Ambassadors to the Breed

The Ambassador to the Breed award was initiated by the ABGA Board of Directors in 2012 to honor people who the association feels have made an impact on the goat industry. This year, the Board of Directors selected three recipients for the 2019 Ambassador to the Breed. Coni Ross has been in the goat industry since 1978. Coni's long background in goats coupled with her nursing background has truly made her an asset to the Boer Goat industry. Also selected for the Ambassador award was Dr. Fred Homeyer, who is known across the world for his goat judging and selection. Rounding out the three recipients was Mr. Joe Tipton. Joe is known for his love of the black Boer goats. Joe was unable to make the National Show, but was humbled by the selection. "This is an award that means so much. We have worked to select goats based on solid traits and color," Tipton said. "This is such an honor."

Ambassador to the Breed - Coni Ross

I started raising goats in 1978: Spanish goats, and then a few Angoras for brush control. I purchased the first registered Angoras in 1980.

In 1988-’89, we purchased 500 Cashmere embryos from Mc Sherry on the S. Island of New Zealand.

I served as Dist. 8 Chairperson of TSGRA for 2 years, and testified in behalf of livestock raisers before the Texas State Senate. President of Texas Cashmere Assn, President of Cashmere Producers of American, BOD of American Meat goat Assn. For 10 years,

ABGA BOD 3 years.

I have judged goats since 1985. Angoras, Cashmere, meat goats, and Boer goats. I have judged Canadian Boer nationals, and multiple major regional shows in Canada, and taught their Angora and Boer Judge certifications. There used to be two of us who judged all those breeds, Joe David Ross my esteemed friend was the other, and he has retired.

I purchased my first Boer goats in 1995, and joined ABGA that year. My first owned and bred Boers were from AI using Cashmere does. My first does were daughters of Tsjaka. In 1998, Oscar won NGC and I had use of one of his sons on my Tsjaka daughters. Almost all the goats in my program are descended from these bloodlines.

I was certified as an ABGA judge by the S. Africans, and started judging Boer shows starting in ’98. In 2001, Two of our does M28, Panache was overall grand at the State fair of Texas. Her sisters, M 33, 30 and 31 were right behind her in the class. M 33 was Grand meat goat doe. These does were huge, capacious does that had and reared twins and triplets. M33 had quintuplets the first time and raised them all. Their lineage is old S. African.

My breeding program has focused on production. A goat that can make a living, grow well, raise kids with little or no intervention, and have worm resistance.

It has been my honor to serve as a judge, and to help others with goat management, and goat “911” for most of my adult life.

I am an RN and as one old man once said, “ my early education” helped a lot.

Coni Ross

Ambassador to the Breed - Dr. Fred C. Homeyer

Dr. Fred C. Homeyer is a retired Professor of Computer Science from Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. He owns and operates Antelope Creek Ranch in Robert Lee, Texas where he raises 500 head of South African Boer goats. He has been active in the Boer goat industry for 25 years and served two terms as the Director at Large in the American Boer Goat Association. He has served on the Breed Standards, Judges Certification, Membership, Education, Judges, and Breed Improvement Committees in ABGA.

Goat health, nutrition and maintenance are keen interests and he continues to study the techniques of linear measurement, prediction and extrapolation of physical traits in Boer goats. Dr. Homeyer is internationally recognized for his expertise evaluations as well as judging shows. He has written over 450 articles that have been published in 32 magazines around the world, given over 200 seminars on goats and goat raising and has judged over 20,000 animals in 225 shows worldwide including 32 national shows in 15 foreign countries .

Dr. Homeyer judged the first National Boer Goat show in Austria which has held in Wels, Austria where over 250,000 attended the various livestock exhibitions and activities. He has judged several shows in northeastern Brazil including the State of Pariabo Show as well as the National Show in Sao Paulo, Brazil which was judged by Dr. Homeyer and the top two Brazilian Judges, Joselita Barboza and Edmilson de Sauza. Dr. Homeyer has judged Boer goats from coast to coast in the United States including shows in 39 different states.

Dr. Homeyer holds Boer Goat judging certifications from the American Boer Goat Association (ABGA), United States Boer Goat Association (USBGA), International Boer Goat Association (IBGA) and ABCBoer (Brazilian Boer Goat Association).

Dr. Homeyer has had considerable success in the show ring having shown National Champions in all three Boer Goat Associations in the U.S. (ABGA, IBGA and USBGA). He was awarded the 1997 Premier Breeder Award for Percentage Goats from ABGA (showing the National and Reserve National Champion Percentage Bucks and National and Reserve National Champion Junior Percentage Bucks). He also won the 2002 Premier Breeder Award for Percentage Goats from ABGA (showing the Reserve National Champion Percentage Doe, National and Reserve National Champion Senior Percentage Does and Reserve National Champion Junior Percentage Doe ).

He has traveled to South Africa twice, to Brazil nine times, to Australia eight times and to New Zealand twice in his quest to observe the best Boer goats in the world. Dr. Homeyer is one of very few if not the only American to have judged Boer goats in Australia (Queensland Royal Show in Brisbane, Australia in 2006 and 2008 a large regional show in Cairns, Australia).

For 25 years Boer goats have been his passion and he strives to be a positive ambassador for the Boer goat everywhere he travels in the world.

Why Black Boer? Sixteen years later I think the answer is becoming clear to me. We traveled to Canada to purchase some traditional white Boer goats in June of 1994. In my mind I envisioned the traditional white with red head Boer goat in the solid black color. I guess this was because I had been raising and breeding native black cashmere goats for some time, and had done very well with the black cashmere breed. Main Man, one of the yearling bucks we had purchased in Canada had turned out to be a super good buck. I had bred him to some of my black cashmere does, but produced mostly the traditional white with red head kids, some miss-marked with red. I could see this would not work for a black Boer goat, not in any realistic time period anyways. At about this time, we purchased some traditional white does and put Main Man with these does. And what would you know? Several of their kids were mostly red. Main Man produced about 10 to 15% red kids. I picked out the best red buck and named him Red man. In 1997, I showed Red Man as a yearling at the A.B.G.A. nationals in Kerrville, Texas. He placed 10th in his class of 38 full blood Boer bucks. In 1997, I began to breed Red Man to black cashmere does. I then began to get some black kids. I kept all my does with any black color. I never used any traditional white Boer bucks on my colored goats again. I was able to purchase a few percentage black Boer does and began to enter them into my breeding program. I registered my first black buck in 1999.

In 1997, my daughter JoNell and her husband Danny Waggoner used Red Man to breed their black percentage does. This brought them many good red and some black does. We purchased a black full blood doe in 1998. This added a new generation to my breeding program. We kept only the best black bucks from then on. In 2001, we began to see good black percentage male and female Boer goats. Since then my herd of black Boer goats have grown and continued to improve through the years. We now have full blood black Boers. It has been a long, productive sixteen years to 2010 and well worth it. By no means is this the end of the story. Really, it is just the beginning of black Boer goats! We have now introduced some new genetics to our Black Boers. We have brought in some new black bucks from Twin Mountain Boers of San Angelo, Texas, thanks to Wayne and Monetta Dusek. We also bought in more color and have purchased a red and white spotted buck thanks to Twin Mountain Boers.