Kinder Goat Breeders Association

KGBA

Breed Spotlight

Meat yields on the dual purpose Kinder Goat

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The Kinder is a dual purpose goat used for both milk and meat.  The meat aspect has been neglected by many breeders.  Our beloved Kinders have become more dairy in type sacrificing meat production for milk production.  While for many milk is all they want, a breeder needs to keep in mind the fact that usually about half the kids are bucks.  Not all bucks should be kept as bucks.  On average only 1 out of 10 is truly buck quality.  What do you do with the rest of those darling little fellows.  True, you can wether them and sell them as pets or brush clearers but that market saturates fast. 
In our area there are a couple of meat goat buyers.  They pay by the pound and their price depends on the type of goat.  Dairy kids bring less per pound that meat kids.  I have worked on my marketing with the meat goat buyer I use and he knows that my kids pack meat.  I am now getting the same price per pound for my Kinder boys as he pays for the Boer kids. 
If you are planning on slaughtering any kids this year please keep records and let me know what the live weight, carcass weight and actual meat weight wrapped is.
The chart below will show some of the yields that come from well bred Kinder kids.
Kinder goat carcass yields
Live wt. lbs
hanging wt lbs
boneless meat lbs
Doe SH
120
59
33
Doe SH
140
71
41
Doe SH
134
62
32
Wether SH
61.5
30
18
Doe SH
135
67
39
Doe SH
138
68
39
GJ Wether
82
41
23
GJ Buck 17 mos
170
90
45
GJ Doe 18 mos
99
47
30
GJ doe 9 mos
95
43
26
GJ Crytorchid 6 mos
92
51
35
GJ Buck 7 mos
89
49
32
GJ Wether 7 mos
80
44
30
GJ Buck 7 mos
70
39
23
For more information on Kinders as meat goats look in the blog archives in 2012 October Kinders as Meat goats.
Jean Jajan

Conformation – Part 2 – Legs

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Breed standards sometimes mention aesthetic aspects of our goats, such as color, ear size, etc., but the main purpose of these standards is to identify the qualities that make our goats more sturdy, healthy, productive and long-lived, and make them requirements for our ideal. Every fault in your goat’s legs increases their chance of lameness, discomfort, and loss in productivity, so careful attention to faults in this area when buying and breeding goats is important.

When looking at the leg as a whole, the Kinder goat breed standard calls for legs that are “moderately heavy boned but not coarse. Strong, sturdy, straight, wide apart, providing ample height for udder clearance. Pasterns medium length. Strong and springy with proper slope. Rear legs when viewed from behind set wide apart and straight; when viewed from the side, well angulated from thurl to hock. Hock cleanly molded, straight from hock to pastern.”

When looking for the ideal, it is sometimes easier to see and avoid obvious faults than to find perfection, so I’ll proceed by listing and describing the most common legs faults:

Weak Pasterns
The pastern is the length of leg from the hoof to the first knuckle, or basically up to their dewclaws. Ideally, this part of their leg should be short and almost vertical. The longer and more sloped the pastern is, the more risk there is of it breaking down as a goat ages, or as the weight of pregnancy and milk take their toll.

Here are a young doeling and adult doe with good pasterns:

I would consider this doe one whose pasterns I need to watch – being only 2 1/2 years old, I would like to see her pasterns a bit more straight. I would only breed her to bucks with very strong pasterns:

The following two photos are of poor front and rear pasterns. These pasterns are long and weak, allowing the leg to fall much lower and further behind the hoof than ideal:

Sickle and/or Cow Hocked:
Not only do turned in knees cause weakness in the rear end of the goat, but in milking does, they often rub on the doe’s udder, causing damage and sores as well as discomfort.

Rear legs too much in front of or behind the vertical:
When viewed from the side standing naturally, you should be able to draw a straight line perpendicular to the ground from the pin bone down through the hock to the ankle. Take care that the goat is not post-legged though.

Post-legged:
Viewed from the side, the rear legs of a post-legged will look almost straight, with no bend at the knee or dip above the hock. Without adequate angle to their hocks, these goats loose the shock absorption that correct angles allow. It can also cause the hips to be higher than the goat’s front end, putting all of her weight on her front end.
This buck is a bit post-legged – even standing with his rear legs very far under him, you can see the lack of angle in his knee:


Wing shoulders:
Loose attachment between the ribcage and the humerus. In a goat with good attachments, the elbow is held tightly to their side, while one with loose attachments will have space between their body and elbow. Wing shoulders will decrease the strength in the front end of the goat, causing fatigue and discomfort. The way this doe is standing exaggerates how much her elbow protrudes, but makes for a good example of winged shoulders:

These problems can vary a great deal in severity, from almost unnoticeable to so extreme that they affect the movement of the goat. When choosing goats and breeding pairs, taking your goats’ leg strengths and weakness into account will allow you to breed for stronger, sturdier kids and goats that “stand” the test of time!

