Daye Goat Intermediaries
31 December, 2018
Participants:
#4, F, 49, 4 children, Farmer, 5th grade
#8, M, 58, 4 children, Farmer, 4th grade
#7, M, 46, 2 children, Farmer, 0 grade
#3, M, 62, 9 children, Farmer, 2nd grade
#12, M, 48, 5 children, Farmer, 6th grade
Jackly: We are here with Mrs. Islande and Fred to carry out an assignment for HEKS EPER. In the framework of development, we are meeting with people involved in the production and sale of goats. The mission of HEKS EPER is to promote the development of the area. You may already know the organization from its work on water capture systems.
We have given each of you a number. Please use this number to identify yourself, rather than your name. You need to say your number before you speak. Thanks in advance for your cooperation and participation. Mrs. Islande, you can begin.
Audience: OK
Islande: Now, the first thing I would like to ask you is, what type of goats do you purchase? What do you look for in a goat that you are to breed? What qualities are most important?
#4: We purchase the best we can find.
Islande: What type of goat? Small? Young? Large?
#4: Yes, we buy young female goats that have potential.
Islande: What about you, sir?
#3: When we go to the market, we examine the goats for sale. We look at their teets to project how they will develop and benefit us. We don’t just buy any goat. We look for goat breeds that can bare multiple offspring, such as “ras 3”…
Islande: How do you know if it is a ras 3 goat? You said you examine the teets, what do you look for?
#3: Well, we examine the mother: how many teets she has, how large they are…if you purchase a goat that only has 3 teets, then it its unlikely to ever have 3 children. She will have 1 or 2, but she doesn’t have enough teets to feed 3 kids. Sometimes it takes time. The mother will have a single kid during her first birth, 2 during her second birth and 3 during her third birth. But it also depends on the breed of goat.
#12: Whenever I purchase a goat, I try to find one that is good looking. I look at its coat. If the coat is curly, smooth and reddish, then you know that it is a quality goat. The size of the waist is important too. You want a goat with a large waist so the quarters can develop a lot of meat.
#3: Yes, the appearance of the goat is important. Beautiful goats sell fast at the market. You don’t want to buy any runt, or else you risk losing your money. For example, if you purchase a goat for 400 dola (2,000 HTG) or 500 dola (2,500 HTG), you have to sell it for 600-700 dola (3,000 – 3,500 HTG) in order to make a profit on your investment.
Islande: Ok. What about you, number 7? You haven’t spoken yet.
#7: I once purchased a goat at the market that only had 2 teets. A female goat. When the time came for it to reproduce it’s stomach swelled. It bore 3 kids, even though it only had 2 teets. So I don’t think it’s the number of teets as much as the breed that determines children…
Islande: So the breed is more important than the number of teets?
(Several people respond simultaneously)
#7: When it comes to bearing young.
#4: When you select a goat to breed, you look for a goat that is standing up. You don’t want a goat is laying down [at the market].
Islande: Why?
#4: Because that goat will be difficult to sell.
Islande: Difficult to sell?
#4: Yes, it’s not a good sign if the goat is laying down on the ground. A goat that is standing will grow big and gain value.
Islande: Does that mean that it is sick?
#4/#3: Yes
Islande: Does it ever happen that you buy a goat, but it dies before you can resell it?
#4: Sure.
#3: It happens from time to time, but not often.
Islande: What causes the goat to die [prematurely]?
#3: Many things. It could die during the journey home from the market.
Islande: As goat herders and breeders, where do you buy and resell goats?
#3: We buy them in Milfò and sell them in Mafran. Sometimes we sell them here in Dayè too, or in Aleyon.
Islande: Where do you buy them?
Audience: Milfò
#3: Sometimes we buy goats here in Dayè, but mostly we buy them in Milfò at the Monday market. We resell them at the Wednesday and Friday markets in Mafran. What we don’t sell, we bring back to Dayè to wait until the next market day. You don’t sell a lot of goats in Dayè because almost everyone raises their own goats.
#4: We also go to Leyon, Previle or Letre to buy and sell goats. Once they start to put on girth, you can sell them.
