Dual Purpose Goats

We settled on Nubians for a solid, dual purpose meat and milk animal after our first Nubian doe produced triplets and got them to a combined 145 pounds (her own weight at the time as a 2 year old doe) in 90 days. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the day we spent almost two hours catching and wrestling a big, heavy, horned Boer doe to the ground to try to get a few drops of colostrum out of her for her abandoned twins. Minutes later, our purebred Nubian doe wilingly walked through an open gate when called by name from the dairy herd and her hefty almost 90-something day old triplets by her exhausted, bruised people. She hopped up on the milking stand before the gate behind her had even been secured and gave an extra half gallon of milk for the Boer’s hungry twins. She had given an extra half gallon a day beyond what her triplets consumed every day since the day she freshened, despite having her kids with her 24/7 for our own convenience. It wasn’t until she was finished being milked that anyone noticed that she hadn’t even been secured in the milking stand while she was being milked to feed the Boer twins that day. That was the day it was decided to sell off every single meat goat (mostly Boers and a few Boer crosses) and stick with dual purpose dairy-meat Nubians. It was just so nice to have a friendly, tractable, milky doe that could raise her kids to a good weight and provide extra milk for us at the same time.

Always appreciative of a quality, practical goat, regardless of breed, we did a favor for a friend and took in an older polled (naturally hornless) 1/4 Kiko, 3/4 Boer doe that was registered with ABGA as 1/2 Boer (the half Kiko parent was never registered with any registry). We figured she would pay her way by providing terminal kids to help meet the constant requests for goat meat or goats to eat. Originally, our Nubian wethers had met the local demand for goat meat, but as the quality of our dairy goats improved, the demand for the young bucks as breeding stock did as well and we routinely had more buyers than goats, resulting in fewer available to go for meat. Fiesta was familiar with a milking stand because she had produced so well that she was called upon to help feed the offspring of other animals before we got her. She had nice 1 x 1 teats and a well attached udder for a meat doe. She was such a sweetheart and took such good care of her kids and raised them to such nice weights (according to her breeder this was largely due to the Kiko influence) that we decided we should keep an eye out for a good Kiko buck to breed to her in the hope of getting a naturally polled 100% meat goat to continue her role of producing 50% Nubian kids for the terminal market.

JCP Fall All Over, our first Kiko buck, was 100% New Zealand Kiko

One day a friend of a friend put the word out that she was selling out and leaving the state. She offered a group of registered 100% New Zealand Kikos that included a buck, a doe and their yearling daughter from their first litter together on the condition that they all go together as a group so she could unload them as quickly as possible. Despite our previous efforts not to keep multiple breeds of goats, this Kiko group came home to us, fulfilled their weeks of quarantine, passed all their disease testing and the does were dehorned and added to our now mixed herd of Nubian goats, Katahdin sheep, Kiko and Kiko-Boer goats. The buck turned out to be the litter brother of the doe, so their doeling together was very inbred. We had to quarantine the trio altogether so the doe became pregnant with twin doelings by her brother as a second freshener. Despite being less than 2 years old, the buck’s horns were too well developed to remove them, so retaining him with our fencing and equipment was out of the question even if we had wanted to. We do have an offsite location for bucks and rams, so we were able to keep him away from the Nubian does long enough to get two litters from him and Fiesta before sending him to another herd. Our original intention was to sell any does they produced together that weren’t polled, but since the Kiko does were sort of thrust upon us, we decided to see how they performed and ultimately, this included retaining disbudded daughters from Fiesta and the Kiko buck as well.

Nubians in the US come in two styles. The old style Nubian is a very large, milky animal with high butterfat. The does from these lines typically weigh 160-200 pounds at maturity with bucks being even larger. Most of our Nubians are from older lines that retained the old style size. Nubians also come in a more streamlined, ‘dairy’ style more typical of the Swiss breeds of dairy goats. These standard dairy does are typically around 135 pounds at maturity, so Nubians from these lines include does that weigh at least 135 pounds at maturity.

Our first Kikos were young when we got them, but we were surprised that they were quite a bit smaller than our old style Nubians. Our initial trio had been raised on grain in a large paddock with access to grass before we got them as a yearilng and two year olds. At our place, they went straight to pasture with browse and access to low quality (“cow” grade, sold in round bales) alfalfa and high quality organic prairie grass or non-GMO Tifton 85 grass hay.

In our experience, grass raised and finished meat does tend to be a little smaller than than their grain fed counterparts. The Boers we bought that were raised on grain routinely weighed over 200 pounds, but their offspring raised on grass matured at closer to 130-180 pounds, very much in line with or slightly smaller than our old style, dual purpose Nubians. I would guess these Kikos does weighed in at around 90-120 pounds when we brought them home as the yearling daughter was quite a bit smaller than her two year old dam. The buck was comparably smaller than our Nubian bucks as well. Even on grass, they are larger now that they’ve matured, but we haven’t weighed them lately. Next to our tall, long, heavy Nubians, they are clearly not as large in frame. Their offspring also are smaller at birth and weaning. They grow fast and mature quickly. We’ve had singles and twins from first time mothers and twin and triplets from does thereafter. All the triplets have grown well even though they get no grain and are raised with the hardy Katahdin sheep. No deworming has been necessary in the years we’ve had them. They tend to ignore the weather more than the Nubians, but do usually head for shelter before the Katahdin sheep. They usually kid in the pasture like the sheep, but we’ve been known bring them into the barn for our convenience so we can watch and monitor them when they give birth or immediately afterward. They’ve not needed any help kidding and are active, attentive, protective mothers. Kids are on their feet quickly and looking for milk immediately. They’ve all been as hardy and vigorous from birth as their parents are as adults.