Conformation Part 1 – Feet

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Being dual purpose, Kinder goats carry a great deal of weight on relatively small feet and legs. Carrying their own weight, the weight of multiple kids, and lots of milk, they often carry as much or more weight as their full sized relatives, but do so on smaller frames. This makes strong feet and legs even more important than ever for our goats.

Your goats’ feet and legs are literally the foundation of your herd, so making sure that they will hold up for the lifetime of your goats is imperative. Once a goat begins having foot or leg issues, problems begin to compound, and their productive life dramatically decreases. Goats with foot and leg problems forage less, play less, and become less fit. Because they are less fit, kidding becomes more difficult and dangerous. Unfit bucks are less virile, and breeding becomes more difficult. Does lay down more, creating a greater risk of mastitis and infection. Avoiding problems like these can often be as simple as buying goats with good feet and strong pasterns.

So what should you be looking for? In this first illustration, the goat to the far left has the feet and legs that we should be breeding for:

Strong, solid, tight feet are ideal. Toes should point straight forward, not point in or out. Here are examples of goats that toe out in the front and rear feet, respectively:

Toes should also sit tightly together, not spread out to form a V between them:

Even with her winter hair, you can see that there is no separation in this doe’s toes:

Look for goats with level feet, as well – they should be the same depth at the heel and the toe, and run parallel to the hair line at the top of the hoof. They should not be flat, low in the heel, crooked or malformed. Although her hair hides the top of the hoof, this is a good example of a nice level foot:

Regardless of whether your goats are headed for the show ring, the backyard, the milking stand or the freezer, breeding for good feet will reward you with a happier, healthy, more productive herd.

Kinder Goats for Meat

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Selling, Butchering and Processing Your Goats

By Jean Jajan

With winter coming on, many goat breeders thoughts turn to what to do with those excess young males or cull kids.  We don’t want the expense of wintering too many non productive animals.  There are many options open for the breeder. 
The first and most common is to advertise that you have goats for sale.  This can be done in the paper, through a sign on the bulletin board at the feed store or an ad on Craig’s list.  Also depending on the area you live in you might try to post a sign in the ethnic grocery stores.  This way you can target the Hispanic population or the middle eastern population depending on your area.  One thing to remember though is that usually the middle eastern population wants a completely intact male only.  This would mean only buck kids that have not been castrated or disbudded.  They do not take females.  There is a member on the Oregon coast who sells her wethers to the Hispanic population for $100 a piece for the weaned kids and they go like hot cakes.
When I sell an animal for slaughter I do not allow it to be dispatched on my place and I know many other sellers that don’t either.  This is a personal choice as I don’t know what technique they use and would rather not be present.  While I hope all the animals I sell for meat are dispatched with a properly executed gunshot, I know that many have their throat slit and are bled out.
The second way to sell off those meat kids is to take them to a sales barn.  Many rural areas have a livestock sales barn and you can consign them there.  When I did this I dropped them off and preferred not to remain.  They tend not to handle the animals the way we do and I prefer not to see it. 
The third option is becoming a member of a meat goat association.  These associations help members market their goats.  The association I was a member of had a livestock buyer come to a central point and weigh and buy the goats.  There was a pool coordinator whom the member would call and commit their kids to the pool.  When there were enough committed to fill a truck the sellers met at a location with a scale and the buyer weighed and paid for the kids then and loaded them up and took them to the slaughter house. 
There are also livestock buyers that have a schedule of coming every few weeks to a public livestock scale and buying livestock.  Check with the local feed stores as they might know of one that does this.  I take a lot of my kids there as I know I only have to wait a few weeks and I call him to find out what he is paying.
My favorite way of getting rid of my excess kids though is to put them in my freezer.  Why not put your great hormone free, antibiotic free, low fat, low cholesterol meat on your own table.  If you are a hunter you might want to dispatch the goat yourself and dress it out like you would a deer.  The preferred way to dispatch a goat is to use a gun with a 22 long rifle hollow point bullet.  The proper way is to place the barrel of the gun right behind the poll or horn area and angle it toward the front of the lower jaw.  This will instantly kill the animal.  A goat should not be shot through the front of the head as the skull is very hard and dense in that area.
There are several web sites that show how to butcher an animal.  One that I find informative is http://www.ozarkjewels.net/homebutchering.htm. 
For those of you who, like me, do not hunt or feel that they can’t dispatch one of their own goats here are a few good options.  One is a full service butcher who runs a slaughter and will do the kill and cut, wrap, and freeze.  All you have to do is drop the goat off the night before or early morning of the butchering and pick up a nice box of frozen goat meat ready to drop in your freezer a few days later.  Check with feed stores and custom butchers.  In our area it runs about $120 per goat.
The second is to contact a mobile farm butcher.  Ours has his ad in the paper several times a week and is booked weeks in advance.  A mobile butcher will come to your farm and slaughter the animal there.  He will skin and dress the animal and take it to his butchering facility or possibly one you choose in his refrigerated truck.  He cleans up and hoses the area down afterwards and leaves almost no trace.  My farm kill truck charges $60 per goat for the kill and takes it to any of the several custom butcher shops in the area.  The cut and wrap costs about another $60. 
How you have your goat cut up is all a matter of preference.  I like meat in something, so I generally do not have chops or steaks cut.  They tend to be rather small and a bit dry.  I will have one or both hind legs done in a boneless rolled roast.  I have the loins and tenderloins taken out from the spine and packaged.  The ribs I have cut from the spine and packaged.  The rest of the meat I have half of it ground and half of it cubed.  I have the butcher crack the neck bones and shanks and package them for soup stock.
If I have an older buck slaughtered I have him packaged separately and the packages marked.  Some tend to be a bit tougher and a little gamey so I want to know which is which as I use a more tenderizing method of cooking and more seasoning. 
As for how to prepare goat, I don’t feel there are any specific goat recipes.  I use my favorite recipes for stews and casseroles.  I use the loin meat for fajitas or something that I need the most tender cuts for.  Braising with its lower temperature, moisture and covering during cooking is the secret to cooking with goat. 

