ALTHOUGH his heart lies with sheep and wool, Winton's Ian Elliott has found his rangeland goat enterprise, now in its 10th year, an increasingly valuable part of his business.
He and his wife Sharon have about 4000 goats running alongside 6500 sheep and 800 cattle at Eskdale, north-east of Winton.
When about 300 feral goats made their way onto the place a decade ago, Ian decided to put a few Boer goats in with them and see how they worked.
Within the first 12 months he could see that goats would be a worthwhile addition and expanded into the purchase of stud nannies in order to breed his own sires.
The arms of Ian's goat enterprise now include running a depot and purchasing animals from fellow producers, which he delivers himself either to Western Exporters abattoir at Charleville or to Darwin for live export to South East Asia.
Although relatively new, starting just last year, the latter trade has expanded from one truckload of 600 head to a possibility of three this year, including an order of 20 extra large billies for the Sultan of Brunei's dinner table.
Most of his output goes to Charleville, though - 3000 head so far this year.
The minimum dressed weight is 10kg, and with ferals dressing out at about 42 percent with their skin off, Ian likes to keep to a 26kg liveweight minimum.
Although they are very easy to care for, only needing ear-marking, along with dehorning and tagging for the export market, Ian has spent more than $20,000 on a new set of yards to handle them, including his own design for drafting.
"Running them up a race gives them too much stress - they turn round or they jump on each other - so I invented my own," he said.
It's similar to a pound yard in concept and means Ian is able to draft a mob of 2000 head by himself with the aid of dogs in quick time.
The sheepyards at the 13,000ha Eskdale property weren't suitable for handling goats, with too many broken legs sustained from animals attempting to jump out.
He says they are easy to handle once you understand them.
"You just have to work out their flight zone and work accordingly," he said.
Most of the mustering is done by Ian himself in his ultralight, which he says is often better than people on the ground on motorbike, which can put too much pressure on.
The other expense has been fencing to contain their wandering habits.
"I started all electric and put about 80km in, but that has been a failure. Native millet grass piles up on it and then with drizzly rain, it was shorting out."
Instead, he is turning to an eight-wire netting fence with a barb top and bottom.
Although very efficient at weed control, Ian believes you can't really fatten goats for sale and use them for weed management at the same time.
"If you want them to do a proper job, they've got to be hungry, and you don't have much of a goat left at the end," he said.
"They do a great job on prickle bushes, though, and they've eaten all our mimosa, too."
The greatest advantage for Ian in running goats is that it can offer an income for most months of the year.
"Our normal income from wool comes around July or August, and we sell cattle in May and September, so there's only a small block of a few months when money's coming in. Now, there's money every month if I want it."
To give goat production in western Queensland a critical mass requires others breeding rangelands goat herds as well, and so Ian is hosting an MLA-supported forum on-property on Wednesday, June 19.
It will be looking at the current state of the goat industry, wild dog control and the nutritive value of rangeland plants, as well as offering a tour of the Eskdale goat-handling facilities and herd.
The president of the Goat Industry Council of Australia, Glenn Telford, is enthusiastic about the concept, saying that a strong rangeland goat-production sector would deliver flow-on benefits to all goat producers by underpinning the demand for and supply of goat meat.
The day gets under way at 10am and more information is available from state trade and investment officer Morgan Gronold at (07) 4651 2997.
"Goats present a very real opportunity in the region and are being seriously considered by an increasing number of producers," he said.
Speakers include private consultant Peter Schuster giving an overview of global trends, the size of the industry and market opportunities.