#3: It depends on where the price is best. Sometimes we’ll check the price at several markets before purchasing a goat, including Milfo and Mafran. That way we maximize our capital. If the merchants don’t have money, we’ll sell them a goat on credit. We collect the money after they have butchered the goat and sold all of the meat at the Wednesday market.
Islande: Do you ever have any trouble purchasing goats? For example, does the government ever confront you for not having the right papers?
#3: Naturally. You need to have papers for all the goats you purchase: if you purchase 1 goat or 10 goats. When you reach Mafran they will demand to see the authorization for all of your goats. You have to provide them with the correct documentation.
Islande: What if you lose [a goat]?
#3: It happens. You can’t stake and tie all of your goats. So you tie some and let the others graze freely nearby. But sometimes those goats wonder and you lose them in the woods.
Islande: How many goats can you purchase in day?
#3: 10, 15 goats.
Islande: And how many do you take to the market at a time?
#3: Sometimes as many as 10, 15.
Islande : What’s the least amount of goats you take?
#3: It depends on the chord. You tie them so they stay together.
Islande : How many?
#3: It depends. Some people have more than others. Sometimes there’s not much to buy in the market, so you buy as many you can find: 1, 2 or 5 goats.
Islande: How much does it cost to register a goat and get papers/title (“lesse passe”)?
8: 50 HTG per title
Islande: Is it the same price for all goats?
#8: Yes
#3: At least for goats it’s the same price
Islande: Who pays for the title during a sale? The buyer or the seller?
Unidentified: The person selling the goat
Islande: And they factor that into the sale price of the goat?
Audience: Yes
Islande: How do you transport the goats [to/from market]? Do other people help you?
#8: We do it as a group. You need multiple people to herd the goats across the river.
Islande: Do you encounter any problems when you buy or resell goats?
#8: Yes
Islande: Among herders, I mean. Do you ever have disagreements?
#8: Sure, there can be problems. Sometimes we lose money reselling goats because there is not a strong market for goats or meat.
#7: Competition between herders can be a problem as well. Sometimes herders buy goats on the road before they can reach the market [speaker uses the term ‘dezod’ to describe this practice, indicating or at least suggesting that it is illegal]. Or they will steal goats from your herd and sell them under false papers. But if you are caught, then you are banished.
Islande: Banished?
#7: They run away. Or they might lose their goats and have to pay for them again.
Islande: OK, I have a follow up question. Does it ever happen that two herders try to buy the same goat? Does that ever create conflict?
Audience: Yes, we have that problem sometimes…
#4: For example, I might offer 400 dola (2,000 HTG) for a goat, but another herder comes along and buys it for 500 dola (2,500 HTG). We would have something to argue about.
#8: Well, that wouldn’t necessarily lead to a fight. The person who offers more money has the right to buy the goat.
Audience: (Agreement)
#8: If a herder sees an opportunity to make profit on a goat, then they will buy it. The goat may not bring in a profit at that purchase price, but It’s their risk to take.
(Moment of silence)
Islande: Does anyone else have any thoughts on that matter? No?
Ok, next question: do you ever use the milk of the goat?
#3: Goat milk? Sure.
Islande: How do you use it?
#3: After a mother gives birth, we wean the kid after 2 months or so. Then you can harvest the mother’s milk. It’s just like cow’s milk, except a goat’s milk is more nutritious. You have to boil it before drinking. You can add sugar for taste.
Islande: Ok…
#3: Some people drink the milk raw.
Islande: Do you sell the milk?
Audience: No
#4: They don’t produce enough to sell.
Audience: There’s not enough.
#4: And we know that the milk is for the baby goat. It needs the nourishment. We try not take it away too soon.
Islande: You save some for the kid?
#4:Yes, because the kid cannot eat on its own yet.
Islande: When is the best time to buy goats on the market? When is the price lowest?
#8: At the start of the school year in September is best. Or during the exam period in June. Lots of people are selling goats to raise money for [school fees]. You can buy goats the rest of the year, but they are expensive.
#3: Right now goats are very very expensive.
