Proof I am not a troll!!! lol
 

As I mentioned in the other thread, I am currently studying what I can about the goat industry, feeds, nutrition, milk issues, breeding, fencing, general care, etc..

Because I refuse to believe everything on the internet, and much prefer hands on knowledge, to textbook knowledge, I have a few brief questions:

To lead in here:

We are a family of 6 with four young'ns under the age of 9. We drink 3 or more gallons of milk a week, about 12 lbs of cheese a month, and are sick of buying it all. Especially since in Canada's supply managed system, milk is over 5 bucks a gallon, and cheese is over 5 bucks a pound even when on sale!

So we grain farm, hay farm, raise sheep for a living. Because we raise sheep already, we have several separate pens, good tall fences, and an abundant supply of land, a great barn, and lots of close to free feed.

I need a bit of info then, if the ones on here who have not yet ignored me because of my stance on proteinless canola oil would want to help me out! lol!

I need to know best breed for milking, best sire for a meat kid or two off the dairy type dam, if I should get two or more to start with, how much milk will be produced, lbs. of hay a day to feed.

I have found tons of info on this subject on line, but I would like some real life experience to back that up: Also, how long does it take to milk a goat? And how do you run your production cycle, I am new to the milking line of thought, and have found that this is one area I have had trouble finding info on. When to breed, kid, milk, dry up, wean, all that jazz has been elusive to me at least. I would like a continuous supply of milk/milk products, I will need a pair at least of milkers I guess, bred at different dates, correct?


Thanks so much, I know there is lots in that post!

Dale

The only thing I have to offer is that my purebred (96%) Boer does that are part Nubian instead of being fullblood (100%) Boer are about 25% bigger. So a Boer buck crossed onto a dairy does stands a good chance of giving substantial and fast growing kids for meat.

That is what I was leaning towards in that department, thank you. I would like a "beefy" growthy kid/s, not a bone rack. Or two., or four!

The problem with asking for the 'best' breed is, that, it depends. Just like with sheep, what breed works well for you may depend on a LOT of things.

The best dairy animal depends on your definition. Quantity of milk, or components? Just like with dairy cattle, there are those that produce quantity (holstein), and those that produce milk with high components (Jersey).

It is simply quite variable even within breeds. If you want something, be willing to pay for an animal that is on production test that will tell you how it or it's offspring will likely produce for you.

And, obviously as you know, management plays a huge role in your production and overall success at raising. :)

As for meat, the common breed is the Boer. There are also Kikos, Savannas, myotonics (fainting goats), and crosses. Boers are the easiest to find and aquire, in MOST places. I've never seen a Kiko or Savanna in person, and I've been raising goats 10 yrs. Haven't really gone looking, though. Same as with everything, you can have boers with poor bone, or horrible feet, or that don't grow well, or that are 'bony'. Much of that could be management/environment, but realize meatiness and growth rate are heritable traits. Crossing them to dairy, and it's a 50/50 genetic toss up. The kids are likely to be more vigorous than the purebreds, but you'ren ot crossing a maternal meat type sheep with a terminal cross sire, where both parents are considered for their meat traits - you're crossing a DAIRY animal with totally different goals and conformation, with a MEAT animal. Likely, they will be meatier than the purebred dairies, but they will not be similar to purebred boers or your lambs.

As for lbs per day to feed, for dairies, they'll need pretty much free choice hay or pasture. As well as a grain ration.

Breeding schedule can vary, too - producer is always able to pick a breed that breeds out of season or use hormones to breed out of season. MOST dairy goat breeds cycle in the 'fall' (generally accepted to be late summer to Feb or so), but individuals can vary drastically. With 2 dairy does, you can achieve a staggered breeding cycle that allows milk all year round.

A well grown full size dairy doeling can be bred at 85lbs live weight or so, which she should be by 8 months of age if managed properly, which is generally the fall after she was born. She then would kid 5 months later, in the spring - let's say she kids in March at about 12-13 months of age. She is bred back in October that same year, 7 months into her lactation. She is dried up in January, giving her 2 months break until she kids again. A dry period is VITAL to optimum, and 60 day dry periods are generally accepted as being ideal not only for proper involution/mammogenesis to occur, but also optomizing production as well.

So, kids out at a year, milks for 10 months, 2 month break, then kids again. As I said, you can breed one doe so she kids in Jan, and the other to kid in March and you'll have milk all year round. :) Or you could do March/May, or however you darn well please. I prefer kidding March or later, because I don't have a good setup for cold weather kiddings.

I guess the moral of the story, animals are not machines. If you put X in, you are not guaranteed to get Y amount of product. Genetics, environment, and management play HUGE roles in animal product production. Though I applaud you for doing your research, I wish more people would do that. Too many people hear about how great goats are, buy a couple of cheap culls and expect these dairy does to produce oodles of milk on a small pasture with no adequate nutrition provided to them once it's browsed down. Then they get frustrated with goats and are convinced they are terrible livestock. :rolleyes:

Everyone is going to have their favorite breed they suggest to you but I Love the long floppy ears & if I was wanting full size dairy & meaty kids for the freezer I would get 2 Nubian does' & breed to a Boer buck.

