Poll success for pioneering breeder
John Vagg is pioneering poll goats.
Quietly spoken John Vagg is pioneering a bloodline of poll goats, using decades of observation and trials to produce animals that consistently out perform their horned counterparts.
John owns two properties; Orana Station is 33 kilometres northwest of Ivanhoe and Huntingfield Station, 70 kilometres north-west of Wentworth. Initially running Merino sheep, the 29,930 hectares allowed John to also harvest feral rangeland goats each year, and slowly his focus shifted.
On the back of the wool market collapse in 1990 John switched his business to a 100 per cent goat enterprise.
The low cost, low input nature of goats presented an enterprise type that fitted well with John’s single operator business. He upgraded his fences to contain the wiley animals, and began more than 35 years trialing infrastructure design and husbandry practices, focusing on the deliberate selection of desirable genetics. What resulted was the development of a hardy, fertile and high-yielding goat.
John also noticed substantial improvements in the condition of his land, which he attributes to the different grazing habits of goats, compared to sheep. In 2003 John made the decision to add Boer goat genetics to his herds, in an effort to increase animal size and although there were initial difficulties, John persevered. He focused on joining first cross bucks with larger numbers of rangeland does rather than pure Boers.
Through cross-breeding, he has been able to establish a level of Boer influence across his herd. The other focus in John’s breeding herd is the development of a polled line of goats. This began by selecting polled goats that naturally occurred in his harvested goats, and has grown to the point where polled does represent about 75 per cent of the breeding herd.
By running polled and horned bucks in the same paddock and then separating them to be trucked and processed, John has been able to compare the performance of these two genetic lines. At 10 months old, John reckons polled bucks to have dressed an average of 2.4 kilogram heavier then horned bucks. John believes this is primarily due to the reduced energy spent fighting.
Many producers claim the polled trait is associated with a higher frequency of hermaphrodites, but John disputes this. His observations have been that the condition exists in less than one per cent of polled goats, which is similar to the broader population. He does monitor their occurrence closely and if frequency increases, John has a program in place to reintroduce horned bucks in order to increase genetic diversity.
