Why a meat breed needs numbers, not impressions
Yes, keep one. Boer goats were developed for fast growth and heavy muscling, and an animal can look impressively broad while gaining more slowly than his feed should produce, or look ordinary while converting browse into weight very efficiently. Hands and eyes alone cannot separate those two animals; a scale can. A health and weight log, kept per animal, is what turns a pen of similar-looking goats into individuals whose growth you can compare, whose feed you can justify, and whose problems you can catch while they are still cheap and simple to address.
Weighing rhythm and the feed notes beside it
Weigh growing Boers every few weeks, kids more often in the early months, and use the same scales, time of day, and method so figures compare cleanly. Beside each weight, record what the goat is actually eating: pasture or browse available, hay offered, any concentrate and the amount, and whether the group has just moved ground. Growth in a meat goat answers to forage quality as much as quantity, and a stall that follows a move to tired pasture reads differently in the log from a stall on unchanged feed. For breeding does, track condition through pregnancy and while nursing kids, since a doe milking hard into twins can lose more than her thick frame suggests at a glance.
Health entries that matter most in goats
Write short, dated observations: appetite at feeding, droppings, whether a goat is keeping up with the group or lingering, coughing, coat condition, and hoof trims. Many keepers also note the result of checking inner eyelid colour as part of their routine parasite awareness, alongside grazing history, because where a goat has been grazing is part of that picture. Log any vet visits and what was found. In a group, always attach the entry to the individual, by tag, name, or marking: Boer herds move and eat together, but illness and poor growth pick individuals, and a group impression will hide the one goat who needs attention.
Using the log at decision points
Boer keeping is full of decisions a log makes better. Which doelings to keep as replacements is a growth and health question answered by their records. Whether a buck's offspring are actually growing faster shows up across a season of kid weights. Whether a finisher is ready is a figure, not a feeling. And when growth falters across several animals at once, dated feed and grazing notes help you and your vet separate a forage problem from a health problem. A goat off feed, scouring persistently, losing weight despite good grazing, or standing hunched and separate should be examined promptly, with the log in hand.
Keeping herd records manageable
The trick is one pass, one line per goat: weighing day produces the weight and condition line, feeding produces the appetite note, and anything unusual gets dated the day it is seen. Five honest words per entry, kept consistently, beat an elaborate system abandoned by the second month. Stored in KinsLe's Pet Passport, each Boer goat's weights, grazing history, and health notes sit in a single packet, so a buyer, a vet, or a future you inherits facts about that animal rather than herd folklore.