Bob's Thoughts and Philosophies
On the pursuit of the ultimate meat doe.I have nearly my entire life enjoyed looking
at a mother beef cow sucking a big old calf or a ewe with a ripping set of twins nursing
and the same applies to a meat goat doe that is superior at doing what she was bred to
do.
I start with cattle as that is my background. My earliest recollection of taking notice
of superior mothers goes back to my brother and I helping my father gather the family's
cow herd and commenting to one another about how this cow's calf is better than that
cow's calf. Our conversation one day was particularly interesting as we were noticing
that the calf following our little 950 lb Shorthorn cow was just a s big and with just
as much eye appeal as the calves following the 1400 lb Charolais cows. Ever since that
day I have pursued, at least ideologically the concept of the "ultimate" or
at least "highly efficient" meat producing female of any breed or species.
What we are doing with the goats is no different than what we did with the cows. I don't
mean to imply that we ever achieved perfection and I don't ever really expect to, but
we have raised some nice cattle in the past and are on the way to raising some practical,
useful meat goats. I know that some may find these figures a little hard to believe but
they are the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We raised a set of steer calves just
before we sold the cows that at 10 months old,weaned off their mothers, averaged 763
lbs. This was done without creep feeding and was achieved with two primary factors. The
first is the genetic ability to grow and gain weight, with the second being enough feed
to capitalize on the first. In this case it was their mother's ability to milk heavily.
There are other secondary factors and management concerns that need to be considered
in the total package, but these two simple things are the basis of our pursuit of the
ultimate meat goat doe. Big or small, short or tall its efficiency that we are after.
Check back as when I get a little more time I will comment on our doe indexing system.
More later.........Bob
