YOU can take the kids out of Cootamundra but you can't take Cootamundra out of the kids, at least not among these goats.

Cootamundra Kid is a vertically-integrated goat meat enterprise making waves in the Sydney market.

The Riverina business supplies pasture finished, young kid goat carcasses to a large Nepalese community on Sydney's north shore.

It was launched seven years ago by the Ramsay and McLelland families to value add to their goat-meat enterprise.

A herd of 1600 stud and commercial does are run alongside a Dorper-cross lamb enterprise by the Ramsays on their Cootamundra farm.

The McLellands handle the slaughtering, distribution and marketing of the goat meat from their Sydney base.

Suzie McLelland said Cootamundra Kid began as a boutique, high-end butchered product sold direct to restaurants.

The business has now evolved to primal cuts and carcasses being retailed through a Neutral Bay butchery.

Specifications are tight with 10-11 month old goats dressing at 12-16kg, but not necessarily milk fed.

All goats must be a minimum of third-cross Boer blood.

Suzie said the business was turning over 20 carcasses a week but would soon hit at least 50.

Farm gate prices are $4/kg (dressed) while the meat retails for $11-$21/kg.

"We have high hopes for the brand and the product so will be pushing to increase our volume hopefully in the next six months," Suzie said.

"We aim to get goat meat onto the menu and off the specials board in restaurants."

Roughly 20,000 meat goats are slaughtered each week on Australia's eastern seaboard, with the nation ranked as the world's biggest goat exporter.

The meat is popular with health conscious and ethnic consumers, and restaurants.

Colin Ramsay, a geologist by profession, was introduced to goat meat while working in the Middle East.

He realised the global opportunities for the product and bought a Cootamundra farm in 1998 to put his ideas into practice.

Historically, the district had supported wool sheep and cropping but the combination of granite loams and rocky ridges proved ideal for goats.

The 1000ha property is run by Colin, his wife Lyn, son Rob and daughter-in-law Julie.

Suzie McLelland is Colin's daughter and she and her husband, Rob, run Cootamundra Kid from their Sydney home.

The family arrived at Cootamundra with 100 registered full-blood does and added 3000 feral does from the NSW Western Division.

They have set about developing an Australian Boer, an animal bred up from a rangeland, cashmere or angora female base, and adapted to Australian conditions.

They are also refining an environmentally adapted composite, called the Australian Meat Goat, based on a second or third-cross Boer.

A nucleus stud herd of 100 full-blood South African Boer does is used to supply bucks for the 1500-doe Australian Boer and Meat Goat breeding program.

"We keep the cream of the progeny from this stud herd and sell the rest into the live export market to Malaysia or to other Australian breeders," Colin said.

He said commercial full blood bucks usually sold for $500-$800 while stud bucks can be priced from $2000 to $10,000.

"The majority of producers have 50-300 does and use the goats for weed control, meat production, live export or showing," Colin said.

"But there is a small number who want to be seriously commercial and run them like sheep.

"You are not even close to making money in the meat game unless you are talking thousands of animals."

The goat herd is complemented by 1000 Dorper-cross ewes, bred up from a Merino base and using White Dorper rams.

"We originally started with a Merino ewe enterprise but found we couldn't live with the 60-70 per cent weaning rates, death rates and the presence of ovine Johnes Disease in the area," Colin said.

He said that from day one they felt that climatic conditions would become drier and tougher, so their focus turned to an enterprise that could withstand rougher, hotter conditions.

"At the time, sheep prices collapsed and we were taking loads of cast-for-age ewes to the abattoir, but goat prices jumped," he said.

"We started putting a terminal White Dorper sire over our Merino ewes.

"We have now been through eight failed springs and the goat and Dorper sheep system has survived."

Colin said the high dressing percentage of the Dorper-cross lambs was not appreciated in the physical auction market so lambs were sold direct or to restockers.

This year, he will keep the tops as replacements and sell the tail portion to fatteners or over the hooks.

The bulk of the Dorper-cross ewe lambs are usually sold to breeders.

"We recently sold up to 400 September-October drop Dorper-cross lambs, 32-35kg live, for $57 but prices are much better if the lambs are finished to 20-22kg carcass weight," Colin said.

"The Dorper cross do well on stubbles and are good converters of low-quality food.

"They require no crutching although we still shear the first and second cross.

"Our weaning percentages have increased dramatically to over 100 (per cent), and the bare breech means no fly problems."

The family also runs a small cropping program as part of their pasture-improvement regime.

This year, 200ha of oats have been sown for grazing, hay and grain.

What is particularly noticeable around the property is the lack of electric goat-proof fencing, although most fences have been renewed.

"There is a great myth that goats jump fences but they actually go under a fence," Colin said.

"So we put in an eight line hinge joint fence on steel pickets with a top barb and pay attention to the foot.

"Conventional wisdom dictates electric outriggers but we have found them a complete waste of time.

"In this hilly grazing country we just can't keep the current in the wire enough."

Pastures are mainly based on phalaris and lucerne, while landcare works have resulted in up to 100,000 trees being planted.

The family aims for two primary meat markets of domestic and export.

Feral and first-cross animals with heavier carcasses of 15kg and more are sold into the lower price domestic market while the 10-14kg Boer second-cross kids carcass supplies the capretto (baby goat) market.

Colin said the capretto market was fussy and demanded second-cross Boers for yield and tenderness.

The young goats are grass finished except in autumn-winter when they are supplemented with grain or pellets.

Does kid in September-October with marking percentages of 100-110 per cent, and the progeny weaned in November.

"Last year we scanned 1100 does and marked 1200 kids," Colin said. "Of those, we take out 100-200 males for sale as entires for the lower end buck market (Australian Boers).

"The balance of 400-500 males are sold progressively.

"Our US export market has been affected by the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market. But prices are now up to 190c/kg and rising."