Overall, we’ve been pleased with the hardiness, excellent maternal traits and vigorous kids from our Kiko lines. When we raised the 100% New Zealand twin Kiko litter of does side by side with the litter of buck/doe twin 5/8 Kiko-3/8 Boer kids, the Boer kids were quite a bit larger. The two litters were all sired by the same buck and raised in the same manner, but the part Boer kids were being raised by a 6+ year old dam and the Kiko dam was barely turning 3 years old at the time. Age matters because it impacts mik production quite a bit.

We are very pleased with our Kiko and Kiko-Boer cross does and their half Nubian offspring. We feel the Nubian adds in some additional size in the same way the Boer does with the bonus of higher milk production since we’re using some of the mikiest Nubian bucks in the country to sire these kids. We do get larger kids from the purebred Nubians, but we have the Nubians for the purpose of producing milk for us so the does are fed grain on the milking stand. In shopping for a Kiko buck for these meat does, we’ve found nearly every operation that has larger Kiko kids at weaning is either feeding the kids supplementary grain or they are grain feeding their dams to increase milk production for larger grass/forage raised kids. Operations that manage their Kikos on grass/forage only for both kids and their dams typically have similar weaning weights to what we’re seeing. For us, it’s a bonus to have kids to eat or sell for meat that don’t out produce their kid’s needs by so much that they must be milked once or twice a day even with the kids nursing full time 24/7.

Many people come to us looking for dairy only animals, but others are looking for a less management intensive meat goat. While there are dual purpose Nubians that excel at producing large, vigorous kids with plenty of milk on very little grain, most folks raising Nubians are either feeding the daylights out of them and managing every aspect of their care to maximize their production of kids for the show ring or the milking parlor or they are throwing them out into a herd of meat goats and not giving any consideration to milk production levels or even how well their kids grow because they just want to improve milk production in their meat goats. In working with top quality Nubian lines bred for their milk production and others bred more for the show ring, we’ve run into plenty of goats that wither on grass or won’t graze at all and even more goats that don’t milk no matter how well they are fed. We’ve run into a number of Nubians that milk very nicely on very little, but won’t mother their offspring due to generations of selection pressure that didn’t consider mothering traits of any value. Our goal is the intent of the original founders of the Nubian breed to have the best traits of a dual purpose meat and mik animal that’s hardy and productive on a forage based diet with good parasite resistance and that displays excellent mothering, easy birthing, tractable temperament and qualifies as an ‘easy keeper’ that provides milk in addition to fast growing kids for the table.

We recognize that everyone has different goals for the animals they raise. The key to finding the right animal that meets your needs is to locate animals being raised as closely as possible to your management goals. The reason this is key is due to selection pressure. In the same way that we’ve run into goats that were terrible mothers (most of the Boers we ever had!) or withered away on forage or wouldn’t graze at all, different goats are best suited for different purposes. Which animals are selected as breeding animals and why they qualify as breeding stock to the breeder is the key to locating the right animal for your needs.

Due to our drive to increase milk production in our Nubians, we have some of the top milk producing Nubian lines in the country. Some do well on our forage based management system and other must have supplemental grain in order to thrive. We sell or eat any goat that won’t graze or forage for their feed because that’s a trait we don’t want in our animals. The selection pressure here is against animals that won’t forage. There are folks who couldn’t care less if their Nubian goat will graze or not because they use grass or brush as a supplement to their goat’s diet and not the mainstay of their diet. When we have quality animals that require supplementation, we look for homes for them where their other qualities are highly valued and no one cares if the animal grazes or not.

In the same way, we sold the best Nubian doe we had ever bred at that point in terms of milk production and conformation because the doe wouldn’t mother her kids. We are selecting against poor mothering by not continuing to use her in our breeding program. We did retain a daughter of hers who was an excellent mother, so the genetics could continue with the traits we want to see more of. As we cross different animals to achieve our goals, there will always be some who carry the traits we don’t want to see more of. Being a good breeder means culling those animals that don’t meet our goals by locating the right home for those animals or eating them.

Forage raised and finished meats are in high demand and our lamb meat customers are interested in similar forage based goat meat products. Our Nubian does can produce plenty of milk for fast growing kids without grain, but they produce much less excess milk beyond what their kids take for us to enjoy. We have removed kids so we could have milk when we had lower milk production animals or we didn’t feed grain to milking does, but it’s a management hassle and the kids definitely don’t grow as fast on less milk. Some customers also prefer the goat they consume to be raised by forage only raised dams. The ‘easy care’ Kiko and Kiko cross does provide for this forage only meat market very nicely. Also, while we value excess milk, being forced to milk high production does every day or twice a day because they are outproducing their kid’s needs by so much does limit how many does we can keep to produce kids for the meat market. Again, the Kiko and Kiko-cross does and even their half Nubian offspring can provide abundant milk for nice litters of triplets without producing so much milk that someone must commit to the time necessary to milk the excess off the does daily.

We continue to strive for the highest possible milk production in our Nubian lines and use selection pressure to breed for the same traits we find so rewarding in our Katahdin sheep and our Kiko and Kiko cross does. A good, healthy, hardy, low maintenance animal with longevity, high production and excellent mothering skills can be appreciated in any breed or species. Such animals can be appreciated in many settings from homesteads and farmsteads, to commercial meat or milk production operations to hobby farms or as a family’s backup meat and/or milk supply or their children’s FFA or 4H project, the start of a lifelong love for an animal that brings home ribbons from the show ring, a friendly brush clearing tax write off, or in a petting zoo and always as beloved pets. We believe there are many ‘right’ ways to raise animals as long as the animal’s welfare remains a foremost priority. Different management goals simply result in different considerations and one management solution doesn’t fit all operations. With years of practical livestock and commercial dairy experience behind us, we’re happy to help you achieve your goals in any way we can.