Dairy Event 2010: Goat meat options

Goat meat may lack the “image appeal” enjoyed by lamb, but a growing number of farmers involved in the dairy goat sector believe there is potentially a significant market in the UK for milk-reared, dairy-bred male kids.

Kate Little from Cartmel in Cumbria has just completed a Nuffield Scholarship looking at goats as producers of meat as well as milk. Her travels to South America, South Africa and Europe have strengthened her belief in the potential to use male dairy-bred kids as a meat source rather than dismissing them as a worthless waste product, only fit for euthanasia.

“There are a lot of options open to us in the UK in terms of how male kids are reared and how they are marketed. I believe we’re now at a stage where we need to open up a debate and encourage those who are interested to come forward with ideas,” says Ms Little.

Ms Little has already had experience of rearing dairy-bred male kids as meat which were marketed as “Capretto” – the Italian name for kid-meat – and sold to local restaurants in Cumbria. The kids were slaughtered locally at about five weeks old, weighing about 15kg to produce a carcass weighing 8-11kg.

“I had a good trade for these kids and even if I had to take a batch to the local auction, provided I told them the kids were coming, there were always buyers ready to pay a decent price.

“Rearing dairy-bred kids isn’t going to make you a fortune, but I believe there’s potential in the UK to make use of this meat instead of just disposing of it.”

Ms Little, is about to re-establish her goat herd after a break from milking, and plans to evaluate multi-suckling as a viable option for rearing male kids.

“Many countries with large goat milking herds rear the male dairy-bred kids. In Holland some of the big herds are producing more than 1000 meat kids a year, all reared on milk-machines with most exported to Italy, Spain and France with carcass weights of 4-6kg. But milk powder is expensive and the system is intensive.

“Multi-suckling is definitely something that needs evaluating and if it was successful it would certainly make kid-meat a more welfare-friendly product. From my experience I think we could allow a nanny to rear around 25 kids a year.”

But she stresses that even the established kid-meat producers in Europe have to cope with price fluctuations and cyclical demand – often driven by ethnic religious festivals.

“I firmly believe there’s a market for kid-meat beyond the ethnic trade and in addition to the niche ‘foodie-type’ customers, but first we’ve got to establish a market. That’s why we urgently need more open and constructive discussion to take things forward.”

While it is rare, some UK dairy goat producers occasionally use a Boer male – a breed of goat developed in South Africa purely as a meat producer – on a small part of their herd that are not needed to produce replacement females.

But Cheshire farmers Tim and Marnie Dobson, Haughton, use the Boer as the linch-pin of their goat meat production business. They run Boer males with 350 cross-bred nannies to produce kids that are taken to about 40kg liveweight and slaughtered at about 12-months-old.

The Dobsons have won a fistful of awards and accolades for their goat meat, but remain cautious about a rapid expansion in UK goat meat production. They market their range of goat meat products, alongside other conventional meats produced on farm, across many outlets including agricultural shows, farmers’ markets and other events as well as the internet, but say consumers can still be difficult to convince.

“We constantly receive compliments from our goat meat customers, but it’s a fluctuating market and you have to be prepared to work hard at marketing to maintain the profile for the products,” says Mr Dobson who produces a full selection of jointed cuts as well as burgers and sausages.

“Turning dairy-bred male kids into a marketable product hasn’t been inspirational enough to encourage dairy goat farmers to undertake it because their job is primarily to produce milk. Because the demand for young kid meat hasn’t existed to any great extent in the UK, it’s never entered the food chain in any significant quantity.”