As small stock prices reach dizzying heights, goat meat has joined the record-breaking levels.
On the back of plummeting supply, processors have pushed average prices for goats to 932 cents a kilogram carcase weight (cwt) and a high of 1030c/kg cwt.
That figure has smashed the previous record on the national price grid of 780c/kg, set on April 29 this year.
Goat prices had increased 66 per cent since the start of April, according to data from Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA).
The prices are for goats weighing in a broad range from eight kilograms to more than 20kg cwt
MLA project manager - goat industry Julie Petty said it was a simple case of supply and demand.
Ms Petty said the industry was in "totally uncharted" areas at current pricing levels.
She said drought conditions in much of the goat catchment areas of NSW and Queensland had seen destocking and that had impacted on flows of goats to works.
She said there was normally a tightening of supply starting around now, but this year the supply situation had been tight all year.
"Processors are really chasing stock, they need the numbers," she said.
NSW, which supplied around 65pc of slaughter goats nationally, had been in the grip of drought and destocked.
That combined with rain in many parts of the large production areas of Queensland, had added competition from producers looking to restock in those areas.
Ms Petty said slaughter numbers were down about 56pc on last year.
She said she was working actively to encourage producers to go down the herd rebuilding path.
"The industry cannot afford to always kill the whole of a drop, it's not sustainable," she said.
Producers needed to understand that there were opportunities for returns for goats as there were for sheep.
"You can make as much or more by breeding and selling females to other producers for breeding," she said.
"Because it had been a patchy kidding, producers could value add by scanning nannies for sale as a value added product.
"When the season breaks nannies will be worth a lot of money."