Purebred Kiko Doeling
We have uploaded a few photos of available 2013 doelings to our does for sale page on the blog. There are several more available that we need to photo.
We have doeling out of HEMI, Warsaw, and Diesel.
If interested, please contact us (304)657-0456 or email mrgoats@hotmail.com.
We also offer delivery.
Thanks Jim & Aileen !
#1127 has moved north into Pennsylvania to be the foundation herd sire for Jim & Aileen Myers of Irwin, Pa. We look for good things to come out of this young buck.
#1127 pictured about at 6 months old is a Black/Brown NZ Kiko Buck born 06-Dec-2011 by HKF Sonny Boy out of a GFI Klondike/Confederate and Hemps Negro Granddaughter. His twin sister is a tri-colored NZ Doe #1128 on our Does page. He is a half brother to ‘MRG Smooth Criminal’ (AKA MRG Outlaw), the highest selling buck at the NKR Elite Buck Sale in May 2012.
We have one Sonny Boy buck left for sale #1124 is a solid Red NZ buck who can bee seen on the for sale page. Don’t wait any longer for this nice young buck or it could be too late.
M.R. Goats Featured in the February 2013 Goat Rancher Magazine
www.goatrancher.com Page 32 of the Equipment and Facilities Special Issue
Our farm has been awarded grant money for some of the infrastructure currently in use. When we saw the solicitation for an article regarding grants for farmers from the IKGA Secretary, we decided this was worth sharing. We know that not all of our blog readers are IKGA members or customers who have visited our farm in person so we wanted to make sure you had access to our information in hopes that it may also help you out.
If you are an IKGA member, you can go to the IKGA Forum to view the entire newsletter. (http://www.theikga.org/forum1/index.php) For those of you who are not members, I have copied the article below for your viewing pleasure.
M. R. Goats, owned and operated by Mike & Lorie Renick in Wild & Wonderful West Virginia, received a $5,000 grant from Animal Welfare Approved to provide mobile housing and handling equipment for their Kiko Goat operation.
M.R. Goats is an 80-acre meat goat farm owned and operated by Mike and Lorie Renick inWorthington,West Virginia. The couple raised Kiko goats on pasture, but only had limited fixed structures to use as shelter which reduced the goats’ ability to rotationally graze year round. The Renicks approached AWA about funding mobile housing to allow the goats access to more acreage and forage, thereby improving the animals’ health.
They also requested a portable handling system to decrease handling time and reduce stress to the animals while performing maintenance such as microchips, ear tags, hoof trimming, and FAMACHA checks.
AWA granted $5,000 to M.R. Goats for Port-A-Hut mobile shelters and a working stand and chute for low-stress handling and transport. The Renicks’ goats now have 24/7 access to mobile housing units and are able to access all pastures for rotational grazing. “They are able to come and go as they please,” says Mike. “They are much healthier and have lower stress.”
The couple also purchased a 4’ x 8’ goat cage for transporting the goats both on and off the farm without over-crowding and injury.
Now in its fourth year, the Animal Welfare Approved Good Husbandry Grants program has funded nearly one hundred projects across the country to improve farm animal welfare. Certified farmers and those who have submitted an application for AWA certification may apply for up to $5,000 towards projects such as mobile housing, breeding stock, and on-farm processing equipment. Slaughter plants working with or seeking to work with AWA farmers are also eligible for funding.
The funding priorities for this year’s cycle include improved genetics, increased outdoor access, welfare improvements in the slaughter process and non-lethal predator control. A primary goal of this grant program is to facilitate the growth and success of high-welfare, pasture-based systems. Program Director Andrew Gunther explains: “The biggest challenge in agriculture right now is getting animals outside. The science tells us that when farm animals are responsibly managed on open pasture or range, a whole host of challenges inherent in industrial agriculture simply disappear. For instance, the incidence of pathogenic E. coli is much lower in pasture-based systems, and animals are proven to have higher welfare. This ultimately leads to more nutritious, healthier products.”
First $500 takes him.
Purebred Kiko Buck (Lightnin Grandson)
Pictured above is a photo of King Tritan when he was younger. He is a proven PB Kiko Buck that will add meat to your commercial operation. Don’t delay, if you need a buck call today, this one won’t last long!
King Tritan and two 1.5 year old sons
Pictured above is a photo of King Tritan from yesterday with two of his 1.5 year old sons. King Tritan is on the Left, one of his sons is pictured next to him and the other one is on the far right. The other buck is our 2 yr old HEMI son, Diesel pictured 2nd in from the Right. These bucks are on pasture. Delivery can be arranged for a few on our way to Corydon, IN Oct 4th.
Checking out after the auction
We had a great time at the Appalachian Kiko Invitational Sale in Gray, TN on September 22nd. We had a chance to catch up with some old friends and meet a few new ones. My appologies to all of the folks we met that asked for business cards. I left them at home again. Fortunately we had an ad in the Sept. Goat Rancher Magazine that Terry Hankins was generous enough to bring to the event. I was able to pick up the Goat Rancher and flip to the back and show off our ad with contact information.
