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Agriculture

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  • Darrell Mueggenborg, right, speaks with a fellow goat farmer at his Customer Appreciation Auction at his farm in Yale.

    Darrell Mueggenborg

  • A Boer goat awaits sale at Darrell Mueggenborg's customer appreciation auction at Mueggenborg's farm in Yale.

    Meet Your Neighbor

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July 30, 2010

Yale man gets his goats ready

Meet Your Neighbors - Darrell Mueggenborg of Yale

By Silas Allen Stillwater NewsPress

YALE, Okla. — Darrell Mueggenborg is a man who knows how to stay busy.

Mueggenborg owns 4-M Farms near Yale, where he raises Boer goats with help from his wife, Jennifer, and his sons, Derrick and Dustin.

In addition to his goat farm, Mueggenborg also owns and operates a number of businesses in Yale, including an oilfield service and an auctioneering company. Mueggenborg also plans to open a sandwich shop in Yale in the coming months.

“There’s plenty going on,” he said.

Mueggenborg has about 100 Boer goats of his own at the moment, but that number can vary widely — “anywhere from 10 to 100,” he said. He generally goes to about six to eight livestock shows each year, including the Oklahoma State Fair and the Tulsa State Fair.

Mueggenborg said his many enterprises generally keep him busy during the week, which means his goat farm is more of a hobby than a career decision. He mainly finds time to show and auction goats on weekends, he said.

“That’s what we do instead of play golf,” he said.

Mueggenborg’s main events each year are the Spring and Fall Cowboy Classic. At the events, he auctions off a number of his goats. Other breeders come to the event to sell their stock as well.

Mueggenborg recently held a customer appreciation auction at his farm and invited farmers who have bought goats from him in the past to put their livestock up for auction. Mueggenborg said the auction is a way for him to thank his customers.

“This is what we do for them,” he said.

Mueggenborg said 12 farmers showed up with 60 goats at this year’s auction. Farmers came mostly from Oklahoma and Texas, although a few drove from Kansas and Missouri.

Marla Snead, of Nevada, Mo., made the 3 1/2-hour drive to Yale for the auction. Snead and her husband operate Bushwhacker Boer Goats, a farm in southwest Missouri. She was invited to the sale after her husband bought a goat at Mueggenborg’s Fall Cowboy Classic.

Snead said she thought the auction went well. She was impressed with the variety of buyers at the event, she said. Of the five goats Snead brought to the auction, she sold four.

“We were pleased,” she said.

Part of the benefit of holding the customer appreciation auction is meeting with other Boer goat breeders, Mueggenborg said. Although beef is king in Oklahoma, he said, the community of goat farmers is thriving.

“There’s plenty of breeders in the state of Oklahoma,” he said.

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Agriculture