Mr Hog,your welcome,Doc Nemo can add to help us out.
Proud To Be A Independant
mikey

Mr Hog,goats love banana leaves,give me a few days to get the information posted,goat food is cheaper than hog chow,research is always a good idea,boiling bananas and their skins are good for goats also.
Later: Independant Producer Region 7
mikey

Mr Hog,the Philippine local native is a meat goat,only produces enough milk for kidding,once you breed a local dam to a dairy sire the babies will be f1s and become dairy goats after the first generation,the key here is a top of the line sire for breeding.When buying goat(s) always look for goats that where born twins or better,alot of first time mothers only have a single at first.The cost of a herd I cannot help you with,one would have to check around their area to see what they sell for.Sometimes one can get a better deal if you buy a goat as a meat goat rather than as a breeder,tell the breeder you are looking for a meat goat,but when you get it back to your farm one uses it for breeding<I have done this myself,saves money,meat goats are for meat no one really cares what colour it is.The golden rule always buy the best that one can afford on their budget.The shelter for goats is not like building hog shelters.The first one we built was too low to the ground only 1 meter,our new one is approx 2  meters or 7 feet off the ground makes for easy cleaning.Copra and bamboo wood,like to use metal roof for maintance purposes.Research is the key,once you get your meat stall at your local market,buy a goat a process it and see how well it sells,if it sells well,then you know you have a local market for your product. Hope this may be of some help to you.
Like Doc Nemo said the native is small,once bred to a good sire the new f1 (hybred) is a better quailty product.The native has a good resistance to many health problems,and the native is a good breeder,In terms of meat production:the native is tops in 1)adaptability and reproductive.It has been my personal opinion and observation that mixes or crossbreeds or hybrids are healthy goats over the many fullbloods.
Independant Producer Region 7:
mikey

Mr Hog,most plant the grasses etc. on their land,having a banana plantation next door,one might be able to get cheap banana leaves.In the process now of getting together the different types of plants one can feed their stock,will list them for everyone.
Independant Producer Region 7
mikey

Its the high operating cost(s) to feed the livestock.plain and simple,feed millers also import certain things to mill in their feed,the feed we feed our livestock with.Farming all over the world is under the gun,the hardworking farmer trying to make a living is having to compete with the corporation farm(s) that are now taking over.Countries in South America produce cheap canned spam.Then one has currency value,when the peso value rises,imports are cheaper to buy.Its just business boys,everyone is looking out for number one.Mr Hog,  think there is a sort of union,there is a hog producers association,they are the ones who are suppose to speak on behalf of the hog producer(s) in country,no comment from them yet??
Do not sweat it boys,if a farmer had nothing to complain about,one would not be farming.

Independant  Producer:     mikey

Management Skills Required
Penning animals for a cut and carry system requires different and more advanced skills than rearing free grazing animals.First feed must be brought to the animals,and a common problem is providing too little feed.Also,special care must be taken for animals needs such as hoof trimming and dehorning (personal choice) to ensure safe and healthy confinement.Breeding habits and signs for each animal must be learned by the farmer,in order to ensure timely breeding of penned animals.Cut and carry animal production systems are the future for most of Asia.Increasing population pressures make the confinement of animals necessary.Free grazing animal systems compete with food production,and contribute significantly to the destruction of Asias remaining forests.

Better Control of Animals:
Having animals penned allows for easier control and management of the herd,Ease of handling and more farmer/caretaker interaction allows better management.It also permits regular monitoring of desease,breeding cycles and parturition.

Labor Demand:
One of the complaints about the cut and carry animal husbandry system is that a high labor input is needed to manage such a system.The penning of animals requires that the feed be brought to the animal,instead of the animal finding its own feed.Also water must be supplied.A penned animal requires constant attention,rather than the out of sight out of mind approach to a free grazing animal.
The cut carry production system for animals is not a new concept,It has recently been popularized in the Philippines with the SALT 2 system,but Asia farmers have been using a similar system for hundreds of years.