For those of you who haven’t had a chance to see it, here it is:
September Goat Rancher Ad
We went to the sale to buy a specific group of goats and those are the ones that we came home with. It doesn’t always work out that way but it seems on that day, we were the ones who wanted them the most. This day also happened to be a milestone birthday for Lorie. Lucky for me, she wanted these beautiful NZ Doelings for her present(s).
4 Colorful NZ Kiko Does
This group of 4 colorful NZ Doelings came from our friends Jerry and Patricia Hancock from Hancock Kikos in Ga. We’ve known these folks for years and were excited to add more of their herd’s genetics to ours.
Lorie, Mike, Pat, Jerry from (L) to (R)
While Mason and Lorie took a nap in the truck, Colton found ways to stay entertained while I stood in line to checkout after the sale.
Colton staying busy after the sale.
Thanks again to our customers that we met in route to TN. We are appreciative that you have recognized the quality we have sought out in our herd and decided to use them in your respective breeding programs. We will be traveling SouthWest again next week on on way to the Cream of the Crop sale in Corydon, IN. We still have a few goats left for sale and will also have room for transport in both directions.
Goat Delivery
On Friday September 21st, 2012 we will be heading to Gray, TN for the Appalachian Kiko Invitational Sale. We have sold a PB Kiko Buck of our own that we will be delivering on the way down. We also have 2 other tentative deliveries to make on the way down. If you are looking for a good Kiko Buck for this Fall’s breeding and would like to meet us on our route, please give us a call to see what is available. Our website and blog for sale pages are not up to date. We do have a few doelings and bred does also available. We should also have some room on our way home to haul goats if anyone is interested in a goat at the sale but are unable to get them home, feel free to reach out to us for availability.
Goat Transfer
A few weeks ago we arranged to sell a trailer load of goats to a friend of ours who has a barn where he feeds them before transporting them to the New Holland, PA livestock auction at peak times during the year. Ed and Becky Morgan run Quicken Farm near Romney, WV. It’s about a 3 hours drive for us but Ed was kind enough to meet us part way. Ed has a nice setup where he brings his digital livestock scale on his truck and then weighs the goats individually as they pass from our trailer to his larger gooseneck trailer. He also brings his checkbook and pays you on the spot for the goats. I’m sure we got a few funny looks as we sat there along that busy Frostburg, MD road transferring goats from trailer to trailer but I never noticed once as I watched the scales. Ed pays within a few cents of New Holland prices and that is just fine with us. We saved several hours in a truck and a hotel stay. We sold everything from 50% buckling to Purebred Kiko Bucklings that weren’t up to our breeding stock standards and a coupe of mature does that had stubborn hoof issues that we cannot tolerate. Those does and their kids both went on the trailer just to be safe.
When I arranged to meet Ed in MD I immediately started looking around for some hay local to that area. I knew that it was more expensive to bring the trailer back empty than it would be to fill it full of really good second cutting square bales. I was able to locate just enough to fill the trailer and give me something to do when I got home. We actually didn’t get home until very late that night because we also crammed in a visit with some family members just to keep us from sitting still too long that day. The hay got put in the barn the next morning and I’m sure the does will enjoy it this winter as they start kidding in January.
It was the call you always dread as a livestock owner. You see we were on the road 3 hours from home delivering goats and buying hay when the phone rang. My buddy was stopping by to check water troughs for me while we were gone because the heat was pretty intense and all of the creeks are bone dry due to the recent drought. He said he had everyone watered and was getting ready to leave when he saw a big white goat in the driveway.
Turns out, this was truly a “Big White Goat” who goes by the name MRG Diesel. Diesel is actually more yellow these days than white because he has been wearing his working clothes for a few weeks now. It is still unclear if Diesel ‘jumped the fence’ or went through it because it is 8 strands of high tensile electric wire that was not electrified at the time. We do know that he did not get in with any other does at the time but for reasons like this we are glad to have and utilize DNA parentage verification as a tool on our farm.
I instructed my novice goat handler friend over a static filled cell phone line to shut the gate on the driveway, grab a bucket, and coax Diesel into the yearling buck paddock which was electrified until we returned. Note: The goat wrangler below is at least 6’4″.
Diesel Lookin’ for Love in all the wrong places
Wouldn’t you know it, Diesel wasn’t happy in a field of bucks that he had thought looked better from across the road. You see, the smell in the air he kept sniffing was coming from all of the does in heat with HEMI next door. After a day of talking to the girls through the fence and one head butting season with HEMI through the fence, we decided there might be a safer place for this rutting buck. We loaded Diesel up in the trailer and took him to my friend’s farm. He runs Purebred Kiko bucks over full-blood Boer does and sells very nice and very big 50/50 crosses. He had some yearling does that needed bred by an outside buck and Diesel was awarded the contract. He should be safe for now until all of the activities calm down around the farm. We will miss him for the short time that he is gone but he will have plenty of great forage in his new pastures with his handful of does to breed. We took Warsaw there to vacation last year and he came back about 30 pounds heavier on his lush pastures.
