Written by - Logan Hollen, JABGA Vice President

Every 2 years we see athletes take part in Olympic sports, summer sports followed by winter sports on a 4-year rotation of each. These athletes have a strict balanced diet that allows them to fuel their bodies to go out and perform these insane tasks in front of millions. As most sit on the couch watching these athletes, they say things like “wow I could never do that”, “wouldn’t that be nice” or “yeah maybe 20 years ago”. Everyone saying things like this is only seeing the final product, a finished and polished athlete ready to compete. What people don’t see is the hard work and dedication that goes into creating the physique that we see on our TVs.

The Boer Goat is no different. These animals are filled with muscle expression and have the body capacity to look, feel and act like the professional athletes you see on tv. Now that you know what your animal can be capable of, what must we feed to get your goat to look its best on show day? All goats are different and will require tweaking feeds here and there but before you tweak too much make sure that animal is on the feed for a minimum of 2-3 months so your animal has time to develop the changes that will come with each specific feed formula.

In terms of specifics and what you should look for when feeding your athlete, 3 main factors should be at the forefront. Those are fat, fiber and protein. These are the 3 main components of a feed tag and can drastically change how your goat will feel, behave and perform. In terms of ingredients and the specifics I look for a barley-based feed to fill in across the shoulders and across the loin of my bucks and does. 

When finding, creating or building your athletes’ diet it is important to ask, research and test. Ask your mentors in the industry what works for them and what they recommend. Research and get the information for yourself. We live in such a digital age where you can have any and all information in just a few keystrokes. Use this to look up what ingredients are and what they can accomplish. Lastly, test what you’re feeding. When feeding a new formula or new ingredients it is important that you know what it will change and affect. Every animal will have a different change or reaction to new feeds, so it is important to have base understanding and knowledge. Test groups in animals also help you to see the difference in what the feed is doing for your program. Barn blindness is a real thing. When you go out to the same barn and see the same goats each and every day it can be a challenge to see a different and feel defeated while thinking your feed isn’t performing in the way you thought it would. When you can compare either animal to animal or pictures and weights, it can help you see and adjust as time goes on.

All in all, make sure you are feeding your athlete the feed that they need to go out and compete in the showring. “There is a direct connection between what you put into it and what you get out of it."- Michael Phelps (28-time Olympic medal winning swimmer)