For many years, the Brandt home had an overabundance of goat milk.  A portion of this milk was used to raise bottle calves.  The majority of these calves were Holstein-beef crosses purchased from one of the local dairies.  While most of these calves went to market, a few remained with us and become the foundation to a small beef herd.  I showed a few shorthorn in highschool through my 4-H and FFA projects and our herd was influenced through the use of my shorthorn show bull Ernie (our first bull).  We are currently using a Limousin bull and our very happy with these calves.  They are very easy keepers and have increased muscling.
 
 

    After we stopped dairying, we had to make a decision about the goats.  We either had to sell them all or find a less labor intensive method of maintaining them.  Our farm consists of 156 acres of with many steep slopes.  Much of this land is impossible to brushhog; therefore, the goats were very helpful in pasture management.  At the time, our decision was to keep some of the goats for pasture management but switch to meat goat production.  We sold a large portion of our does and bred the rest to Boer or Boer-Spanish bucks purchased from breeders in Texas.  We had some major difficulties the first few years-primarily because dairy goats do not do well in low management situations.  Since our initial switch, extensive culling has occurred and several management changes have been made.  Our second and third generation meat goats show a definite improvement in maintaining their own body condition and raising their kids to their dairy goat parents.