. We've had four successful births since then. Two sets of twins, one single, and one set of triplets born last night. Three of them are bucklings from a pygmy sire and a nubian doe. I'm pretty sure we'll wether at least one of 'em and see how how they do as meaties.

 

[TheBanditQueen]

This is true... :/

Congrats on the new babies! Let us know how it goes...I am very interested to hear about the results you find.

 

[TheBanditQueen]

So, we ended up butchering one of our Pygmy wethers a few days ago. Not planned, but the Horned Fiend was doing some damage to our hornless buck, so it wasn't too hard to decide.

He was about 14 months old if I recall correctly. Long-legged, and a good 2 or 3 inches taller than all our Nigerians. We didn't get a live or carcass weight. We ended up with about 32 pounds of wrapped cuts, including the bones. A good amount for us, plus the ease of processing = very efficient for our current needs.

We ate some of the ribs last night. ... Dadgum, they were TASTY!

 

[elevan]

Elevan, is 35-40% a good amount? Do you grain or pasture feed your goats? What age are they when you get that kind of percentage?

I missed this post previously, sorry.

It's a fair amount. They're about 12-18 months old when we butcher. The longer we can wait before you wether a buckling the bigger they seemed to get for us.

We pasture raise, with only hay supplementation in the winter. So ours tend to be slimmer than if someone were supplementing grain.

 

[TheBanditQueen]

Great info! Do you slaughter as bucks or always wether them first?