A Successful Boer Goat Stud In The Hantam Karoo

Careful management and marketing are both crucial in Boer goat production. Pip Nieuwoudt of Nama Stud, the oldest Boer goat stud in the Western Cape, spoke to Jeandré du Preez about his management strategy and how he tapped into the Middle Eastern market.

- Jeandré du Preez

The Nieuwoudt family farms on Kromrivier near Clanwilliam in the Western Cape. Their history with Boer goat farming began in 1959 when Pip Nieuwoudt’s father, Rens, introduced the breed to the farm.

Unfortunately, predation by the Cape mountain leopard made it almost impossible to continue farming with goats on Kromrivier.

“The Cederberg is a conservation area. We tried farming ‘green’, but the leopards caused tremendous damage,” explains Pip, who is the sixth-generation Nieuwoudt to farm on Kromrivier.

To continue farming Boer goats, he bought the 4 000ha Hantamsdrift farm outside Nieuwoudtville in the Hantam Karoo in 2007. Today, he runs a flock of 350 Boer goats, as well as Mutton Merino and Saddle Horse studs.

SCARCE FORAGE

The Hantam Karoo is an arid region that makes farming extremely difficult, especially in the summer months and under drought conditions, when forage becomes scarce. Fortunately, goats are relatively hardy and can optimally utilise available vegetation; Pip’s Boer goat flock forages on trees, shrubs and Karoo bushes.

Due to the current ongoing drought in this region, farming conditions have become even more challenging than usual: the farm received less than 25mm of rain during the past year. Under these circumstances, toxic plants are often the only green matter that survive, and the kids tend to feed on these.

Despite the current poor state of veld forage, Pip does not feed his goats any additional fodder. Instead, he moves them to the floodplain next to the river running though the farm, where they graze on the pods of the Prosopis tree, an alien invasive species. “These are high in protein and serve as a good supplementary feed.”