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Monday, July 22, 2013

Phase 1 Goat Procurement : Tellacherry and Kanni Aadu

Finally, the procurement of our breeding herd was completed last week. We procured 11+1 each of Tellacherry goats, a native of Kerala (also called Malabari) and the more prevalent breed Kanni Aadu (Aadu means goat in Tamil). This lucky group will be our α ( 'Alpha' for non-techies among us) herd to be used for propagation and growing our herd size.

Our vision is that we will start 2 production lines. Tellacherry is popular for cross-breeding so it will be primarily to meet our breeding needs and to help develop associate farms. In contrast, the focus with Kanni would be for meat harvesting. During our purchase phase, a lot of farms were trying to sell us Boers. Personally, I feel Boer (a native of South Africa) is largely hype at this time due to limited meat appeal. In the coming years, Boer may become mainstay but that remains to be seen. Moreover, Boer's main appeal - it's gigantic size, can be a challenge while crossing with other smaller Indian breeds.

Procurement was done from 2 farms near Melur and Arrupkottai. The former was handled by 'farm managers'. We did not get to deal with the owner of the farms and subsequently a lot confusion ensued. The selection process and purchase experience was utterly mismanaged by the available managers. We were looking to procure medium sized animals which the sellers did not take a fancy to. It took multiple calls to and from the owners, their family members and others before we were able to secure the desired animals. The chaos peaked during our selection process when we were trying to finalize on two particular Tellacherries which usually have white fur. As the manager repeatedly asserted that these animals were indeed Tellacherrie goats, the two young nubians escaped into another cell and started milking on a black furred Kanni! We looked at the manager while he wore a queer look with a big oops expression with growing confusion. Finally, we let him off the hook and accepted his explanation of these kids may be a cross-breed though they looked like Tellacherrie.

Unfortunately, most farms do not maintain records of the animals since they are interested in quick turnaround and trading. They buy kids, fatten them and sell them to new farms for raising or breeding. It was a long day and but we felt accomplished that this project had finally taken off after much delay. The new goats are happy and are feeding well on CO4 and a concentrate mix which we are making in-house. More details on this in the next post.

A load of Kanni goats, with a few Tellacherrie look-alikes in white.

                                    All the animals were given a nice warm wash the next day! 

                                           Tellacherry goats acclimatizing to their new shed. 

                                   Kanni with characteristic facial white stripes near the eyes.

In conclusion, our initial learnings were that we should have insisted on visiting the new / unknown seller prior to the buying visit. Since most breeders and traders remain small scale operations, it is always advisable to deal directly with the decisions makers - be ready to walk away, it will save you trouble later. Over the coming weeks, we will start building out the goat health checklist. Our immediate priorities are vaccinations and de-worming. We shall also start to add natural supplements to encourage weight and size growth. It would be great to see examples of health checkup schedules, maintenance checklists or growth trackers that our readers may have developed. Feel free to send documentation directly to our inbox and we'll make it available for all.

19 comments:

  1. why not go for Boer Variety of goats? That will give more weight than the other varieties....

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  2. What is the avg price? OR pricing model?

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  3. Boer or boer cross does not have any appeal in the meat industry. They are primarily used for breeding, and the kids are being rotated from one farm to another. I do not know anybody who is processing Boer meat in TN. It is similar to the emu fiasco where the chicks were being turned around from one farm to another with no end users..

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    1. I disagree with your belife on boer goats .you can't compare boer with emu . Emu is a new meat to the market and i have tasted it .Emu meat doesn't have any quality to stand against goat r chiken r turkey meat which we already have. goat is a already consumed in india ,Boer is just an another breed of goat which have better growth rate compare to country goats. Boer is not coming to the market yet because of the demand vs supply ratio and farms will get better rate when selling to breeders than in meat market. Pratically even if we sell boer in meat market as well can gain good profit since 9 months boer cross goats can gain better weight than contry goat . we are crossing thalacherry with pure boer in our farm and planning to start a meat stall in sivagangai once our supply exceed the breeders demand.

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    2. Agaram - I can see rationale in your premise around Boers but are you aware of steady demand (even in small volumes) for Boer meat in any type of market - mandi, processors, abattoirs, etc?

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    3. I think everyone confusing Boer vs Goat. Boer is just a goat , if you have a demand for goat that's your market..i don't think we can sell meat with high price on the lable of Boer in the place like sivagangai. We will sell it in the market price . but still you get better weight gain for better profit.

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    4. Agaram - Happy to notice we have a follower from sivagangai. Kindly share your contact details. Would like to understand the local market dynamics from you better - info@saverafarms.com

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  4. You may want to handle Telecherry goats with caution. They are highly susceptible to diseases. Local Goats would on average perform just as good and they would have greater resistance to disease. But apart from this, I wonder why educated farmers are still going for Goat farming when it has been proven that Sheep are better for the environment. Goats cause desertification as they bite to the root of the grass and they eat all kinds of shrub without discrimination. In fact in our country the Government pays $10 for Goats which are shot.

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    1. We do not the goats graze. They are being stall fed. Goats are more productive than sheep, as a result most people prefer goats. Moreover, goats are consumed more than sheep in India.

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  5. I suggest you feed moringa leaves for few goats on an experimental basis and track their growth against others. I read a article some time back which talked about the fantastic results of feeding moringa to dairy animals and goats.

    - IndurRam

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    1. Yes, I have heard about Moringa leaves as well. We may experiment with the leaves. Thanks for sharing!

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  6. Dear Sir,

    Shortly I want to start Treachery Goat farm. I need some technical assistance on this regard, Pls. try to answer my queries on these regard as below,

    1. Sir, How is the Growing characteristics of this Talacherry breed, i mean at what age/in which month of age I can make them to reach 30 kgs of marketable wieght by feeding as per your schedule of 10% of body weight as green fodder and 250 grms of Concentrate mixture ??

    2. As you said the market price is 250-300 kg of live weight, as Male we can easily sell during ead season but how about females we have to sell only for breeding to get this price..i mean if we are selling it for meat purpose we will not get this price right sir???

    3. Is it possible to sell at least 150 goats per annum at this price of 250-300 kgs liveweight sir??

    sir...as i am new for this industry, i need your valuable inputs..pls. help me on this regard..

    Thanks & regards,

    Shivayogi

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    1. Shivayogi - In response to your queries :
      #1 - They reach 'harvest' weight at 11-12 months. More imp than 30 kgs is that the meat should not become tough - which is not desirable.
      #2 - In my experience females are also in demand and can be sold. You're right, breeding price is significantly higher. Mandi meat prices can be from 180 - 250 / kg depending on location.
      #3 - Yes, very possible. Marketing requires hard work but those volumes are possible.
      Depending on when you want to start, we should have some Thelacherry kids for sale in the next month.

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  7. Sir im from chennai and im very much interested to start goat farm, i
    need more informations like where to buy pure breed like you did,
    price of shedding you made, avg wt of male kanni & thalachery in 6-8
    months etc., so pls provide me your contact details to
    arunengg85@gmail.com. Thanks in advance

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  8. Is talacherry meat consumed in sivagangai & coimbatore area

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  9. This is a great article thanks for sharing this informative information. I will visit your blog regularly for some latest post. I will visit your blog regularly for Some latest post. solucion de contratación electrónica

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  10. Techie2aggie do you have an email to connect? or do drop me a line at info@vengalFarms.com, would be glad to connect with you. Surely for some upfront advise and directions. Cheers, Vikram

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