Islande: Why is that?
#3: There are many people looking to buy goats, so it drives the price up.
#8: Those people sold cows in December. Now they need goats. In December they were expensive, so they waited until now to buy goats. But the price has increased even more…
Islande: Let me ask you a personal question, why did you choose to be goat breeders?
#8: Well, what made us choose to become goat breeders is because . Everyone engages in some type of commerce. They make 50 HTG to pay for school for their child. We buy and resell goats to help our family in the same way.
Islande: Does anyone want to add something?
#3: Raising and selling goats is our profession. You can make profit if you do it well, make 500 dola (2,500 HTG) in profit. You use that money to send your child to school, buy them shoes, or to replinish your herd.
#7: You see, after you buy a goat and papers for 400 dola (2,000 HTG). You can sell it for a profit of 50 or 80 dola (250 or 450 HTG).
#3: It won’t make you a fortune, but it provides a liviing. You can turn around and sell a goat that you buy for 400 dola (2,000 HTG) for 420, 430 dola (2,100, 2150 HTG) to someone in the community. But if you take it to the market you can sell it for more. A goat can sell for 500 dola (2,500 HTG) at the market in Milfò. 530 dola (2,650 HTG) if it is good specimen.
Islande : 530 dola?
#3: Yes, because the goat has the potential to grow big and bare children.
Islande: How do you raise the goat? Do you feed it fodder? Or put it out to pasture?
#8: If you don’t have enough fodder, then you have to let it graze on the pasture. Sometimes they fall sick, so you take them to the veterinarian for a shot or medicine. Then you need to give it good food so it can recover. We try to keep the goats 2-3 months to fatten them up before reselling them.
Jackly: Ahh, is there a veterinarian in the area?
Audience: Yes
Islande: How many veterinarians are there?
#8: There are 2. One is completing his/her training.
Islande: Do you take your livestock to their house when they are sick?
Audience: Yes
Islande: So they can get vaccines?
Audience: Yes
Islande: Ok, I have a very important question: between your goats and your garden, what is most important? What would you prioritize if you had to choose?
#8: Our garden brings in more benefits… Why? Because then you don’t need to buy food every day. Then you can use the money that you do have to purchase goats. You can’t kill a goat every time you need to eat. The meat doesn’t keep for long. But you can harvest your garden a little each day you need food.
In that sense, raising goats is a secondary livelhood to gardening. Goats help you bring in more money, but they don’t necessarily feed your family. You can use the money from selling goats to purchase supplies or labor for your garden. Or you can sell the harvest from your garden to buy goats. They support each other.
Islande: How do your raise the goats? What happens when it rains?
Audience: Where do we put them?
#8: In the open air.
Islande : You let them free range?
#8: If you have pasture, you can let them graze freely. Or you tie them on a parcel of land. We don’t keep goats inside.
Islande: I see.
#3: Each morning and afternoon we rotate them to a new parcel of land. You have to check on them at least 2 times per day to make sure they have enough food and haven’t got caught on their the rope.
Islande: You continue that regimen until they are ready to be sold?
Audience: Yes
Islande: How do you manage buying multiple goats on market day?
#3: There is a place, like a depot, where they assemble goats to sell.
Islande: When you say a depot, are you talking about a building?
Audience: No it’s not a building…
#3: You see, the market is divided into different sections. There is a section for animals. After buying goats, you look for a place to tie them until they are ready to be transported.
Islande: Like a post?
#8: Yes, after you buy a number of goats, you tie them to a post.
#3: All of us goat breeders are like brothers, colleagues, so we look out for each other. If someone’s goat wonders off, then you call them or corral it yourself.
Islande: Ok. Does everyone have a place at the market?
Audience: No
#4: You look for a free space to tie your goat. Often we tie them together with other herders.
Islande: Do you ever take your children to help you?
#8: Yes, sometimes we go to the market with our children to help bring the goats home.
Islande: Children? Do you take your daughters? Or sons?
#3: Young sons.
Islande: You don’t take your young daughters at all?
#4: We take both of them.
#8: As long as they are out of school.
