Learn about meat goats at home

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Though it hasn’t turned up on many restaurant menus, goat meat is one of the most widely consumed meats in the world.
With a taste somewhere between beef and venison – and less fat than chicken – goat meat is an alternative for dinner and a growing option for livestock producers.
Penn State Cooperative Extension in Bedford County is offering a distance education course, Meat Goat Home Study, to provide a better understanding of the basics of meat goat production.
Lessons. The lessons can be completed either over the Internet and e-mail or as a print-based correspondence course.
The six lessons of the course cover basic production information, reproduction, nutrition, health, marketing and financial information for meat goat production.
The course is designed to help individual producers by tailoring worksheets to specific operations.
How it works. Participants in the course read one lesson per week and then complete and return worksheets to Greg Strait at Penn State Extension’s Fulton County office.
Strait will answer questions and provide personal comments and suggestions for how to improve each participant’s operation.
The cost of the course is $35 if completed through the Internet/e-mail option and $50 if completed through print-based correspondence.
The lessons are available anytime at http://bedford.extension.psu.edu/agriculture/goat/goat%20lessons.htm.
Registration deadline for the next course is Jan. 25, and sessions will begin Feb. 1.
For more information, contact Melanie Barkley by phone at 814-623-4800 or by e-mail at meh7@psu.edu.