Messin’ with the kids : Raising goats becoming more popular in Arkansas
Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008
Emerging from the darkness of a small patch of woods, one is abruptly greeted by a sunny, hilly pasture and a goat herd.
On the left are white bucks looking up from their grass, and on the right, several kids of both sexes that have been separated recently from their mothers.
The moms, or does, of different sizes and colors, graze in a field next to their offspring, some sitting on the banks of a large pond.
All fields are fenced with hefty wooden posts.
Moms and kids call to each other. They soon will be reunited after weaning is completed.
Winding up the hill opposite the goats' pasture, one arrives in the gravel driveway next to a cedar-sided house overlooking a scene akin to alpine vales.
Standing next to his pickup truck, John Jeffers offers greetings and talks about his farm in this little corner of the Ozarks. A Great Pyrenees, Mr. Biggs, keeps a watchful eye as he lies under a large tree.
Jeffers and his wife, Tracey, who has a business appraisal firm in Fayetteville, raise about 50 goats on the small West Fork farm.
The couple moved to this area in 2004 from New Mexico, where Jeffers retired after serving as director of marketing and development at the Hubbard Museum of the American West in Ruidoso Downs, N. M.
Soon after arriving on the property in West Fork, Jeffers, who had longed to return to Arkansas, home of his mother's family, called the county extension office asking what could be done on the hilly land.
One of the answers that made sense to him was raising goats.
He is one of thousands in the nation finding goatherd ing as an answer to their agricultural needs.
Goats are the fastestgrowing livestock enterprise in the nation, says Jodie Pennington, extension dairy and goat specialist with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
"They have been for the past few years," Pennington said.
The goat population is definitely growing in Arkansas.
As of Jan. 1, based on a survey conducted by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, there were 33, 500 head of meat and other goats in the state. There were 5, 900 head of milk goats.
These numbers include farmers that make at least $ 1, 000 a year or have the potential to make $ 1, 000 a year from the sale of goats. The number increased from the 2007 figure that showed there were 28, 000 meat and other goats in the state and 4, 700 milk goats.
There were 29, 000 meat and other goats, and 4, 700 milk goats recorded in the state in 2006.
And goats are becoming more popular in Northwest Arkansas, where the hilly, rocky land serves them well.
"That's what they thrive on," Pennington said.
People like Jeffers raise their goats for meat and breeding stock that they sell to other goat farms.
Jeffers decided on the Kiko breed of meat goat for a variety of reasons, including good mothering ability. His goal is to create a purebred Kiko herd on his farm, which is registered by the American Kiko Goat Association. The farm is called Rebels' Rest.
Some also like to have goats around as pets.
"Goats are nice, friendly animals," Pennington said.
Goats can make a good replacement for cattle because of their easier handling.
"A lot of older people keep them because they're easier to work with. They don't have to worry about them hitting them or running over them," Pennington said.
County Extension Agent Johnny Gunsaulis said there are more meat than dairy goats in Washington County because, much like cattle, meat goats require less intensive management than dairy goats do.
He said those who raise goats also use them as "real estate improvement operators"in that they are good at cleaning out brush. Goats will eat a lot of things that cows will not.
But raising goats presents some pitfalls. The key one is internal parasites.
"You get resistance to wormers currently on the market, and there's just not anything new coming," Gunsaulis said. "We're really kind of a wetter climate here than what a goat adapted itself to."
To deal with parasites, he said," You have to do a combination of things."
One is to try to select goats that are naturally more tolerant for parasites and may have more resistance to them.
"Use wormers as sparingly as you can," he said. "Try any other tricks to try to give them their best natural chance at fending off parasites themselves, like a good nutrition and mineral program."
Tom Yazwinski, a professor in the UA Animal Science Department, described two parasites: the barber's pole worm, which causes anemia and is fatal, and the bankrupt worm, which attacks the goat's small intestine and causes illness.
Some farms have a lot of the barber's pole worms; some a lot of the other, Yazwinski said.
Cultures performed on goats' fecal material can help determine which ones are affecting the goats, he said. There may be a mix of the two, he said, adding that the animal science department will test samples for farmers.
Determining the type of worm, he said, will help determine how aggressively to treat the animals.
The barber's pole worm is highly resistant against most of paraciticides, he said," so you can be using the wrong medication and not be doing anything except losing your goats."
He said the bankrupt worm is more difficult to diagnose than the barber's pole worm.
Yazwinski said there are three classes of drugs to treat both forms of worms, and there will be no new medications developed for at least five years. He said hopefully goat farmers are making susceptibility to worms a criteria for culling because there are goats that are highly resistant and those that are "extremely susceptible."
Jeffers uses a method of testing called Famacha for the barber's pole worm. He has been certified to do the testing.
The test involves gauging goats' eyelid colors using a guide to tell if they need to be wormed. Jeffers tests his goats once every two weeks in the summer and once a month in the winter. He only worms those who need it and keeps track of goats who regularly need worming to cull them from the herd if need be.
One reason goats are so susceptible to internal parasites, Yazwinski said, is they are built more to be browsers rather than grazers.
"They're not supposed to be grazing on pasture," he said. "Their whole physiology is not evolved to do that."
Another thing about goats is that giving medication can be tricky. Because their livers quickly metabolize medication, Yazwinski said farmers need to give twice the dose called for in the label for effectiveness.
Raising goats, he said, can also be "a nutritionally demanding deal"and demanding on the reproductive side. For one thing, he said, goats are susceptible to fetal abortions.
But if you can get through the pitfalls, he said, there is some money to be made.
They are a "highly sought after"meat animal, he said, particularly for several ethnic groups, including Italians, Greeks, Mexicans and Middle Easterners.
Jeffers has wethered, or castrated, most of the 13 three-quarters Kiko bucklings born this spring, which means he is likely to sell them for meat. He has kept intact a couple of bucklings born this spring for future sale to a farm that needs breeding stock.
As he hand feeds a few of his animals, they climb on feeding bins and come up to the fence for a little bit of attention. He points to a couple of kids who miss their mother terribly, he says, since they were separated from her Wednesday.
Somehow, he tells lookalikes apart and keeps track of their progress.
Asked about his goat farming, he says," I like the lifestyle more than anything else. I like being on the farm."
He talks about his many years of work in the economic development and tourism areas, working in offices in a suit and tie.
Then, after discussing his newfound rural lifestyle he says," I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing."
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