Breed your does' at different times like Mygoat suggested so you have milk year around.

Most important though is to buy good quality stock from disease tested herds. Don't be shy & ask the breeders for paperwork stating the disease free testing results.

I suggest that you pick a breed of dairy doe and get at least 3 does and one top of the line dairy buck. Either butcher or sell the bucklings right away. They aren't worth the milk to raise them. A day old buckling is very good eating, BTW. Not much meat, but tender and tasty. If you want to raise some animal for meat, stick with a pure meat breed and use excess milk.

Unless you are willing to pay top dollar for top production, expect 3/4 to 1 1/4 gallons a day at peak. Some does will hold peak for several months but most will peak then start dropping off. I wouldn't keep one that produced less than 3/4 gal/day peak. You can frequently get a much better buck than you can does especially if someone has a really nice fellow that they've been using and need to get another. You can also import good semen from the States to AI your does and breed your lines up. You may have to settle for not very good does to start though. I've been told it is very hard to get good dairy does in Canada. I certainly wouldn't compromise your future milking stock by mixing in meat goat genetics.

I love my Nubian doe, she gives enough milk for DH and I. I also have 2 LaMancha does that I will be milking this year.

As for a buck I did have Boer bucks to cross with my dairy does but changed to Kiko to cross with my dairy.

I just did not have that great of luck with my Boers. Worms were a problem here in the south and that big ole beautifull Boer head caused birthing problems.

Nancy

I agree with the others there is no "best breed" when it comes to dairy goats, even within the breeds some are better than others. Some say they find the milk tastes "different" from breed to breed so if you have a delicate taster you may want to try some from different breeds and make your own call there, I personally find very little difference in the taste among the large breeds and find that what they are fed and how the milk is handles has far more effect on taste than anything.

I raise dairy and meat breeds and feed all forage/grass/hay based diet, no grain. My milkers are Alpine, Nubian and crosses of each with Boer. I don't care about registrations/papers I selected my girls for large frames and meaty carcasses (Nubians I find on avg tend to be meatier than the Alpine (some are quite "dairy") along with good udders (structurally and capacity) both breeds when crossed with a quality Boer buck produce growthy meaty kids. I also have found that as long as the % of Boer is at or below 50% they are quite productive milkers, I have a couple that out milk my fullblooded milkers. Another benefit for me is when mixed with the Boer they have a substantially thicker coat and thrive in the dead of winter without supplement where some of my fullblood dairy girls seem to need more to keep warm and fill the bucket.

I stagger breeding so I have milk year round (with the exception of this year due to other issues I'm currently not milking). Some of my cross girls will breed year round like the Boer the others are seasonal. It is certainly doable!! I have a family of 5 here (2 adults and 3 teen boys) using 4 gallons of milk a week which I can easily get from one decent producer (All mine give better than a gallon a day even while nursing babies) I generally milk another 1-2 girls at all times for our other dairy needs, I make cheese, yogurt, ice cream you name it. As for how to milk one goat, that depends on your proficiency, if you can milk 2 handed then about 5-7 minutes each (feed, clean, milk, dip and scratches) for me the milking is the fastest part of my routine.

As for feed I find this website great:
http://www.luresext.edu/goats/resear...ionmodule1.htm

lots of other great info there too!

Boy, thanks for all the great replies. I forgot to mention, I grew up milking Jersey cows. I would love a cow, but my wife wants to keep our critters small! So hence the interest in goats. I see a lot of efficiency with a goat or three over a cow...

Once a day milking, or twice? What do you folks do generally?

Twice. Or they start cutting back production.

Twice a day milking. I pull all kids and bottle raise them (allows me to sell off kids I'm not keeping early). So twice a day milking, 12 hours apart is what I do.

When I used to dam raise, I still milked out twice a day to ensure the udder was staying even (not becoming lopsided thanks to kids favoring one side) and to empty out whatever milk the kids didn't finish to keep production high.

Late lactation I move to once a day milking just to give me a break, then I dry them up fully 2 months prior to kidding.

LaMancha's make a really nice cross with Boers for meat. They have plenty of butterfat and long level lactations. One thing that is often said about the breed is that they have a will to milk.

I'll make this easy for you: LaManchas are the best dairy goats.

(Pay no attention to my tag line. I am completely unbiased!) :hysterical: :hysterical: :hysterical:

Let the :catfight: :catfight: :catfight: begin!

Seriously, I think all the dairy breeds are wonderful, as far as temperment (so long as they have not been mistreated.) As for the taste of the milk and the cheese it produces, I prefer LaMancha milk and Nubian milk.... but my experience is limited, and a lot depends on what you feed them.

