www.dairylivestockfarm.com, These are not the local Indian goats available in mutton shops but Boer goats, which are still rare in India. Boer goats are popular the world over for their meat and adapt to any climate. Jijabai’s son, Vinayak, who sells the animals online, has recently acquired a software to keep record of his ‘Aai Goat Farm’, which started with two Boer goats and has a herd of 70 goats today.
Goat meat costs about 400 per kg while the Boer variety is priced at 1,750 per kg for male and 4,000 per kg for female goats. Depending on the weight, prices range from 60,000 per goat and 90,000 per goat.
“Affluent Muslims from big cities like Mumbai buy these goats and rear them for a few months at their homes before using them on Bakrid,” said Vinayak Narawade. “There are very few buyers for such highly-priced goats. The use of technology helps us locate them across the country,” said Narawade.
The world champion boer goat ram, ‘Maserati’, bred by the Lukas Burger Boer Goat stud near Griekwastad, was recently sold for a record price of R500 000 to Salmon van Huyssteen Boer Goats near Pretoria and the Joubert Horn Boer Goat Stud near Vryburg.
Burger said it was not the highest-price ever paid for a Boer goat, as he had since heard about boer selling for more than US$46 000 (over R681 000) in the US.
It nevertheless broke the previous South African private sale record of R450 000, which Burger set about four years ago with a ram called ‘Tolla’.
Burger also holds the record for the highest auction price paid for a Boer goat ram, which he achieved when he sold ‘Klein Booster’ for R375 000 to Boeram Venter of Kirkwood at the stud’s 22nd production sale last year.
At the farm’s recent production auction, the highest bid was R290 000 for a ram, while the average price was R36 900 for rams and R31 500 for ewes.
Burger said prices of Boer goats had been growing steadily over the past four years, primarily because of growing international recognition of the exceptional quality of their meat.
“South Africa is not exporting any meat as we are struggling to supply enough goat’s meat to stock local shops. Most of the meat is sold to the informal market [in] KwaZulu-Natal.
“Nevertheless, live goats and genetic material are exported to various countries. The markets in Namibia and Botswana have been closed due to [South Africa’s] foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, but India and Thailand are still open.”