Story and photo by Riley Jeschke
Only five years after Boer goats came to the United States, Jason Fugate brought four to Rowdy, Kentucky.
In 1998, when Fugate was 12 years old, he went to Mullin, Texas, with his stepfather, Jerry Stacy, and came back to the family’s 80-acre farm with four Boer goats. Three were does, or female, and one was a buck, or male.
Boer goats first came to the U.S. from South Africa in 1993. Since then, the industry has grown and become “very competitive,” according to Fugate.
Right now, Rowdy Mountain Boer Goats has 10 Boer goats, three of which are male, and about 25 female dairy goats which are used as surrogate mothers.
Fugate has three brothers but decided to be the one to carry on his dad’s farm.
“It’s in my blood,” Fugate said. “It’s who you are.”
While the Boer goats live in smaller, gated sections of the farm, Fugate’s dairy goats roam a great portion of the property with an electric fence and a Great Pyrenees protecting them from wandering too far.
Fugate uses artificial breeding to stay competitive and offer unique Boer goats to sellers, he said. Inside Fugate’s house, where the temperature is warmer, blue liquid nitrogen tanks hold sperm from herd sires.
On July 14, 2025, a professional from Alabama came to Fugate’s farm to perform the artificial breeding process. Fugate’s female Boer goats were given hormones to produce more eggs than they would naturally and were then artificially inseminated with sperm from the nitrogen tanks.
Fugate said they used a microscope to look at the sperm beforehand and made sure they were “swimming.”
About a week later, the embryos from these Boer goats were “flushed out” and transferred into Fugate’s dairy goats, he said.
Right now, about 12 dairy goats are pregnant, so Fugate is expecting around 25 newborns come December, since the dairy goats will usually birth two newborns each.
Fugate said raising the newborns is “awesome.”
“You’re looking for your next champion,” he said.
In April 2024, one of Fugate’s Boer goats won the Grand Champion Fullblood Boer Buck at the Kentucky State Fair.
Fugate brings his Boer goats to show rings to attract buyers. Winning awards really helps, he said.
According to Fugate, the breed standards that judges and buyers look for include having a flat back, dark skin under the tail, a wide body as opposed to skinny, and downward-curved horns.
In the U.S., colors like brown, gold, black and a mixture of colors are favored. However, Fugate said in South Africa, they only want the classic solid brown head and white body and will often kill newborns whose colors differ from this.
Fugate’s favorite Boer goat of his right now has a solid black head and solid white body.
If Fugate has any Boer goats that aren’t gaining enough weight or aren’t up to the breed standards to be sold, he sells them for meat instead. Once a year, he chooses one to keep for food, like burgers or tacos, for the entire next year.
Fugate is constantly looking online at for-sale Boer gates to add to his herd.
View more work by Riley Jeschke
