# how to make your herd profitable



## goatshows (Oct 5, 2007)

How have you made your herd profitable or able to break even? It should be interesting to see how diffrent herds have worked out there plans to make the goats work for there keep. what are some things you do?


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## RPC (Nov 6, 2009)

I know I will never break even or make a profit because all the money from the goats goes to my nieces into their savings accounts for college so I just keep dumping money into something I will never see a profit on. But I must say I enjoy them so that is my payback, and as long as the kids are happy I am happy.


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## StaceyRosado (Oct 5, 2007)

the more goats you have the more kids you have born with a greater chance of does and therefore you make more money off does. Thats been my experience.

Almost came even this year (was like $1,000.00 shy of even - to me thats pretty good)


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

Between the cost of hay for the winter into spring...$400, grain per month $12, Vet charges this year $225, WADDL testing plus shipping $133 =$902( not including ADGA transfers/registrations for 3 or the "many extra's for fencing etc.)
Lost 2 kids that may have brought $400....sold 3 kids for $230 and haven't bought milk, butter, ice cream or soap because of the milk my girls provide....so NOPE, haven't broke even or made a profit.
I'm not looking to make a profit though, just enough to cover the expenses to keep them happy and healthy.


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## ohiogoatgirl (Jan 31, 2010)

well i'm teaching mine to pack and harness so they will save me time and labor on some things. and i'm planning to breed them early november and sell the babies and my family drinks the milk. so less household food money will be spent on milk. and my family gives me hay so i dont have to pay for it yet. plus i put them in little shows. like the town fourth of july pet show, i got first and third, won enough to buy a bag of feed! which was good for me! keeping only two so far so i dont have as much outgoing money.


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## GoldenSeal (Sep 14, 2010)

Wow! That's insane!! I have made profit off goats. This year wasn't not one of those profit years but that's because only one doe was bred. I usually do end up making a profit from them anyways. I sell Nubian kids for 350 a piece and milkers for 500. When I had Pygmy's and Nigis I sold them for 200 each and sold out for two years straight. Our hay is either 3-4 per small square or 30-40 per big round. They are very high quality alfalfa (about 70 %) and the rest in brome and timothy. I buy all my grains in metric tonnes from farmers around me and it lasts me all year for all my livestock. As long as I'm breeding my goats they're selling and I have not gone a year in the minuses until this year. Next year will be another one of these years with my importing two bucks but I'm assuming after that it won't happen again for a long time. Of course, that all depends on the market 
I also make soaps and sell them on the side (a dollar an oz) with a lot of the milk I get from the girls so it gives me even more profit. Most of my profit is from the offspring though.


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## AlaskaBoers (May 7, 2008)

I usually break even with market sized kids, this next year I will auction one at the state fair (about $1,500 is usual for CH goat)
I spend about $3,000 on hay, $500 on grain, $200 on testing and $100 on supplies. 
So if I sell 10 registered boer doe kids for $400 then I can break even. I'm breeding 11 does this season, so If I got ALL does, and sold EVERY one (assuming each doe has twins) for $400 (very easy in Alaska) then I could make $8,800. Of course I won't get All does, (bucks will be much more anyway) and will be retaining most doe kids.


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## Bellafire Farm (Jan 5, 2010)

Hmmm.... A profit??? Wow, I musta missed that memo... :slapfloor:

I just tell myself I'm in it "for the love"


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## PznIvyFarm (Jul 25, 2010)

I doubt i could make a profit. I never expect that from my animals, but i would have them regardless, so i would still have alot of the expenses (not the testing, and not the vet bill from a delivery gone bad) but the feed, the fencing, the regular maintenance. 

I haven't calculated for the goats yet (not that brave, maybe after year end) but i have done so for the chickens, and they do NOT earn their keep. They do offset feed costs with egg sales, but no where near what it costs to feed them. If i was more logical/practical, i would have offed the current flock already b/c they are almost at the 2 year mark, and egg production went from 35-40 eggs a day (from 50 hens) at their peak, down to 8-10 eggs a day over the past week. (and that is with extra lighting) So i have my replacements, which will start laying in a few months, and im trying to figure out which of my 'old' girls ARE still laying, so i can get rid of the freeloaders.

At least the goats are giving me milk, and are much friendlier than the chickens. I hope to get some money from the babies i'm selling, but who knows how much. I am keeping all my doe kids, so i only have 4 wethers, and its a bad time of year to be looking for homes.


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## AlaskaBoers (May 7, 2008)

for me I have 25 layers, who produce 27 eggs a day in july and june.
That's about 46, 18 packs of eggs which I sell for $6 ea (i know, that's a crazy price, but they're free ranged on 5 acres and super healthy) that's $279 a month. Egg Layer Pelleted feed is $10 a bag, so that's 27.9 bags a month, of course they sure don't eat that much, so there's profit to be used on bedding and replacement chickens


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## MissMM (Oct 22, 2007)

I would have made a profit if I could have made myself sell some of the spring does born this year. They could have brought $400+ each, but I couldn't bring myself to sell any of them...... will have to learn how with next spring's kids :sigh: 

I also have about 30 lbs of pygora/mohair fleece waiting to get processed, which could be sold as roving or spun for pure profit $, but haven't had time to process or the $ to send in & have it done. 

We do our own hay so my only costs into the goats are tractor gas & baler twine. Plus maybe $20 a month for a few bags of grain & minerals. 

