Want Milk? Get Goats
Whether your property is one acre or several hundred, sloping or flat, crowded with brush orcompletely forested, you can still raise dairy goats for milk. Two goats will produce enough quality fresh milk—with each doe averaging 3 quarts a day for 10 months—to feed your family all year. Add a few more goats and you'll have enough milk for making cheese, yogurt or even ice cream.
By Kris Wetherbee - June/July 2002
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DAVID CAVAGNARO
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Goat milk ice cream? Some of you might he raising your eyebrows right now because you've heard goat milk tastes funny. We could blame the funny-taste fallacy on a conspiracy concocted by those comical Far Side cows. But more likely it is because someone kept the buck among the herd, especially at milking time. A buck can be quite odoriferous, and his strong, musky scent can permeate the milk. The fact is, properly collected goat milk tastes just as good as cow milk. Some people believe it tastes better.
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"I have a friend whose brother refused to drink goat milk because he knew he wouldn't like it," says 20-year goat veteran Gail Damerow, editor of Rural Heritage magazine and author of Your Goats and Raising Milk Goats Successfully. Gail's friend bought a carton of cow's milk from the store for her visiting brother. After he emptied the carton, his sister refilled it with fresh goat milk. The scenario continued until a week later, when he noticed the carton looked a bit worn around the edges. She admitted he'd been drinking goat milk all week. He became an instant convert.
More of the world's people consume goat milk than cow milk. Goats are hardy animals: They adapt well to heat and cold, productively forage and graze, require little space and are inexpensive to keep. Since mature does (females) usually weigh between 120 to 135 pounds (dwarf breeds can weigh between 35 to 85 pounds), they're much easier to handle than hefty cows, which can weigh 1,000 pounds each. Goats may surprise you in other ways, as well. They're highly intelligent, remarkably friendly creatures. And, since they're active, extremely agile and very curious, their antics can amuse you for hours. With all that in mind, it's easy to see why dairy goats can he the ideal addition to today's family farm or homestead.
THE DAIRY BREEDS
There are more than 200 different goat breeds worldwide; six primary breeds dominate the dairy goat arena: Alpines, Oberhaslis, Sadness, Toggenburgs, LaManchas and Nubians. While all breeds generally do well in most of the country, the first four breeds listed are well-suited to cooler climates since their origins can be traced to Swiss mountain regions. LaManchas and Nubians hail from tropical and desert climates where it's wanner, and they tolerate hot summer conditions better than the Swiss breeds.
You can recognize Alpine goats by their upright ears and long necks. This medium-to-large, hardy breed also milks well. Their coats are two-toned, with black and white the most common colors.
Oberhaslis have distinctive coloration, and are usually hay (reddish brown) with black markings or sometimes completely black. A beautiful medium-to-small breed, Oberhaslis don't produce quite as much milk as the other breeds.
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