If you are looking for a good commercial herd sire, check out my friend’s 2 50/50 Kiko Boer bucks he has for sale. I posted these bucks earlier in the year and they were very impressive looking when I saw them again this weekend. Click on the link below to see these bucks and their sire https://mrgoats.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/hybrid-vigor/
On Monday August 13th, we moved HEMI out of a pasture full of bucklings through the cow pasture surrounding the barn and into the pasture where the does were grazing. All-in-all this went much smoother than expected. You see, HEMI isn’t one for handling. We should have known what to expect when he had to be lassoed as a yearling when we picked him out in GA. He’s only gotten wilder since spending the last few years in the hills of Wild and Wonderful West –by-God-Virginia.
HEMI and Loverboy grand-daughter
He’s by no means ‘mean’ but would better be described as flighty. I should have bought a lasso and learned how to use it by now. HEMI has been such an easy keeper that all I am required to do for the most part is open a gate and let him go through it on his own accord. He had been talking to the does through a small section of shared fence row for a few days to the point that I thought someone was going to get injured in the process. We thought about waiting a few more weeks to start the breeding process but there were obviously does in heat and a buck in rut so we let them have their way.
HEMI and Southwest Cisco grand-daughter
Let’s hope that we don’t wind up regretting this group decision in January when we are freezing our butts off ear tagging kids in the dark, after work, with 2 young ones by our sides. As one would expect HEMI went directly to the girls in need that he had been courting through the fence. Once they were taken care of, he then decided to see if anyone else was ready and just didn’t know it.
HEMI checking does
At one point during the performance, he decided that beating up a willow tree might be a good way to show off for the ladies, or maybe it was a way of getting out some frustration.
HEMI in rut
Our 2 other breeding bucks this year have also been staying busy with their respective groups of does. This will be Warsaw’s second kid crop born here and we are excited to see how they are again this year.
WARSAW in hot pursuit
MRG Diesel already has 2 kid crops under his belt in OH but this will be his first one to hit the ground back home. We have some of his 2012 kids as well and they are thick and meaty just like him.
MRG DIESEL
We were contacted a couple of weeks ago by an Ohio couple that we had sold a starter herd of goats to a couple of years ago because they had decided to leave the goat business. They were asking our advice on dispersing their herd. I knew exactly which goats we had sold them and if possible I wanted to bring them back home. They had purchased 4 Gandalf doelings and a HEMI x Georgia buckling. This starter herd had produced well for them and they also had kids on them that were just about ready for weaning from this year’s crop. In addition, they had a PB Kiko doe with unrelated genetics from another Ohio Kiko Farm and some percentage goats.
QFK Gandalf
We were most interested in the Gandalf daughters because we had lost him due to Minengial Worm (Deer Worm) after he lost his second battle with it in 4 years. QFK Gandalf was our first Kiko buck and he was a very good one. He was the son of 007 by Tasman Zorro. He was very docile and parasite resistant. He passed this along to his kids as well, many of our early entries in the MD Goat Forage Test were Gandalf sons and we had several in the top rankings for parasite resistance and parasite resilience. Gandalf also sired the high selling PB Kiko Does at the 2006 & 2009 IKGA Kiko Fest auctions. All of the Gandalf kids we ever raised were sold. Like many producers, we ran one buck with our does and sold the doelings every year to prevent inbreeding. After Gandalf had passed, we had regretted selling all of his doelings. We now had a chance to bring back 3 proven does out of Gandalf that we had sold as doelings.
MRG Diesel – NZ Kiko Buck
The buckling we had sold them MRG Diesel, has grown into a spectacular herd sire and looks very nice at 2 years of age. Diesel is a 100% Fullblood New Zealand Kiko buck by HEMI (Terminator XX son) and Georgia (Waysu Goliath’s Keeper daughter).
Terminator XX
I’ve seen both of this buck’s grandsires in person and I can say that Diesel has the horns of Terminator XX and the build of Keeper. We are anxious to watch his continued maturation into a full grown adult buck.
We sold Diesel and his twin brother MRG GT when they were under a year old and they have both turned into giants.
MRG GT
We are very excited to watch their full brother from this year’s kid crop mature. He and his twin sister out of HEMI x Georgia were the best performing kids in the crop with 90 day weights of 60lbs and 50lbs respectively.
MRG #1100 HEMI x Georgia
Lorie and I decided that we would bring these goats back home as well as the PB Kiko doe and their kids. We receive calls daily from other producers looking for Kiko does and we always have room for a few more breeding does, especially when they are parasite resistant Gandalf daughter. The does are all in quarantine with Diesel at this time and we should have kids on the ground this fall from them. It just made sense for us to quarantine the does and Diesel together to see more of their kids on the ground sooner. Thanks again Mary & Jeff for extending the opportunity to us to bring these amazing goats back home. We look forward to breeding these Gandalf daughters to HEMI next year.
M. R. Goats 