Kinder Goat as a Meat Goat

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Kinder buck 5 monthsKinder meat carcass

There has been much more written regarding the milking ability of the Kinder goat than that of its ability to produce a good meat carcass. The Kinder goat is a very good meat animal as well as a milking animal. This makes it a dual purpose goat just as it is advertised to be.

Kinder goats will breed every month of the year sometimes being referred to as, “aseasonal breeders”. The Kinder is also known for their multiple births so these two factors can provide lots of meat for the freezer or added income from the sale of the animals to the meat markets or both. Always remember that those Kinder does will at the same time be providing milk and milk products for the table.

Unfortunately there have been no official studies done on Kinder goats as a meat animal. There are only the statements of breeders as to quantity and quality of the Kinder meat carcass. Breeders report that on average a Kinder kid will weigh between four to five pounds in a triplet or greater birth. It is reported that their average weight of gain each month is from seven to nine pounds in the first eight months of life. This of course depends greatly on the type of care received.

A few years ago at Lincoln University’s, Carver Farm, in Jefferson City, MO at a Goat Day put on by the Missouri Goat Producers there was an evaluation and judging of different breed carcass and the Kinder goat was part of this program. The two Kinder goat carcasses pictured are the first place winners. These carcasses are from a triplet birth. The animals were five months old; one weighed 16 pounds and the other 18 pounds dressed out as shown. The other picture is the other goat of the triplet set shown on foot at five months of age.

Those older does and bucks can also be utilized for their meat. Below are the figures that this writer has recorded of the meat production of some older does and one wether. These were does that could not be kept for one reason or another for breeding. These are the on foot weights, hanging weights and then the pounds of burger from each. 120# live weight; 59# hanging weight; 33# burger 140# live weight; 71# hanging weight; 41# burger 134# live weight; 62# hanging weight this was an old doe. 61 ½# live weight; 30# hanging weight this was a wether. There was over 50# of burger from these two animals.

As you can see the Kinder goat is truly a meat animal as well as a dairy animal. Best of both worlds!

Choosing a Buck

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by Sue Huston

There are those that say a buck is 50% of the herd, but there are others that believe that the buck gives more than 50%. Either way that buck should be chosen with great care.

To begin, look at his dam to see what her general conformation is and especially look at her udder. Does she have a good udder attachment? Is her rear udder held high keeping the udder out of harms way? Does her fore udder blend smoothly from the udder to the belly? Does she milk well and does she milk easily.

When choosing a buck look at his general conformation that he is level across the top and that he does not have a sloping rump. The Kinder goat is a dual purpose goat so the buck needs to carry fleshing in this front end, neck and shoulder area. Take a good look at the rear of the animal. His hind legs need to be spaced far apart with good angulation to those hind legs. That scrotal attachment needs to be high and tight, the scrotal should be even and not loop sided.

The feet and legs of the buck should be strong making sure that he is not weak in his pasterns. The toes should be close together so as not to toe out. If buying a mature buck make sure he is not over the breed standard which is 28 inches. You do not want a buck with very long legs like those of the dairy animals but you want an animal that has shorter legs that will give you the dual purpose Kinder.

Remember that there are very few male Kinder that should be used as a herd sire. Take time and look closely at the buck that you are going to buy to improve your  herd. Buy the best that you can afford and buy from a reputable breeder.

(Watch for upcoming articles that discuss and illustrate each of the conformational qualities discussed in this article!)