Australia’s largest goat research project announced

The largest goat industry research project ever undertaken in Australia will begin this year, with goatmeat producers invited to submit an expression of interest to participate in the project.

The $3.7 million project is being funded through the MLA Donor Company (MDC) in partnership with the University of Queensland (UQ).

It is designed to improve reproductive performance of commercial goat herds, and ultimately increase productivity and profitability on-farm.

Over five years, data will be captured from a minimum of 15 commercial properties and 15,000 goats.

Through the research, the industry will benefit from developing reproductive benchmarks for different production systems, investigating the impact that different management strategies have on reproduction performance and gaining insights into what causes kid losses among goats.

Producer participants sought

Professor Louw Hoffman, Professor of Meat Science Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences within the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) at UQ, will be leading the project.

Professor Hoffman said goat producers across three production systems – extensive, semi-extensive and intensive – who are interested in participating in the project are invited to submit an expression of interest by contacting him directly.

“We are looking for producers in Queensland and New South Wales to participate and become involved in the research – they should have at least 100 to 150 goats per producer for the intensive management systems, to more than 1,000 goats for the extensive systems,” Professor Hoffman said.

“Producers must be interested in working with researchers, appreciate the importance of accurate data collection, and be open to implementing adaptive management practices.

“They will need to be willing to allow individual tagging (if not already tagged) of at least a proportion of their goats to participate in the project, because we will need to scan and follow individual animals and their reproduction performance.

“We will do a range of measurements including pregnancy scanning, weights, body condition scores, weaning rates, and taking faecal samples for worm counts to monitor parasites.

“We will attempt to visit each producer at least twice a year and record what is happening. We will aim to coincide these visits when key on-farm management activities are occurring, such as mustering.

“It’s all about getting more information around the production systems with the aim of seeing what producers are doing to influence the number of kids that survive and the production performance of those animals up to point of slaughter.

“We want to find out what management practices work and what might be adaptable and applicable to other goat producers.

“We will be quantifying what they’re doing presently, analysing the first year of data, and then beginning to come forward with suggestions for different management practices that could improve their productivity.

“We have a mobile handling facility with a hydraulic lift for the goats, with a scanner and scales, which we will use on our visits to help collect data on-farm.

“Genetics will also be another area we’ll be looking at, particularly in extensive rangeland goat operations where there is a move to improve their goats through enhanced selective breeding. We want to know what criteria they use when they select bucks and we want to document the improvements that these F1’s and other crosses hold.

“The goat industry is in a transformative stage, changing from extensive free range, low input systems into more intensively managed systems. As an animal scientist, I am excited to see and document how goat producers apply and adapt standard livestock management practices to suit the needs of their goat enterprises,” Professor Hoffman said.

Producers interested in participating in the project can submit an expression of interest, by contacting Louw Hoffman at louwrens.hoffman@uq.edu.au