# Goat research project ideas



## Dani-1995 (Mar 11, 2011)

Hey everyone, 

I'm in an animal science class put on by 4-H and NCSU. One of the requirements for graduation is a research project which we have to present in August. I'm wondering if anyone has a cool idea that alot of people might not know about or know very little about. Were allowed to use the internet, books, people in the industry- basically anything as long as what we say is accurate. 

I had originally thought of nutrition but most people with goats should know that. That seems more like a workshop I could do this summer than a research project.


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## KW Farms (Jun 21, 2008)

Here are some topics...maybe one of these will spark an idea...

Polled genetics.
Conformation.
Hoof care.
Selecting a show goat.
Culling to improve your herd.
Preparing for a show...grooming...nutrition..etc.


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

Hi Dani, 

when you say 'research project' do you mean that you have to run a little experiment and present the results? Or simply research on a topic that interests you?

Some ideas that pop into my head for each:

Experiment ideas - how nutrition affects milk yield (you can get a bunch of goats and feed half one feed, half the other feed, and see if it affects their yield), how nutrition affects milk taste (you can try feeding them different things and get a bunch of people to do blind taste tests), whether natural service or artificial insemination gives better results, whether people get a 50:50 buck doe ratio or different, whether goats prefer a particular colour feeder for their food ... I can probably think of more. Testing old wives tales would be fun - whether you can smell the poll of a goat to guess the sex of kids, does ACV encourage girl kids etc. How accurate is the girth measurement for weight and is it affected by gut fill?

Research topic ideas - any of the above you could look at. Or udder conformation. Or you know you could do a poll of people on here to determine the reasons people get into the goat industry ... etc

Let me know if you would like more help with any of this.


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## J.O.Y. Farm (Jan 10, 2012)

Dani-1995 said:


> I had originally thought of nutrition but most people with goats should know that. That seems more like a workshop I could do this summer than a research project.


 That is true, you could do a project on goat digestion.... :shrug:

That is something a friend and I did for 4-H one time! we made a modle of the ruman, abomasoum, omasoum, and the reticulm, and had a big tri fold with lots of short facts on it!

*sorry if my spelling was wrong on anything....


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## Dani-1995 (Mar 11, 2011)

J.O.Y. Farm said:


> [quote="Dani-1995":2zglqgoi]
> I had originally thought of nutrition but most people with goats should know that. That seems more like a workshop I could do this summer than a research project.


 That is true, you could do a project on goat digestion.... :shrug:

That is something a friend and I did for 4-H one time! we made a modle of the ruman, abomasoum, omasoum, and the reticulm, and had a big tri fold with lots of short facts on it!

*sorry if my spelling was wrong on anything.... [/quote:2zglqgoi]

I actually did a powerpoints on that last year. I wish I had done a model stomach so that could be really cool.

You guys are having some great ideas! Keren, I think our teacher meant to do an actual experiment... I'll have to ask. The milk testing thing coiuld be cool if I could get goats... not sure if I could. It wold be different since I mostly work with meat goats.

KWfarms, I like the idea of polled genetics... really genetics in general are interesting to me.


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## KW Farms (Jun 21, 2008)

:thumb: Genetics...I find very interesting as well.


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

> polled genetics


 I agree ...that would be a good one... :wink:


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

Ah ... meat goat ideas ... 

If you have access to a bunch of young wethers, you could test them on different diets and see which ones put on weight the fastest/most ie. which diet is best for growing out market wethers

You could do a similar thing using kiko wethers, boer wethers, dairy wethers, crossbred wethers etc see which genetics prove the best for market wethers

You could look at how nutrition affects litter size, feed a bunch of them so they are condition score 2.5, and others that are condition score 3.5 and then breed them and ultrasound them at 40 days to count no. of foetuses

I can probably think of more ... 

Time and access to animals are going to be your biggest constraints.


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