Cummings Goat Ranch is located near Greenville, Texas (east of Dallas). We started out with only five Boer percentage does. As most people with goats, we read every article, website, publication or newsletter that we could find about goats - after we already bought them. We quickly learned that there was most to goats than simply putting them in the pasture and letting them eat. One of the frustrating aspects of being new to the goat business was the fact that most of the veterinarians, the co-op, and the local Ag Extension office had very little to offer that was actually goat specific. There was plenty of literature for cows and sheep, but little for goats. Through the internet and a lot of hands-on experience, we learned how to treat, medicate and feed goats. During this research, we discovered a market in our area for show wethers. The local 4H kids were driving 7 or 8 hours to buy animals at high prices. We decided to make the drive and bring some of the known bloodlines a little bit closer to home. Our first large purchase was 30 percentage does and we bought several others as well. We really like the paints and try to breed toward a variety of colors in our wethers.

After getting a foundation herd, we began the process of breeding higher and higher quality of animals. Each year we seek out a better buck in an attempt to improve our herd. As the kids show our animals and give us feedback on the comments that the judges make, we adjust our next buck to shape our herd in that direction. We do not show our goats ourselves. In fact, we prefer to remain out of the political arena and leave the showing to the kids. We also price our goats to help the kids get good animals without going broke. Our animals consistently place and make the sale against animals that were purchased for twice our cost.

We now have over 100 does and fluctuate from 130 to 200 goats at a time. We spend a lot on time and effort on raising high quality wethers for 4H kids and continually evaluate our methods in an effort to improve the goats even more. Our most recent buck purchase is a Saquatch grandson who has given outstanding kids the past March (2004). We welcome anyone who is getting into goats to call us and ask questions or pay us a visit. We will gladly share any information that we have to offer about Boer goats, specifically those that we breed for wethers. We do have some fullbloods as well, including an Eggsfile granddaughter and grandson, but our focus is on producing high quality wethers at an affordable price. All of our wethers are disbudded, banded, and vaccinated by weaning age in order to meet the needs of the local shows. Before you drive several hours to buy a goat, you might want to pay us a visit. We think you will be impressed with our animals.

Here are a couple of our herd sires when they were kids.