At least some supplementary feeding is necessary to produce quality cross-bred animals or to improve goats within a breed. This can be done sensibly without making pen animals of them. What and how much any animal is able to eat has to have a bearing upon its size and development. It continually distresses me to hear breeders talk of shaping animals and their habits to fit human preferences. Disbudding and deliberate bottle feeding of kids are two items of concern.
Horns are the only means of defense available to goats.
When goats leave Onion Creek Ranch to become breeding stock in some other part of the country or world, we never know what conditions they will be confronting. If we've made them human dependent, we've condemned them to death if they go to an environment so tough and native that they cannot compete. We all want to produce the best meat goat stock possible. To do this, breeders need to become focused on both where we want to go and how we plan to get there . Let's not confuse frame size and height with amount of marketable meat.