COMPARISON STUDY
Form my 4-H project this year I did a Rate of Gain Comparison Test.We had to have all our goats and have them banded on June 1st.
First we want to thank Lisa Lamm, Sue Huston and the Kinder Association for all their help in making our study and making it fun. Thanks to Lisa for the two Kinders to include in our study.
On June 1st we banded all the bucks to make them wethers, and then we weighed them in at our county 4-H scales.
We had eleven wethers in our study. They were all fed the same grain mix, had hay and they grazed. It was very hot during the entire study. We weighed them with a goat tape each week and they had two official weigh-ins.
One of the first things we noticed was some of the goats stressed more than others the stressed goats didn’t eat as well as the non-stressed ones. We had one wether (Nell) who didn’t eat any grain until the last week; he lost weight during the study. It did seem that the younger or smaller ones didn’t stress as much when we banded them. The larger wethers stressed more from being banded.
The Boer gained the most weight but he also ate 3X as much grain. He would eat all the time. When it was real hot most of them didn’t want to eat very much grain but the heat didn’t affect the Boer he always ate.
Age wise the Nubian X, the Boer, the Lamancha, the Nigerian and the Kinder were all born in Feb. The Saanen was born in March. The Saanen Kiko X was born in Dec. and Jan.
Sue Huston contacted us and ask to buy back three of the wether’s to do a dress-out weight. (How much meat compared to live weight) Here are the results of the Rate of Gain and percentage of meat.
Over all for an all around easy keeper the Kinder seems to be the way to go.
Meat and milk how much better can you get?
James and Emily Blauvelt
Kinder Boer Dairy Cross
Live wt. 61 pds Live wt. 53 pds Live wt. 51 pds.
Burger 18 pds Burger 15 pds Burger 13 pds
29% 28% 25%
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