Islande: When there’s no school?
Audience: Yes
Islande: Do you take your own children, or children from the neighborhood?
#8: No, my own children
Islande: Do you take your sons? Or daughters?
#8: I take both
Islande: And you number 4? Do you take your children with you to the market?
#4: Yes, my children. Both sons and daughters.
Islande: And you, number 7?
#7: Yes, I take my own children…sometimes the neighbor’s children.
#4: Sometimes I go with my husband.
#3: Yes, we all do it the same way.
Islande: Number 12, you haven’t said much…
#12: I just spoke up a little bit ago. I want to let other people have the chance to talk. Yes, I take my children with me as well.
Islande: What about to the markets that are further away?
#4: If it’s too far, then just my husband and I go.
#3: In that case, us goat breeders look out for each other. Like I said earlier, we are like family. For example, I’ll buy 10 goats, my colleague buy 10 goats; and we take turns looking after each others purchases. Then we return with them together.
#3: The goats all follow each other on the road home. We keep track of who each goat belongs to.
#7: We all know which goats are ours. When we return to [Daye], we divide them to take to our homes.
Islande: How you do distinguish between the goats when they are all together?
Audience: We remember. And it’s written on their title.
#4: Yes, the title has a description of the goat’s coloring.
Islande: Ahh, I see…but is there any confusion in identifying the goats?
Audience: No, we know what to look for, how to tell them apart.
#8: We try to organize the goats after buying them so they don’t get mixed up with other herders’ goats.
Islande: But if 3 of you go to the market and each buy 4 or 5 goats, then you have some 15 goats [to keep track of]?
Audience: Yes
Islande: So even if you tie them in the same place, they aren’t mixed together?
Audience: No, they don’t mix.
#4: They are different too. Not all are the same size or price.
#3: Or color.
#8: After you purchase them, you tie them together with a rope. Each of us has our own way of tieing the rope, so that helps us recognize our goats.
Islande: Ok, I want to ask you another question that you should all be able to respond to. If you buy 10 goats, how many do you resell? And how many do you keep to breed?
#3: You wouldn’t just buy any 10 goats. You look for the ones that have promise, that will put on weight. You don’t want a puny goat that has no future…
Islande: Thanks for your response, but I don’t think you follow my question. I want to know what proportion of the goats you keep to breed vs. the goats that you resell.
#8: At least 60% of the goats are raised for slaughter.
Islande: For meat?
#8: Yes. That means that we will keep 40% for breeding. 4 for breeding, 6 for slaughter. You only want to keep the best goats for breeding. But the numbers depend on the quality of goats available at the market.
Islande: Do goat breeders buy goats?
#8: Breeders? Yes, sometimes we need to replenish our herd. And bring in new stock to breed. Goats are one of the most valuable resources to rural residents. We count on them to send our children to school and conduct other business.
Islande: For those of you breeding, buying and selling goats, how many do you have in your pasture?
#8: It depends on the means of each goat breeder or herder. And the time of year. Sometimes we have to sell goats to pay for school fees. But at a minimum we have 6 goats at any time.
Islande: Ok. Right now how many goats do you have?
#8: At the moment I have 8 goats.
#4: Well, when I have money I use it for commerce – to buy and resell products. Now I have 4 goats in my pasture, but I might sell them to raise money for my other commerce because I have to repay a loan.
Islande: Who loaned you the money?
#4: I got a loan from FONKOZE.
(Short silence)
Islande: Does FONKOZE have a representative here?
#3: Yes
Islande: What about you, number 7?
#7: At the moment I have 3 goats. They are good breeding goats.
#12: I only have 2 goats, because I don’t have the means to purchase more.
#3: During the hurricane I lost 6 goats. Now I am only left with 1 goat.
Islande: What about you, how many goats did you lose in the hurricane?
#8: 16.
Islande: Number 4?
#4: I lost 9
Islande: And you number 7?
#7: I lost 11.
Islande: Number 12?
#12: I lost 7.
Islande: The hurricane set you all back a lot! The last question I have is, what are the different ways that you prepare and eat goat here?
