Queensland Goat Group bring producers from Townsville to Warwick together

Formed at a meeting at last year's Springsure Show, where the first open meat goat show in Australia took place, the group is non-breed specific and incorporates meat, dairy and fibre goats.

Anita Dennis, who operates the Seaford Red stud at Blackall with husband Joe Taylor, is the chair of the group and said it was aiming to grow the industry into one that was strong and sustainable.

"It's been in the pipeline for a while," she said. "Sheep and cattle have progressed thanks to producer bodies, and we found it was something that was lacking in the goat industry."

While it's still in the formation stage, waiting for approval to open a bank account, and was not yet taking memberships, Ms Dennis said a couple of hundred people from Townsville to Warwick and west as far as Thargomindah had expressed interest in joining.

The group has applied to the MLA for seed funding to help get established.

She said among other things, it would give universities a focus for research, which had a lot of potential avenues.

"We're hoping to roll out a lot of region-specific workshops around Queensland," she said, adding that the one planned for Comet this weekend had been postponed to February 11, thanks to the rain.

Among the speakers attending will be Dr Joan Lloyd, addressing herd health and biosecurity issues, and Cecilia Burnett-Smith, the first person to import Boer genetics into Australia, who will be talking about classifying goats for shows.

Other issues on the agenda will be udder structure, responsibilities around moving goats in tick areas, and parasite management.

Ms Dennis said the group was yet to formulate a policy on eID tagging, but was in talks with suppliers regarding more robust tags for goats, as sheep tags were falling out when goats were browsing.

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