Gay Pike prepares her goat, Fancy Face, for the Boer Goat Show at the Vernon County Fairgrounds. Pike and her husband Scott own Majestic Boers of Sand Springs, Okla. --Steve Moyer/Heral-Tribune

NEVADA, Mo. -- They're relatively new to Missouri and many people have never heard of them but Boer goats are becoming a very popular meat goat. Introduced from South Africa the goats are a meat goat that does well on forage that cows turn their noses up at.

"Missouri is the seventh largest meat goat state, we have great terrain for them, hilly rocky places where nothing else will grow," Marla Snead said. "Boer goats first came to the U.S. in 1993 to Texas and have been working their way north ever since. The goats can be pastured in with cows to take advantage of the browse and the brush the cattle don't like. You do have to have better fencing for them though, they are harder to keep in."

To introduce the goats to the general public and, incidentally, to raise money to purchase additional pens for the sheep and goat barn, a group of Vernon Countians led by Kenny and Marla Snead are having a Boer goat show at the Vernon County Fairgrounds Saturday and Sunday. Saturday the show runs from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The show is sanctioned by the Junior Boer Goat Association which is holding eight shows this year.

There are 52 pens in the barn, which was rebuilt three years ago but more pens are needed.

"We enlarged it (the sheep and goat barn) three years ago but we only had money for 52 pens," Snead said. "We hope to buy a set of 14 more pens with the money we had left and what we raise with the show. We need at least three more sets of pens so we're hoping we can hold a show each year and buy another set of pens."

Ryan Diefenbach was the first to appear with Boer goats in the Missouri State Fair of Champions in 2003, since then the numbers have been growing.

In addition to seeing the show goats attendees can taste the meat from Boer goats at the show. Goatburgers will be served Saturday from 11:30 a.m. until supplies run out.

The United States imports a lot of goat meat so there is a large, and growing, market for the goats. Much of the meat produced in Missouri is shipped to the east coast and cities such as Chicago which have a large immigrant population who are more used to the meat.