2MS Boer Goats focus on registered replacement stock
MILO, MO. – It sounded so easy. When Mike and Marjeanna Smith first began to think about jumping into the raising Boer Goats, they believed it would require less attention and labor than other breeds they had been eyeing.
It wasn’t until after they purchased their first Boer Goats and brought them home that the Smith’s realized that almost everything they had heard or conceived in their heads was untrue.
“We were just looking for some sort of livestock to kind of do something a little bit different with on our farm,” said Marjeanna. “So we chose the Boer Goat breed thinking that over a dairy goat that it might not be quite as much work. But I’m not certain that there’s truth to that because they are work. I mean, they do require some definite dedication to taking care of them.”
Despite the newfound knowledge, the Smiths didn’t throw in the towel and look for something else. Now, 12 years later 2MS Boer Goats is a thriving Boer goat farm in Southwest Missouri. Located in Milo, Mo., the farm raises full-blooded ABGA registered Boer goats.
“We raise registered stock and that’s our market,” said Marjeanna. “Some people are into raising show wether stock, which is simply they’re judged on just their ability for meat. Ours are a meat animal, but we have worked for a long time on building up our pedigree base and making certain our animals are correct and true. So basically our market is mainly towards selling replacement stock.”
The show wether market is a niche market targeted to the 4-H and FFA youth programs. They are bred for the show ring where a certain showy look is desired along with the heavy muscling. They are not always the best stock to make replacement breeding females on the doe side, but the wethers are sold and marketed knowing they will be ‘terminal stock’.
When the Smiths created 2MS, they already knew at that time they would be delving into the replacement stock side of the business and not the show wether market.
“I think mainly because every type of livestock we’ve ever done. I mean, we raised horses, we did registered stock, we raised some dogs for a while, they were all registered stock,” Marjeanna said. “So I think that that was mainly our reason was to continue in a pattern of raising replacement animals for people. Not saying we don’t sell some to the 4H in the wether market because we do. They have to meet certain criteria, otherwise they become available to become 4H projects.”
The criteria for the 2MS includes teeth and scrotum structure among other breed standards.
“We also want our animals to track good and true and correct,” Marjeanna said. “In other words, if they don’t have a good set of legs on them, if they can’t stand square and walk square, then those are what we consider our cull animals. If we have a mama doe that ends up not being a very good mama, guess what? She’s a cull doe. So from that standpoint, we try to try to keep them good and true and correct according to breed standards. But they need to be able to produce and us not have to constantly babysit them.”
The largest number of Boer goats 2MS has ever run in a single year was 80. But according to Marjeanna, they typically try to keep it headcount at around 20, which in turn produces 40 to 60 kids per year. Of those, 30 to 35 will make their way to market.
“Sometimes we have animals that don’t make our criteria and they end up going to the sale barn,” Marjeanna said. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing because the prices have stayed pretty good on them in the amount of time that we’ve been in it. It’s not unusual to have anywhere between $250 and $350 a pound on live weight on the hoof. And the reason it has stayed that way is because actually the United States still imports tons and tons of goat meat. After all, the United States can’t keep up with the demand for goat meat.”
Despite the prices, the Smiths do not envision themselves trying to make the sale barn a bigger part of their business than it is right now. Because Marjeanna and Mike both have other full time jobs and they are the only ones who run the ranch, they plan to keep their ranch at the size it is now.
“I would tell you just at this point in time in the game, we aren’t the youngest people in the world,” Marjeanna said. “I would tell you that in our outlook would be definitely that we are not in a growth stage. Is there the opportunity for other people to be in a growth stage? Yes, as far as the actual market for goats, for meat, it has stayed pretty strong.”
