Farm stock Boer-n to be wild

But while rangeland harvesting in western NSW continues to offer lucrative – if fluctuating – opportunities, are farm-raised Boer goats key to fleshing out producer hopes? 

For Colin Ramsay and his son Rob, East Bland Station, Quandialla, there’s big money in providing rangeland-suitable Australian Boer bucks for western farmers to put over wild does. 

“Our idea has always been that Boer goats are a fantastic carcase animal, but it struggles in the rangelands if he’s not adapted properly,” Mr Ramsay said. “In the meantime rangeland goats are fantastically adaptable but not great on the carcase side.

“What we’ve been trying to produce for 20 years is an Australian Boer goat, crossed up from a Boer buck and Australian female. We’ve been selecting off Kidplan for years (the goat version of Lambplan). We’re now producing that productive Australian Boer goat. What that means is they all look like Boer goats, but their genetics are rangeland too.”

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East Bland Station is a family affair. Mr Ramsay’s wife Lyn, daughter-in-law, Julie, and two grandchildren also on the farm. The family has been running Boer goats since 1995 - firstly at “Dudauman Park”, Cootamundra, with Colin and Rob’s commercial seedstock enterprise now in the Central West.

Currently the Ramsays’ breeding herd replenishes at a rate of 100 to 140 per cent each year, with an annual turnoff of between 300 and 400. 

“We cull the bottoms, keep the tops, sell the rest into different markets, including bucks for western producers, live export for bucks and does, and some smaller farmland producers,” Mr Ramsay said. 

Mr Ramsay said farm-raised goats from eastern and central regions could be key to improving carcase weight for rangeland producers.

“There is a lot of potential in the NSW wheat and sheep belt for more intensive management styles,” he said. “The potential in that area is the number of producers and number of animals.

“Goats have been held back by a number of things. Dorpers are very successful for one. There has always been a bit of a sideways glance at goats. But now prices are much much better, and quality animals are available. Eventually there will be a lot of goats coming off the farmland areas.”