Meat goats

Behavior

Goats are browsers who have a higher tolerance for bitter tasting feeds than other ruminants such as sheep. This means that goats will eat, and prefer, the leaves, shoots, branches and bark of shrubs and trees in addition to grass and forbs (broad-leaved plants).

In unconfined grazing, goats naturally will not eat plants contaminated with their own species' urine or manure. This is helpful for parasite control. However, in confine grazing situations, goats may be forced to eat such material, which could increase parasite spread.

When startled, goats will stomp one forefoot and make a high pitched, sneezing sound. Certain breeds (like the Tennessee Meat Goat) that carry genes for myotonia also may "faint" or go into a catatonic state when startled.

Instead of forming a bunch when pursued or herded, like sheep do, goats tend to form a thin line and may break apart into groups. Therefore, herding goats takes a different technique than herding sheep.

Health and Care

Teeth

In each year, for the first 4 years of their life, goats will gain one set of permanent lower incisors, to replace their baby teeth. Therefore, you can count the sets of permanent incisors to estimate a goat's age, as seen in the image below. After 4 years, goats have a full, permanent set of lower teeth. Then as they age further, incisor teeth will start to spread, wear, and eventually break. Goats do not have any incisors on their upper dental pad.

Figure 2: A goat's teeth as it ages. Image from An Illustrated Guide to Sheep and Goat Production, Robert Armstrong.

Vaccines

Vaccines can prevent serious disease by stimulating the immune system with killed or modified versions of disease-causing microbes. Although there are many vaccines to choose from, not all will be appropriate for every farm. Close partnership with your veterinarian to determine a cost-effective and protective vaccine program for your individual herd is key.

It is usually recommended that you vaccinate does during late pregnancy for the clostridial diseases that most commonly affect kids: Clostridium perfringens type C & D (overeating disease) and tetanus. By vaccinating the pregnant doe, kids acquire temporary, passive immunity when they drink the colostrum, the first milk produced by the doe after kidding. After that, kids should be vaccinated and boostered per label directions at weaning in order to gain longer term immunity.

Internal parasites

There are many internal parasites such as coccidia, gastro-intestinal nematodes (worms), roundworms, tapeworms, and liver flukes that can impact goats.

Coccidia

Coccidia (a protozoan internal parasite) is host-specific, so species that impact goats will not impact other livestock. Most goats are exposed to coccidia at some point in their life and most are asymptomatic, because small and frequently repeated exposures can lead to immunity. Therefore, disease from coccidia is rare in adult goats but they can still spread the infection to other goats. In particular, if kids without immunity are exposed, they may have signs of clinical disease.

Coccidia have a free-living stage when they live outside the animal as an oocyst and a parasitic stage when they live in the gut of the animal. Oocysts get shed in the feces of infected animals. Once in the soil, oocysts are either killed by sunlight, drying, or freezing or they mature and become infectious. Coccidia gets spread when susceptible goats eat the mature, infective oocysts in manure contaminated water or feed (pastures and/or hay or pellet feeding systems). If the goat doesn’t have immunity, within 10 - 14 days of consumption the parasites multiply a million-fold in their guts and cause intestinal damage leading to nutritional deficiency for the animal.
The most common sign of coccidia is scours (diarrhea), at which point most the damage to the intestine has occurred and stunting will occur. A kid may begin to show symptoms such as going off feed, being listless, showing abdominal pain or having a "pot-belly" look to them. Kids with subclinical coccidiosis may not have any apparent symptoms, but they will still have reduced performance. Adults may show signs of coccidiosis with temporary diarrhea when stressed or moved to a new area with a new species of coccidia.

There is no vaccine currently in the US for coccidiosis in goats. To prevent clinical coccidiosis, a diet that meets energy, protein, and mineral requirements is essential. Maintaining good barn hygiene and manure management, or rotational grazing will help minimize the risk of infection in young animals. Prior to weaning, when there is an anticipated change in diet and stress from changing social structures and environments, a coccidiostat can be added to feed, mineral, water, or milk replacer to help reduce the impact of coccidia. Coccidiostats should not be fed year-round and should only be used strategically. For animals who develop signs of clinical coccidiosis, a diagnosis can be made by submitting feces for a fecal floatation and McMasters. Treatment can be administered to individuals by drenching or to groups of animals in feed or water. You can consult your veterinarian for further prevention and treatment options and details.

Gastro-intestinal nematodes (worms)

Most gastro-intestinal nematodes cause diarrhea and poor absorption of nutrients. The barber pole worm, a blood sucking parasite, is the deadliest internal worm for goats in the US. The barber pole worm causes protein loss to the goat, anemia resulting in pale mucous membranes (observed in the lower eye lid), and bottle jaw (swelling due to fluid buildup under the jaw). Using the FAMACHA© system (assessing the color of a goat’s inner eyelid), as part of the Five Point Check©, helps detect goats that may benefit from deworming. The Five Point Check© is described more in the below section.

Gastro-intestinal nematodes are generally spread through the consumption of the infective stage which then multiply in the gut and cause intestinal damage and nutritional deficiency in the goat. Eggs are pooped out and can be spread to other susceptible goats or sheep, as seen in Figure 3 below. Parasites are host-specific and thus parasites that impact goats won’t impact other species, like cows or poultry.

Figure 3: Internal parasite life cycle. Image from An Illustrated Guide to Sheep and Goat Production, Robert Armstrong.

