I still have standards with my meat goats and focus on easy goats to raise with maternal qualities and I try to keep up with taking weights. I still sell some, but I refuse to spend a lot of time selling and promoting them. We have heavy Boer influence, but I enjoy playing with genetics (alpine crosses, nubian crosses, Myotonic crosses, and whatever other cross that catches my fancy). I enjoy mult
iple colors (its simply a part of my life, my chickens are multi-colored, the rooms in my house are multi-colored, I have multi-colored packs of highlighters because 1 color is too boring). My strategy is to improve my herd by collecting information (birthing weights, weaning weights, etc.) and eliminating the lower producing members. We also test for diseases - blood test for CAE, and I haven't seen any lumps in awhile so I think we will add in CL blood tests, and f***l tests for Johne's Disease. Healthy animals mean longer living animals, which means less first-time kidders! We have started with the NSIP as of 2022, and I have decided to use it for 5 years to see if it is a useful tool for me, or just an additional expense of time and money.
