Goat Farm Business Plan: A Meat Goat Herd's First Year

A meat goat farm earns from kids: does kid once a year, and the kids are sold as market goats at auction, kept back and sold as breeding stock, or raised, processed and sold as goat meat. Breeding stock earns the most per head; goat meat the most per animal raised, and it has to be processed at an inspected plant to be sold by the cut. The plan turns on hay and feed through the winter, the pasture lease, and a first year when the herd hasn't kidded yet. In the example, a Texas Hill Country goat farm starts with $62,200, ends its first year about $5,200 behind before the owner's pay while sales build, and makes about $900 a month at full speed. Below is each part of the plan, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the farm in a paragraph: the herd, the land, who buys, the goals.
• Cost each sale: feed and hay, vet care, hauling or processing.
• Plan sales by product: market kids, breeding doelings, bucks and goat meat.
• Meat sold by the cut is processed at an inspected plant.
• Expect a slow first year: kids come once a year.
• Hay through the winter is the biggest fixed cost.
• TaroStack keeps the freezer counted by cut and lot, and each order's lots on record. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Llano River Boer Goats, a made-up meat goat farm in Mason, Texas, writes:

Llano River Boer Goats keeps 80 Boer does on leased pasture near Mason, sells market kids at the local auction, registered doelings and bucks to breeders and 4-H families, and goat meat cuts, processed at an inspected plant, at a Saturday market. In its first full year it aims to sell about $5,100 a month on average.

Part 2: what a sale costs

The meat line is per pound of cuts: the animal's share of feed, the plant's processing and packaging, and the card fee. Registration fees are in the breeding stock's cost. What a meat label needs is in meat labeling requirements.

Part 3: the herd, the seasons and processing

The does kid in spring; market kids go to auction in summer and fall, and the best doelings are kept back or sold as breeding stock. Goats for meat go to an inspected plant an hour away and come back as labeled cuts for the freezer. A whole goat sold to a family before processing can be custom processed for them instead, the way beef shares are, in custom exempt meat processing.

Part 4: what each product earns

At full speed the business sells $4,880 a month and keeps $3,302.40, 67.7%; market kids bring $1,050 of it.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $2,400 every month: hay and base feed for the herd ($900), pasture lease ($500), vet and herd health ($200), fencing and equipment upkeep ($200), fuel ($200), market fees ($120), insurance ($100), and other costs ($180). Sales start at 10% of full speed:

The year's sales are $34,904, and the business ends it $5,225 behind, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $3,550 of sales a month, in the seventh month. The lowest cash point, −$9,786 in month 6, is covered by the $10,000 of working cash with about $200 to spare. Goat sales come in seasons, kids in spring and sales from summer into fall; the plan spreads them as monthly averages, and starts low because the herd has to kid before there's much to sell.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $52,200 before working cash is earned back in about five years at full speed. Another small herd, kept for fiber, is in alpaca farm business plan, and a goat milk product in goat milk soap business plan.

Get the template

Download the goat farm business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products, each with its price, variable cost and units a month at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales ramping up, profit, cash, the first profitable month, the lowest cash point and whether the working cash covers it; your fixed costs; and the startup budget. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

The plan uses averages. Kidding goes well or badly, hay doubles in a drought year, and by October nobody remembers how many pounds of each cut are left in the freezer.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps the freezer counted by cut and lot, and each order's lots on record.

Each processing a lot. Each trip to the processor comes back as lots of cuts with their dates, received into the freezer by item and weight.

Orders by customer. Shares, market orders and restaurant orders are sales orders, with a picking list and the lots each one took.

Counts in the freezer. The freezer can be counted on a phone with no signal, and what runs short before the next processing date shows in days of cover.

Lots, sales orders and counts are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How much does it cost to start a goat farm?

The example budgets $62,200, including $10,000 of working cash; the does themselves is the biggest item.

Is a goat farm profitable?

It can be: the example makes about $900 a month at full speed before the owner's pay, after a first year that ends behind.

How much does it cost to raise a meat goat?

In the example, about $85 for a 70-pound market kid in feed, vet care and the auction's fees, against $260 at the sale.

Do I need inspection to sell goat meat?

To sell it by the cut, yes: it's processed at an inspected plant. A whole goat sold to a family before processing can be custom processed for them.