Independant Producer Philippine Region7
mikey

In the Philippines,the wet season is a critical period for grazing animals.It is the time when livestock grazing in pastures experience problems of poor nutrition and gastrointestinal worms.Often,fields used as grazing land during the off season are planted in crops during the rainy season.Ruminants such as goats,cattle and buffaloes must then search for other areas where they can feed.Rainy days also bring worm problems,because the warm.moist enviroment encourages  the worm eggs to hatch into infective larvae.These larvae move onto the moist leaves of grasses and shrubs,which the rumminants feed on.If animals are allowed to feed,whether loose or tetered,just after rain or early in the morning when grasses are still moist with dew,they may eat leaves covered in infective larvae.These larvae then mature into full grown worms in the stomach of the animals,The worms decrease the production of meat and milk,and reduce the ability of the animals to resist infections.To alleviate these problems,farmers generally avoid grazing their animals on rainy days,or in the early hours of the morning when the sun has not yet dried the dew.Some raisers may confine their animals in pens during the whole rainy season.Others may give their animals a drench with a chemical dewormer,adopt a rotational pattern of grazing,or feed their animals leaves of trees and shrubs which are known to have antihelminthic properties.           Philippine Council for Agriculture

Independant Producer Philippine Region 7
mikey

In Asia agriculture in the future,there will be an ever-increasing need to maximize production from limited resources.Cut-and-carry animal production systems show great potential,while the use of nitrogen-fixing forage crops will make those systems more productive and sustainable.
Independant Goat Producer Philippines Region 7
mikey

Just a reminder:anyone with atleast 1 breeding doe in their backyard can be a FREE MEMBER of the INDEPENDANT PRODUCERS OF THE PHILIPPINES just list your region.We may be a loose group of farmers but we count also in the big picture,the larger our numbers the more say we will have in any future decisions about our business venture(s).Thanks to Doc.Nemo for starting this forum to help the small producer,unable to afford the member fees for the larger federations and attending Govt. forums on goat raising.I hope all information here may be of some use to any or all who will to use it.I hope to see other producers (posting) so we may help each other.    Good Farming

Independant Goat Producer Philippine Region 7
mikey

Doc & Sara,your on,will be ready in 2008.
Independant producer region 7 Philippines
mikey

There are times when the smaller producer,wishing to improve their herd  can use LINEBREEDING.Linebreeding is the breeding of closely related animals,example,father to daughter and grandaughter,mother to son and grandson,a good pratice is to never breed FULL BROTHERS and SISTERS.Some say in-breeding is line breeding gone wrong,there is some truth in this,this is a useful management pratice to use to build up a herd,remember the set goal is to improve your herd (hybred vigor) and not kill your herd (loss of hybred vigor results in goats becoming unhealthier and die soon than expected).We have line bred fullblood anglos with no foreseen problems,RECORD keeping is so important in this bus.Alot of producers keep only 1 sire for breeding,it is written to replace your breeding sire every 3 years to prevent in breeding.When buying a sire,buy one that is the best your budget will afford and start from that point.Remember keep records.

Region 7 Independant producer
mikey

Mr Hog,if you had a stall in the market to sell pork,you could also sell goat meat,and may be goat milk??
Region 7 independant goat producer Philippines
mikey

Steelhead fishing,ya thinking about it alot.

In view of the cost of chemical dewormers and the preference of consumers for organically produced goats,most farmers resort to traditional ways of tackling worm problems.These include giving a drench of soy sauce or feeding animals with the leaves of Madre Cacao (gliricidia sepium),custard apple (anona squamosa).jackfruit (artocarpus heterophtlus) or the Manila tamarind (pithecellobium duice).Farmers may also feed their animals on the leaves and young seeds of ipil-ipil and the stems and leaves of the sow thistle (streblus asper).This drench is the common soysauce,made from a mixture of soybean extract,water iodized salt,natural caramel colour and 0.1% sodium benzoate.If farmers observe signs of parasitism in their animals,they may apply as a drench a bottle of about 350 ml. soy sauce per animal to cattle and buffaloes.Goats are given about half this amount.Sow thistle and jackfruit leaves are boiled first and the liquid applied as a drench once a day for at least one week.Young pods of ipil-ipil- are given ad libitum when they are available.

Good Luck
mikey independant producer region 7

This may be of some help to other producers:alto we have tried this ourselves with only limited sucess it is taken from SALT 2 Technlogies:
Concentrates (high energy) Dairy goats
Give them feeds in the morning and in the afternoon
18% first class rice bran
23% corn,grain or rice
21% copra meal
36% ipil-ipil leaf meal
1% limestone

A good forage mixture
55% desmondium rensonii
20% congesta
20% gliricidia sepium
 5% ipil-ipil
Goats given daily rate of forage at least 10% of their body weight.Half in the morning and the other half in the afternoon,provide your goats with salt and plenty of water every day.
When using the cut and carry system,be careful when cutting during the rainy season,best to cut greens above knee level,reason,worms on the plants,the rainy season is a problem for all goat producers.

Independant producer region 7
mikey

Mastitis (infected udder) sometimes happens because your floor pens and feeding area are not clean enough and bacteria enters the udder through the teats.If you use a wooden floor,one must keep the floor as clean as possible at all times,goats hate to stand on wet floors and can develope hoof problems.
mikey             independant producer region 7