I would have to say the biggest return is the enjoyment I get out of my goats. No amount of therapy or anything else lifts my spirits like they do


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

If you drink a lot of milk (which our family does  ), milking your goats can save you money. We just started recently though, so the goats haven't anywhere near paid for themselves.


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## Bellafire Farm (Jan 5, 2010)

Totally forgot a story from a family that had those four horned sheep (Jacob sheep???)...

Anyway they used the fleece, the meat, had the skins/hides finished, and sold the skulls after "processing" them too. They made good money!! I was FLOORED!
They said the skulls & hides actually did very well for re-sale. 
Hmmm...Nigerians hides would make a VERY SMALL purse - LOL!


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

I use to raise goats for meat and basic breeders.... I didn't make extra money..just broke even ....and sometimes not........ it is when I got into the show quality boers... that I started making good money and profit....the more head you have the more in your pocket when the kids are weaned.... I do still sale the commercial goats.... if the are nice.... but aren't quite show quality..... they of course.... don't bring as much.... :wink:


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## Lexibot (Jul 27, 2010)

Well I am still a newbie, and just starting out, so for a while, I will technically loose money.

I just calculated. And some numbers are foggy, cause I started to keep track in May, but I believe they are accurate enough. 

So far this year, we payed out $1595 through goat and calf trading. We made $905 of that back by "weeding" out the herd and picking out the best stock of the bulk trades/sales we get. We still have $680 in the "hole". but I have quite a few head of goats that should produce by April/May again. At which this time we will most like sell some of our young goats we have now as milkers for a higher dollar.

These are not our feed prices, as Dad said he didn't care much about that. So I didn't track it, but we found out if you buy 500 # at once you save money, of course we bought a lot of feed way before and didn't know until we had enough to buy in major bulk and were like "OMG, they totally ripped themselves off" but when we called them, they said the price was correct, so we could have saved 100s!!! 

I also lost a calf, and4 goats this year. We've been lucky, especially for newbies!

Anyway, here's the break down...

Bought 6 pregnant does for $300.00, they were wild, but GREAT quality...
They had babies, which we sold for $135.00 as bottle babies because the mommies didn't know what to do.
We then sold 4 of the does for $250.00 and one later for $75.00

This is where we lost money. In May, we bought 3, 2 month full blooded boer goats, 2 females and a buck from a great breeder, unfortunately, either we did something wrong, or got bad stock, because we couldn't keep their muscle up. So we sold them at a loss for $150.00(all three of them) a few months later. 

During this time, Dad bought 2 other young female boers who had problems from the start for $100.00, and he didn't know what to look for, they were very poor looking babies and ended up dying of god knows what. 

We then bought a bottle calf for $75.00, kept it a couple weeks and traded it for 2, 6 month Nubian does, and a young sheep. We traded the sheep for a young boer buck, and sold the does for $75.00 each. The buck we traded for a full blooded kiko female (Speckles!!!)

Then we bought Grace for $35.00 and traded her for a calf. Then we got stupid, traded the calf for a 6month old Nubian doe and a deer, which ended up jumping the fence and never seen again. We thought it was much more tame than that... obviously not, and learned a lesson.

In June, we got Sunny and 3 bottle baby female Nubians all for $50.00. We sold one of the babies In August for $50.00 (the price we paid for them all), and still have Sunny and the other 2 females. Grace a week later was up for sale for $75.00 and since I was feeding 3 babies on goat replacer we rushed to get her knowing she was an excellent milker.

Then comes another stupid mistake... buying papered goats in Missouri... 4 registered Alpines for $150.00. 2 sets of twins; 1 set born in April, a doe and a wether, and another set born in June a buckling and doeling. The buck ended up dying after a major cold spell. He got weak and just never pulled back, and the doe was infested with worms. The breeder looked like he took well care of his goats, but we're figuring probably a little too much, or pulled the kids a little earlier than needed, cause he bottle feeds them, probably sells the milk. Which also means these registered papered goats were raised on goat replacer... nothing we thought about until much later... Anyway... we sold the wether for $40.00. 

On that same day, we got Lilly and her baby for $60.00. The baby we sold immediately for $30.00. We still have Lilly.

In September, we had 4 goats(a wether, 2, 6 month does, and a buck) delivered here for $150.00. These goats were mildly wild, which is what we decided was a good thing. Bush goats make good genetics... These goats to this day are doing great. Sold the whether for $35.00.

Recently, we bought 10 boer cross bottle babies to later put on the new 80 acres for $150.00. These little tykes are TOTALLY awesome and well built (with a couple exceptional small ones). We'll pay the MAX $45.00 each by the time they are weaned for food costs.

Now I know roughly how much it takes in the winter to feed a goat for a month on high quality hay and grain. Which is $10 each. We changed the hay a little due to having so many goats now, but they all seem to be doing just as good. I just need to chew out my hay dealer... he sent us a very poor grade bail, I lost at least 2/3s of it...

I also collected up acorns, being how Nature gave as an abundant this year, so we'll save a little money there. 

We've paid about $510 in feed. This is for winter prices though, so obviously a bit less since they had greens to eat. 

Of course we have about $500 in barns, and $2000-$3500 in fencing, lol. So yeah... we technically didn't profit, but anything we buy we try to turn a dollar or 2. I have 10 does and 2 bucks that should breed this winter, just help a little by hoping with me


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