How to Raise Black Goats: Black Goat Farming Techniques and Precautions

Speaking of goats, they are one of the animals we are all fairly familiar with, and many people in daily life are especially fond of eating black goat meat, which is not only delicious but also extremely high in nutritional value. Raising black goats is now also one of the especially popular projects, so do you know how black goats should be raised? Let's learn about the methods for raising black goats together with the editor below!

How to Raise Black Goats

1. Black goats generally have strong adaptability, but their growing environment must be kept dry and well ventilated, with low humidity. The ambient temperature must not fluctuate sharply between high and low; precautions must be taken during high temperatures and low temperatures. Their food is mainly green vegetables and legumes.

2. First, a goat shed that meets these conditions must be built. It must be spacious and bright, with sufficient lighting conditions, and if conditions permit, it should be close to a water source for easy access to water. The goat shed must have a floor base to help drain away the black goats' excrement and other waste. The roof must have lamps for warmth and fans for ventilation and cooling. The surrounding fences must be raised higher and made denser to prevent invasion by rodents and other species.

3. The feed for black goats is prepared from natural ingredients and compound ingredients. The grass among the natural ingredients must be sun-dried before feeding to eliminate dew and other impurities. Compound ingredients should also be plant-based, with corn, grains, legumes and trace elements needed for growth added in. The drinking water setup must have disinfection and filtration devices to ensure an adequate and clean water supply. Some disease-preventing medicines can also be added to the water to increase the black goats' resistance.

4. Besides the goat shed, the black goats must be guaranteed enough activity space. Let the black goats be able to ensure a certain amount of activity every day, so that their bodies get full exercise. At the same time, it must also be ensured that there are no other livestock or species in the activity space; black goats should not be raised in mixed farming during the breeding period.

Black Goat Farming Techniques and Precautions

1. Castrate in time: For male goats not suitable for breeding, apart from some male goats kept as teaser males, the rest should be castrated at 7-60 days of age. After castration, male goats have a gentle temperament and are easier to manage.

2. Feed combination: Goats are herbivorous animals, so the feed should be mainly forage grass and leaves, supplemented by concentrate. In summer and autumn, more grass, leaves or forage grass should be fed (generally, planting 0.15 mu of Guimu No. 1 can raise one adult goat). The feeding ratio of gramineous forage (such as Guimu No. 1, elephant grass, forage maize, etc.) to leguminous forage (such as Leucaena leucocephala, Zenia insignis, sandpaper tree leaves, etc.) is 4:1, with an appropriate supplement of concentrate. In winter and spring, forage is relatively scarce; where conditions permit, winter fallow fields should be used to plant ryegrass as a supplement, or the problem of insufficient forage can also be solved by feeding more mixed feed. A reference formula for the mixed feed is 54% cornmeal, 40% grass meal, 4% soybean or peanut cake, and 2% wheat bran, plus an appropriate amount of minerals, with each goat fed 5 grams of salt per day.

3. Provide enough drinking water: To digest the coarse feed eaten, goats must secrete a large amount of digestive fluid every day, and at the same time, internal circulation and nutrient transport cannot do without water. Therefore, the consequences of goats lacking water are often more serious than lacking feed, and can easily lead to decreased appetite, indigestion, and poor body condition. Therefore, an adequate and clean water supply should be provided, and warm water should be given in winter.

4. Careful management: Clean the floor of the goat shed once a day; the pen and its surroundings should be disinfected regularly; remove the goat manure under the raised floor once every half month and pile it far from the goat shed for fermentation. Ewes in late pregnancy, lactating ewes and their lambs should be isolated and raised in small separate pens (2 sq m per pen) to prevent crowding from causing miscarriage in ewes and crushing lambs to death. The small separate pens should be kept dry, clean and hygienic, with sufficient sunlight and fresh air, and a temperature of around 18-20°C.

5. Precautions: The flock must be vaccinated on time, and when sick goats are found, they must be treated early. Deworm frequently; when goats have no internal or external parasites, they generally have fewer infections from other diseases; once they suffer from internal and external parasitic diseases, resistance declines and other diseases follow one after another. Therefore, internal and external parasites must be dewormed regularly every 2-3 months, and each year goats must be immunized with goat infectious pleuropneumonia vaccine and goat triple quadruple vaccine injection once each (the interval between the two vaccine immunizations must be at least one week).

Benefits of Raising Black Goats

1. Black goats grow and develop quickly. Because wandering and foraging activities are reduced, the conversion ratio of forage into mutton increases, more mutton can be produced per unit of grass, the raising cycle can be shortened by half, turnover is fast, and benefits are high.

2. More manure accumulates. A grazing goat accumulates an average of 500 kg of manure per year, while under pen raising it is 1000 kg.

3. Fewer diseases, high lamb survival rate. Grazing goats, because they are “exposed to wind and rain”, are prone to infection with diseases, and sick goats are not easily discovered in time, so lamb deaths often occur. Pen-raised goats can be managed carefully, do not drink dirty water, and have fewer chances of infection, so the mothers are fat and the young are strong, and the survival rate can reach almost 100%.

4. Promote the restoration of vegetation, resolve the contradiction between forestry and animal husbandry, help commercialize the forage industry, and drive the production of herbivorous animals toward intensive and large-scale development.

Development Prospects of Black Goats

The development prospects and trends of our country's sheep industry: Mutton has always been a kind of meat that everyone likes, especially among the ethnic minorities in the north, who have long used mutton as their main food. With the improvement of people's living standards and the more scientific nature of dietary concepts, mutton is also increasingly loved by most of our country's people. First, the main feed of sheep is forage grass. Compared with the feed of other livestock, sheep feed is the least contaminated by various pollutions, especially pesticides, chemical fertilizers and other substances. In the feed processing process, pig, chicken and some cattle feed all need to add a certain amount of antibiotics, while sheep feed so far has not used antibiotics, or basically has not used them. This shows that among all meats, mutton is a food with a relatively high safety factor.

In fact, compared with other meats, mutton has higher nutritional value, with a protein content higher than pork; its fat content is also lower than pork; the content of minerals in mutton such as calcium and phosphorus, and trace elements such as copper and zinc, are all higher than those in beef and pork; and the most prominent point is that mutton has a low cholesterol content. Research has proven that excessive cholesterol intake by the human body increases the incidence of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, in recent years, mutton has become an increasingly favored food.

Through the above content, I believe everyone has gained a certain understanding of black goat farming techniques. Although many people have already stepped into the ranks of raising black goats, more and more people are learning about the nutritional value of black goats, and more and more people like to eat them, so raising black goats still has fairly good prospects!