Meat and Livestock Australia

34 Livestock Stock numbers on Tindarey are split roughly 50:50 between breeding does and underweight animals that have been purchased to grow out. Keith is currently running 3,000 does. The inclusion of both breeding and growing enterprises gives Keith the flexibility to respond to seasonal conditions without regularly needing to impact his breeding herd. He is able to buy and sell grow-out stock as feed availability allows. In this sense, he also finds goats far better suited to a variable climate than sheep as their higher reproductive rate allows for quick recovery of numbers following rain. Keith currently sells approximately 3,000 to 4,000 head each year, achieving 140 to 150 per cent weaning rates annually from his breeding herd. Goats are sold at around 40 kg liveweight or at a minimum of 30 kg if they need to reduce stock numbers quickly. There is also a small portion of Tindarey located on the eastern side of the Kidman Way which Keith continues to use purely to trap rangeland goats. The few hundred trapped each year are then sold on or added to his grow-out herd, pending weight. All animals over 25 kg are sold immediately and others are grown out. Darling Downs is currently stocked with 1,000 Dorper ewes, however will transition into goats in the near future, as developments allow. Keith hopes to produce 15,000 to 20,000 goats annually following the expansion in scale and planned forage crop production. Husbandry Goats are joined year round to station bred bucks, with the majority of kidding occurring from August to October. Most stock work is carried out over late summer which complements kidding time and hot weather, allowing trapping. Young goats are weaned at this time and bucks castrated. Occasionally Keith grows forage crops of silk sorghum, in which case he will wean all wethers onto the sorghum to maximise growth rates before sale. Otherwise, all weaners are returned with does. When placed on sorghum, Keith has achieved weight gains averaging just over one kg per week for mixed sex mobs. All stock are trapped on water, with salt and oats used as an additional attractant. Goats are trapped over two days with all animals trucked to the yards in order to reduce the labor requirements and stock stresses of mustering and walking. Keith believes trapping effectively captures 95 per cent of goats, requiring two weeks to get everything. Traps located on waters that can be accessed from two neighbouring paddocks are also used to move stock from one paddock to another. All goats brought on to the property to be grown out are back-lined with a product registered for deer, under approval and direction from a veterinarian. Goats bred on the property are not treated for worms unless there is a need. This hasn’t been required since 2011 when barber’s pole worm and black scour worm were confirmed through faecal egg count testing. Keith maintains that there is substantial benefit in treating goats for worms, referring to a trial he conducted in the past where goats that had been wormed averaged an additional one kg of weight gained in the 12 weeks following treatment. Over the past five years Keith has also experienced an increase in the pressure from wild dogs and foxes. As a result he has begun undertaking regular baiting. However he expresses frustration that there aren’t more neighbouring properties involved in baiting programs. This is due to surrounding landholders being either hobby farmers with little acknowledgement of predation risks, or absentee landholders whose priority land use is recreation and hunting. A mixed mob of recently captured rangeland goats