Producer Name: Gwenn R. Dexter
Farm Name: Triple G Ranch
Location: Glenmont, Nova Scotia
Goat breed: Boer, percentage and pure
Production type: Meat production, breeding stock, commercial stock
Describe your operation
We started in 2018 after 30+ years of saying that I wanted to get back into goats by purchasing 21 Nubian and Boer cross does to breed to the best quality purebred Boer bucks that we could find and still afford.
What is your biggest pain point when it comes to farming goats?
The lack of respect that goats get as a viable meat animal here in Nova Scotia. Our local ‘goat’ club hasn’t met in over 2 years and when we did, we were all over the place in our interests and values for goats. There is a herd health program in Nova Scotia for sheep, but not for goats. And getting good genetics require long distance communication and transportation.
What do you like most about farming goats?
The learning, the constant education. There is always more to learn, more to do, new ways to improve their care and new ways to improve their production. This could also be considered our biggest pain!
Is there anything that you’re particularly proud of about your operation? Or any standout moments/memories?
The things we have learned: creating four different paddocks and rotating the goats all summer, with the horses on clean up in the fall means some of my does have not been wormed in over 2 years. Keeping the bucklings off of pasture and limiting their exposure to worms means getting some to market up to 80-100lbs shipping weight in 4 months, but usually 41/2 to 5 months. Learning to use CIDRs for out-of-season breeding to better utilize our barn space (and having 6 kids born at once). Learning to do our own de-horning. Hiring a friend to help redo our website and training me to deal with the uploads and writing of informative blogs. Learning about livestock guardian dogs, getting a pair and breeding them for a litter of puppies. Creating our own culling criteria to make it more black n’ white and leave the heart strings out of it.
Is there anything else that you’d like to share?
Nova Scotia has very few Provincial Vets and they are extremely over worked, so herd testing is done by regular local Vet clinics. I have no complaints regarding my Vets, they are amazingly helpful, but the pricing for herd testing is immensely detrimental to our bottom line. And finding that few other Boer breeders across Canada test makes our search for good, clean, unrelated genetics without genetic flaws increasingly difficult. We’re thinking that AI may be our next adventure.
Link to website or social media
