How to Raise Black Goats? A Full Analysis of Breeding Techniques and Precautions

Speaking of goats, they are one of the animals we are all fairly familiar with, and many people in daily life especially love eating black goat meat, which is not only delicious but also extremely high in nutritional value. Raising black goats is now one of the particularly sought-after ventures, so do you know how to raise black goats? Let's take a look together below at the methods for raising black goats!

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, and protective measures must be taken during both extreme heat and low temperatures. Their food is mainly green vegetables and beans.

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

3. Prepare both natural and compound feed for the black goats. Natural green grass must be sun-dried before feeding to remove dew and other impurities. Compound feed should also be plant-based, with corn, grains, beans and trace elements needed for growth added in. The drinking water setup must include disinfection and filtration devices to ensure the water is sufficient and clean. Some disease-preventing medicine can also be added to the water to increase the black goats' resistance.

4. Besides the goat shed, ensure the black goats have enough space to move around. Let the black goats get a certain amount of activity every day so their bodies are fully exercised. At the same time, make sure there are no other livestock or species in the activity area; black goats should not be raised in mixed farming during the breeding period.

Black Goat Breeding Techniques and Precautions

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

2. Feed combination: Goats are herbivores, so the feed should be mainly pasture grass and tree leaves, with concentrated feed as a supplement. In summer and autumn, feed more grass, leaves or pasture grass (generally, planting 0.15 mu of Guimu No. 1 can support one adult goat). The feeding ratio of grasses (such as Guimu No. 1, napier grass, teosinte, etc.) to legumes (such as leucaena, zenia tree, sandpaper tree leaves, etc.) should be 4:1, with an appropriate supplement of concentrated feed. Forage is relatively scarce in winter and spring; where conditions allow, use idle winter fields to plant ryegrass as a supplement, or solve the forage shortage by feeding more mixed feed. A reference formula for the mixed feed is 54% corn meal, 40% grass meal, 4% soybean or peanut cake, and 2% wheat bran, plus an appropriate amount of minerals; feed each goat 5 grams of salt per day.

3. Provide sufficient drinking water: To digest the coarse feed they eat, goats must secrete large amounts of digestive juices every day, and water is also indispensable for internal circulation and nutrient transport. Therefore, the consequences of water shortage in goats are often more serious than feed shortage, easily leading to reduced appetite, indigestion and loss of body condition. Therefore, provide sufficient and clean drinking water, and in winter they should drink warm water.

4. Careful management: Clean the shed floor once a day; disinfect the pen and its surroundings regularly; remove the goat manure under the shed once every half month and pile it far from the shed for fermentation. Pregnant does, nursing does and their lambs should be isolated and raised in small individual pens (2 sq m per pen) to prevent crowding that could cause does to miscarry or crush lambs; the small pens should be kept dry, clean and hygienic, with sufficient sunlight and fresh air, and a temperature of 18-20°C is suitable.

5. Precautions: Vaccinate the flock on schedule, and treat sick goats as early as possible when found. 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, their resistance declines and other diseases follow one after another. Therefore, regular deworming is necessary (deworm for internal and external parasites once every 2-3 months), and each year carry out immunization injections of goat contagious pleuropneumonia vaccine and goat triple quadruple vaccine 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 activity is reduced, the conversion rate of forage into mutton improves, more mutton can be produced per unit of grass, the raising cycle can be shortened by half, turnover is fast and returns are high.

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

3. Fewer diseases and a high lamb survival rate. Grazing goats, because they are “exposed to wind and rain”, are prone to infection, and sick goats are not easy to spot in time, so lamb deaths often occur. Penned 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. It promotes the recovery of vegetation, resolves the conflict between forestry and livestock raising, helps commercialize the forage industry, and drives the development of herbivore production toward intensification and large-scale operation.

Development Prospects of Black Goats

The development prospects and trends of our country's sheep-raising industry: Mutton has always been a meat people enjoy, and especially the ethnic minorities in the north have long used mutton as a main food. With the improvement of people's living standards and increasingly scientific dietary concepts, mutton is also becoming more and more popular among most of our country's people. First, the main feed of sheep is pasture grass; compared with the feed of other livestock, sheep feed is the least contaminated by various pollutants, especially substances such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers. In feed processing, pig, chicken and some cattle feed all require adding a certain amount of antibiotics, while sheep feed so far has not used, or basically has not used, antibiotics. 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: its protein content is higher than pork; its fat content is also lower than pork; the content of minerals such as calcium and phosphorus and trace elements such as copper and zinc in mutton is higher than 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 some understanding of black goat breeding techniques. Although many people have already entered 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!