- Our Belief: Extreme width and length of body are not beneficial characteristics for goats bred to produce goat meat over a long productive life.
- Summary of potential issues:
- Extreme width in front can cause loose shoulders and shorten the productive life.
- Extreme width in front goes against the natural stance and the way goats walk thus impacting the smooth flow in walking and causes the goat to walk awkwardly and slower.
- Extreme width in front causes the meat to bone ratio to be reduced and results in heaver animals without creating more meat.
- Extreme length can cause the back to weaken, sway back and break down behind the shoulders. Impacts does ability to produce multiple kids each year over a longer productive life. Weakened backs in bucks cane result in problems in live breeding.
Examples of sway backed does sold in major production sale. Click picture to enlarge.
Legs Out on All Four Corners.
A well known phrase of show judges to describe how the legs are all set to the extreme edges of the body. A characteristic that has no positive value but can be very harmful to the body.
Recently, the "Goat Rancher" magazine had an article about how much the Boer goat look had changed since they first came to the US. The article noted how quickly breeders can change the characteristics in just a few short years if their mind is set on making the change. However, the writer also made the comment that there are two completely different group of breeders with entirely different objectives as to what changes are really needed. One group is the Show Breeders and the other group is the breeders focused on producing a better meat goat breed.
Many people would think that both groups would want the same thing but they would be very wrong. One smart, experienced breeder wrote that Show breeders will take any good characteristic and take it to extremes to where it is no longer a value but a negative to the breed. We believe that has been done by creating extremely wide and long animals. We have no problem with breeders developing their animals to look any way they want to but we have concerns about the potential problems with having an animal too wide and too long.
Breeders of Bulldogs have proven that they can breed dogs that are extremely wide. The question we ask is WHY? If you ever watch a bulldog walking, it is extremely awkward looking and seems to add no useful value other than that is the way they want the animal to look. When you see a very wide Boer goat walking it is just as awkward looking and we see very little value in it plus it has a potential harmful affect. The same is true with an animal that is too long. The combination of too wide and too long can create a very weak back and shoulders in our opinion.
Since 2008, we have gone to production sales where Boer goats that were winning in the ring were offered in the sale. We have been amazed at how many animals we now see with loose shoulders from being so wide and swayed backs from being so long. Several years ago, they would have been removed from the ring but now they are winning. A strong back and shoulders are very important in the breeding and carrying kids during pregnancy. The more problems in the shoulder and back area, the sooner the animal will break down and no longer be productive.
Our highest focus with our breeding program is for "high resistance to worms". However, we have a strong requirement for strong, straight backs and tight, muscled shoulders. We want to see our animals in motion and see very little shoulder movement butwell muscled over and a straight, strong back. In the video I think you will see the smoothness AND DEPTH of the body and the extremely straight top line on our breeding does (STRONG BACK, STRONG BACK, STRONG BACK). Remember, a key focus on good breeding is a balanced body. If a body is balanced, no one feature will jump out yelling "look how wide or long that animal is". If one specific feature jumps out at you, it is likely not balanced and there are weaknesses in the other features.