Goat Farming in Australia

Raising goats on small farms in Australia

If you count Australia’s feral goat population there are four breeds of goats in Australia.

• Angora Goats – raised for the angora wool
• Cashmere Goats – raised for the cashmere wool
• Boer Goats – raised for their meat.

Australia’s feral goats which mostly roam the vast semi arid parts of Australia’s pastoral land are also sold, mainly overseas, for their meat.

Goats can be very good for the small farm environment. They eat many of our woody weeds and help to clean up land that has been overrun with plants like blackberry.

Before venturing into raising goats on a small farm, you will need to make sure your farm’s infrastructure is good, that your fences are goat escape proof and your stockyards will be able to handle goats particularly when it comes to the height of yard fences.

Goats can sometimes be hard to manage from an animal husbandry point of view and do tend to need closer monitoring for various illnesses than other livestock species.

It can also be difficult for small farmers to find experienced goat shearers.

However, the demand for goat fibre and goat meat seems to be increasing and in recent times, there have been very good returns for goat producers even at the small farm scale.

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