Get 100% Pure Sawyer Bloodline Spanish Goats To Improve Your Genetics From A Ranching Family With Over 100 Years Of Experience.
About Our Goat Ranch
After 43 years in the oil industry, working all over the world, Preston and Sarah Sawyer Neely returned to their part of the family ranch. The Sawyer family has been in the ranching business in Sutton County since the late 1800s when Sarah’s grandfather, Edwin E. Sawyer Sr. came from Maine to Texas to seek his fortune.
Uncle Wesley Sawyer, like many ranchers in West Texas, kept Spanish Goats. Upon Wesley’s death, his nieces and nephews inherited his ranch. At that time, on the Edwin Sawyer ranch, Eddie Sawyer, Sarah’s brother, developed an interest in the Spanish Goats from the Wesley Sawyer line and began to breed those Spanish goats to bring out their strengths. He used a herd consultant and started culling on undesirable traits. When Angelo State University started a buck performance test, he began sending the Sawyer bucks to the test. Upon the death of Edwin and Lura Sawyer, the Sawyer ranch and the livestock, including the superior Spanish Goat herd, were divided among the four Sawyer children.
With 21 years of selective breeding behind us, we are proud of our progress and continue to work to improve our herd. Today, after 21 years of selective breeding, our Spanish bucks on test have average daily gains of 0.7 lbs/day. For the past several years we have weaned a kid crop of 176%. Our Spanish herd has never been mixed with any other breed, even Boer. We have 100% pure Spanish goats. We put the bucks in with the does in September and have doe kids for sale as early as June/July. All our breed stock bucks are Performance Tested.
Improve your kid crop yield by adding our genetics that record average daily gains up to 0.72 lbs per day and weaned kid crops averaging 170%.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Spanish goats have been in North America since they were introduced from Spain in the 16th Century. Until recent years most of the goats were just left in the pasture to take care of themselves. This allowed the natural selection process to produce hearty, drought and disease resistant, capable of reproducing in the pasture on their own, i.e., with minimal help from their owner. In the last 25 to 50 years the importance of goats has been recognized. Spanish goats can be left pure or cross-bred with other breeds to bring out hybrid vigor.
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Generally, we keep our Spanish goats in the breeding herd for 6 or 7 years, but we have some that are 10 years old and going strong. It seems that the primary factor in their longevity is good pasture conditions and clean water.
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Some people wait until their does are two years old to breed them; however, we breed them in the first year. They need to be a minimum of 60 lbs to reach sexual maturity.
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Our Spanish goats give birth in February/March and the bucks that are selected to be considered breeders enter an 85 to 90-day Performance Test in early June. The test is completed in early September and the bucks are culled a second time. The selected breeders weigh 90 plus pounds. They are ready for breeding.
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Spanish goats come in many colors. We do not select on color. Although the color is not a selection criterion for us, some people prefer certain colors, and we can generally provide you with color preference.
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We cull inferior kid goats when we round them up in the spring, again before breeding, and we cull grown goats at any time when we think they are inconsistent with our goals. Our selection criteria are: Structural Soundness, Skeletal Correctness, Muscularity and Eye Appeal.