#3: Usually a merchant butchers a goat at the market and sells it in cuts. Sometimes you slaughter a goat to celebrate a special occasion, like a baptism. That’s how we eat goats here.
Islande: How do you prepare the meat? Do you fry it, boil it, etc.?
Audience: We fry it. We boil it.
#8: We eat the blood of the goat, we make a stew with the feet and bowels. That’s very good with plantains, good plantains, and miske plantains. We also eat it fried or boiled with yams.
Islande: Do you ever salt and dry the meat?
Audience: Yes
#8: Yes, we smoke it and dry it on roof sheeting
Islande: How long does smoking preserve the meat?
#8: Smoked goat meat can last for around 3 months. Smoked beef last much longer, it doesn’t spoil as easily.
Islande: You smoke it over the fire?
#3:Yes, we hang it over the fire smoke and then dry it under the sun on the roof.
#8: We also harvest the hide to make things, like drums. It can be sold.
Islande: Ahh, you sell goat hides?
#8: Yes, goat hides to make drums.
#3: We remove the hide when we butcher the goat. You scrape it clean and hang it [to dry].
Islande: If you slaugher 4 goats, how many do you use the hide for?
#3: Maybe 1
Islande: You skin one and leave the other 3 hides?
#3: Yes
Islande: Where do you sell the hides?
#8: There are people in the community that buy the hides to cover drums. The demand isn’t great. Sometimes people take them to the markets in Leyon or Mafran to sell.
Islande: Do you do anything with the horns?
#8: No, we don’t really use the horns.
#3: Well, some places use them…
#4: Goats have two sets of horns. We throw away the set higher on their head, but we save the small horns.
#8: Like a little bone.
Islande: Bone klidoup?
#3: There are a couple places where they make handicrafts using the hide and horns, like pouches or cups.
Islande: Interesting. Where is this?
#3: I have seen it done here. I’ve seen people with the horns…
Islande: You’ve seen the horns? Does anyone buy them for handicrafts or other uses?
Audience: No, they don’t buy it.
#3: Most people throw the horns away, so you could collect them for free if you wanted to do something with them.
Islande: Do any of you butcher goats?
#8: We butcher our own goats, but we don’t do it professionally.
Islande: You don’t butcher goats for other people?
Undentified respondent: No
#3: I do sometimes…
Islande: How do they compensate you for this service?
#3: They give me the goat’s neck and some of the cooked meat.
Islande: They don’t pay you [money]?
#3: No, not exactly. But the neck meat is like money.
Islande: Do you ever sell the meat for money.
#3: No
Islande: What benefit do you get from raising goats that you don’t get from other animals, such as sheep, pigs or cows?
#8: You make money faster with goats, to pay for your children’s school. It’s much easier to sell a goat than a cow. And they are less work to keep than pigs. You can graze a goat just about anywhere, while you need to take care where you tie a cow or pig. Goats also produce litters more often, even if the litters are smaller…
#3: Another advantage is that goats have more nutritious meat than pigs. Pork has a good taste in your mouth, but isn’t as healthy. You’ll see a lot of people refuse to eat pork, but everyone will eat goat.
#8: That’s right. If you slaughter a goat, its meat will sell faster in the market than beef or pork.
#7: Goat meat “carries” (pote) 12 months, while beef only “carries” for 6 months [a way of saying that goat meat has more value].
#3: Beef can also be tough. You have to manage the cow so that isn’t too tough.
Islande: What do you mean you say “goat meat carries for 12 months?”
#3: It sells for more per gram than beef.
Islande: Ahh, ok. Would anyone else like to add anything?
#8: What I would like from this intervention is some follow-up. We’re not asking for you to promise anything. We just would like a way to stay in contact and informed about what is being planned.
Islande: Don’t worry. That is why we are here and took down your telephone numbers. Today’s meeting is just the first step. We may need more information, in which case you will hear from us. We want to learn how goats are bred and raised in this area. In the future, we can use this information to develop better strategies that can assist you in your work and advance development in the community.
Thanks very much.
Audience: Thanks
Islande: Thanks for your participation