Five Point Check © and parasite treatment

Clinically parasitized goats can be detected by using the Five Point Check©. You can learn more about this scoring system here. It is recommended to check each individual in your herd using the Five Point Check© every 1 - 3 weeks in the high risk season (spring and summer), if on irrigated pasture, and less frequently outside of the high risk season and on rangeland or brush. Your whole herd should be contained in a pen and each goat evaluated individually based on this scoring system and then treated based on how they score. The five conditions to check are: 1) FAMACHA© color scoring of inner eyelid 2) body condition score 3) Scour/dag/diarrhea score 4) bottle jaw score and 5) nasal discharge score. FAMACHA© and bottle jaw scores are a proxy for barber pole worm or liver fluke infection; body condition is an evaluation of all parasites; the diarrhea score can be a proxy for coccidia or brown stomach worm, among others; and the nasal discharge score evaluates for nasal bot flies.

Typically, if a goat scores 4 or 5 on the FAMACHA© color scoring, it is treated. If a goat scores 3, the other scores from the Five Point Check© are taken into account when deciding whether to treat or not. FAMACHA© scores of 1 and 2 are not treated. It is important to consider other factors such as lactation and feed conditions that may also impact body condition when using body condition score to guide treatment decisions. Goats that do not respond to worming treatment should be examined by a veterinarian for other disease conditions that present with similar signs as parasitism or be culled. FAMACHA© should only be used once properly trained, which can be completed online through the University of Rhode Island here or at an in-person workshop lead by a certified instructor.

After determining that a goat is clinically parasitized and needs treatment, it is recommended to give a combination treatment of dewormers of different classes (anthelmintics), due to the increasing resistance of worms to treatments. Dewormers are given orally as a "drench" via a syringe. Targeted selective treatment plans that only treat clinically parasitized goat and use a combination of dewormers can help slow the development of worms that are resistant to dewormers.

General internal parasite control

Preventing parasite infection is challenging in goats. Effective preventative strategies include mixed species grazing (cattle, swine, or poultry with goats – not sheep because goats and sheep share parasites) and not letting goats graze forage shorter than 3 inches. While typical rotational grazing (with rest periods of 25 - 50 days) has benefits for animal performance and pasture quality, longer rotations are typically required to reduce parasite loads. These longer rest periods are not realistic in most irrigated pasture scenarios, so rotational grazing isn’t enough to prevent parasite infection in these scenarios. Finally, environmental conditions such as air temperature can impact parasite loads in soil, with days over 104 F in the summer or below 50°F in the winter greatly reducing parasite soil numbers, potentially helping with parasite control.

Housing and Fencing

Housing

Goats require some natural shelter (trees, shrubs, terrain or rocks) or constructed shelters to escape the elements. In particular, goats do not like being out in the rain. Shelters should have adequate ventilation. Goats are herd animals and should not be housed alone.

Fencing

Goats are more difficult to keep contained within fences than sheep because they climb more and like to go through and under obstacles. Use no-climb fence and fence with smaller openings, so they are less likely to get their heads stuck. Goats can be contained with electric fence, but full nets are usually required. It is important to always have a good charge in your fence. Do not put goats in electric fence without turning it on. They will push through and learn to not respect the fence. Goats may also push through electric fence if they have been left in one paddock for too long and feed is low.

Having a good, permanent perimeter fence around your property is crucial, in case your goats and other livestock gets out of your interior fences. For more information, you can look at state regulations and county estray (open range) ordinances for perimeter fencing.

Figure 4: Boer goats stand up on wire fencing, showing the importance of good fencing when trying to contain goats! Photo/courtesy Theresa Becchetti.

Nutrition

Water

Goats drink 0.75 - 1.5 gallons of water a day. It is important that you always provide free access to fresh, clean drinking water. Goats will need to drink more water when eating dry hay or grass.

Raising goats on rangeland

Goats are ruminants, so they need forage in their diet to keep their rumen functioning correctly. Goats are browsers, having the ability to be very selective in what they eat, and preferring to eat grasses and the leaves of brushes and shrubs. The proportion of browse, grass and forbs that goats eat will vary by season and the nutritional content of each

Goats actually have higher nutritional demands than cattle, though their ability to consume shrubs leads to them being perceived as being less nutrient intensive and able to thrive on more marginal land.

Table 1. Nutritional requirements of meat goats. Table adapted from Oklahoma State Meat Goat Manual, Chapter 5, Goat Nutrition.

Reproductive Cycle

Does should not be bred until they are at least 65% of their full weight and older than 7 months of age. Does are usually bred until they are about 7 years old before their productivity declines. Bucks are typically replaced after 2 - 3 years to avoid inbreeding.

Most goat breeds are short day breeders (naturally can only become pregnant in the fall), with subsequent kids being born in the spring. In the fall, does will come into heat, or be receptive to mating, approximately every 21 days (until they become pregnant). Does will be in heat for about 18 - 24 hours and this is the only time a doe will allow a buck to mate with her.

Flushing is the practice of providing extra nutrition (as grain, alfalfa or high-quality pasture) to does 3 - 4 weeks before bucks are introduced and continuing until about a month after bucks are removed. The resultant increase in body condition due to flushing usually increases conception and birthing rates.

Average gestation length for does is 150 days and can range from 143 - 157 days depending on litter size etc. The average birth rate for mature does is 2.2 kids per year and 1.7 kids per year for first time does. Kids are typically weaned when they weigh between 40 - 50 lbs and are 4 - 5 months old.

Culling is selecting livestock to remove from your herd for various reasons such as age, problematic disposition, bad feet or infertility. Culling can also be one practice used to select for does that produce either fewer or more kids, or bigger or smaller kids, depending on your goals. Culled animals may be sold directly to slaughter, through a livestock auction, or to a new owner after clearing withdrawal periods if they received any medications.