I write a lot about our adventures in cattle but since this is the sheep and goat issue, I thought it would be fun to reminisce on our adventures with “other livestock”. When my youngest was born in 1999, we were still showing cattle and at that time I never had any experience with raising any other livestock but cattle. I am not sure what sparked an interest in sheep at that time, but I suspect it had something to do with my daughter who was 7 at the time and her 4H leader that raised sheep. We were neighbors with that 4H family and they had a daughter who was older than mine and she showed sheep and horses (that is a story for another time).
My daughter decided it would be fun to show some sheep along with the cattle we already had. I happened to know some people in Oklahoma that raised show lambs, so off to Oklahoma we went to buy ONE lamb expecting to come home with possibly two. We ended up coming home with SEVEN sheep and a dairy goat!
Things went pretty good with the sheep for the most part and after a couple of years, we had a small flock of about 25 ewes and 2 rams. The only problem with them became the pasture space and fencing for them. The mineral requirements for sheep and cattle are different so we struggled with running them all together. The other issue with them became the annual shearing of the ewes. I was doing it myself and it became a large chore and cutting into the time we spent with cattle.
Somewhere along the way, we went to a livestock show and happened to see some Boer goats. At that time, Boer goats and shows for them were few and far between and in Missouri when you saw a goat at a show, it was usually some dairy cross that wasn’t very impressive. Remember that goat we got for free when we bought sheep…..I really can’t remember who we met at a show that made us want to buy Boer goats, but they must have been impressive. I have a sneaky suspicion in the back of my mind who it was, but to protect the innocent, I will not divulge their name in this column.
I was looking for an excuse to get rid of the sheep and I had found it. We could run them with the cattle, they would eat all the multi-floral rose we had growing in the pasture AND I would not have to shear them off every year! Lucky for us, we met several breeders that had top end Boer goats and when we went to pick out our first purchases, we were able to buy quality stock. Our first purchases were 2 show wethers that were named “checkers” and “blue” only because that was the color of the collars my daughter put on them as they loaded the trailer.
Boer goats had become very popular in the junior shows in Texas so I used the internet to do all the research I could on how to prepare them for the show ring. Clipping all of the hair off those show wethers was like clipping a sticker bush and I was covered in small white hairs when I had finished! It was the worst and I told my daughter we were NOT going to show anymore wethers when she was done with these. I ended up eating my words because she was very successful with those two, one of them being named the Reserve Grand Champion Meat Goat at the Ozark Empire Fair that year. Those two wethers began about a fifteen to twenty year run raising Boer Goats and showing across 3 states.
I can tell you over the course of those years, I became quite the “expert”, and I am using that term loosely, on goats. Not many vets knew much about goats or even wanted to work on them, so I learned to treat and handle our goats as well as becoming a mentor for others. We definitely saw some things and learned some things and a few years ago, I finally sold the last of our goats. Not because I didn’t like them, but because my husband said they turned me into another person. I suppose it was from all the years dealing with goat nonsense that made me that way. Getting their heads stuck in the fence, dying for no reason, trying to run me over because I had a bucket of feed and the list goes on.
We met many people who we are still great friends with today, although some of them, like us, “got smart” and went back to raising and showing cattle exclusively. Now that I think of it, I think ALL of us went back to raising cattle or some other species of animal besides goats!
I still love a great dappled up Boer goat and I have had my eye on a few over the years. If we had the fencing for them, it is possible I might have a few……BUT to keep my marriage intact and to keep me on the good side of my husband, I have just had to scroll on past those pretty goats!
Debbie Elder is a native of Ottawa County, Okla. and lives on her farm in Webster County, Mo. To contact Debbie, call 1-866-532-1960 or by email at [email protected].