I can tell you this, with the set up you already have working for you, I think you are going to be very happy with your decision to get dairy goats.

Best of luck to you!

Here's a good site discussing various dairy goat breeds and their milk quantity/quality - http://www.motherearthnews.com/capri...oat-breed.aspx

Personally, I like a meat/milk goat and use Nigerian/Pygmy cross for this, but a Boer/Dairy mix would serve the same purpose if it has good milk lines. It really all depends on the taste of the milk you will enjoy and how much milk you need for dairy production. As I prefer the creamier milk I go for my NP cross. For me it is great to have for coffee and well just everything else. Again it goes back to personal preference.

You can't go wrong with whatever breed you decide on and if you find out it's not the right milk type for you, you can always sell and try another breed. We started with Boer then crosses and finally ended up with Pygmies and Nigerians.

I vote for lamanchas! I have mini manchas, as we don't want all the milk, but if I had a good market for standard mancha kids and milk, I'd have a whole herd of them! Hardy, tons of personality. I like the lack of ears in the cold as no worries to frostbite (and you are in Sask, so may be a concern).

I'd say 3 does. You may want to have two in milk at most times. It seems like you eat alot of cheese in addition to the 3 gallons of milk, I don't make cheese so, would, figuring 3/4 gallon average from one doe with seasonal fluctuation in production, allow them enough milk?

And if you want to eat the kids, LaBoer kids are nice and growthy too.

In your original post you mention raising sheep, any particular reason you are not interested in dairy sheep?

I agree with all of this. LaManchas are the best for dairy and LaBoers make awesome meat goats. :D

*I am completely and totally biased and I don't care. I adore LaManchas.

I raise boer goats and a variety of dairy breeds. I have crossed boer and dairy previously - now I don't. Just because my children show the goats in 4H and selling crossbred (boer/dairy) doelings isn't the easiest. Seems that crossbred bucklings/wethers are ok but doelings are more desirable if pure boer or dairy (even crossbred dairy as long as not dairy/meat goat cross).

After owning several boer bucks, I've noticed that some bucks I had simply didn't cross well on dairy goats - they produced boer colored dairy body type offspring. And some bucks could put meat on a stick goat. Incidently, the buck that I had that couldn't seem to breed the dairy character out of the does produced amazing meaty offspring when bred to boer does or even boer percentage does. So boer buck doesn't always guarantee meaty kid when crossed with dairy doe.

That being said, crossing boer and dairy for milk production and meat production can work. Just that maybe you could use a boer buck for a couple years and butcher the offspring - then breed to a quality dairy buck to get a few dairy doeling to use for replacements.

Dairy breed of does - while the Nubians have a nice big frame for a boer to possibly put meat on, they tend to have a shorter lactation than the other dairy breeds. And I've seen some nice big framed does from other breeds. My preference for home milking purposes? Nubain/alpine cross. So which one of my dairy girls is my favorite? Toss up between a grade oberhasli (Mabel) and grade saanen (Celia) - Celia is by far the sweetest goat I've ever met - when I go into the pen she is instantly glued to my thigh and stays there until I leave the pen. Both girls are easy to milk and produce copious amounts of milk with nice long lactations. Both have nice sized teats that fit my hands perfectly. Mabel brings home bling from the county fair every year!

If you don't want to end up doing trial and error - I recommend buying from a herd that does production testing. That way you can be more assured that you have good production genetics.

You can always go to a county fair and meet a few different breeds of goats to see if one strikes you as the best. :D

I'd check to see what is available before deciding on a breed.

Partly you will be dependent upon what is available within the distance you are willing to get them.

For first time dairy goat owners, I will ALWAYS suggest getting Saanens or Alpines first off. I do not have Saanens, so at least in that, I can say I am unbiased. :)

The reason for this is that those two breeds are born to milk. They seem to instinctively know the milkstand and milking procedures, and folks do not generally have trouble with even the FFs. Their temperaments are ultimately laid back and easy going. (NOT that they don't get into trouble...ALL goats get into trouble!)

Both breeds are also high production types. Yes, Nubians, Lamancha, Minis and NDs have higher butterfat, so you will get more cheese per gallon of milk with those breeds....however, a Saanen or Alpine will cause you to need TWO milk buckets, and at the end of the day, they will give you more *volume* of butterfat.

Butterfat numbers are only important if you are running a production operation, where the cost of labor is important and the amount of milk bought for the process is unlimited. In that situation, higher butterfat per gallon decreases the number of gallons that need to go through production, and therefore the labor tha must be paid.

For the home producer, though, that may be processing 6 or 8 gallons per week, that doesn't matter. Especially with young children at home, drinking milk tends to be more important.

So, for dairy breeds, I would suggest Saanens or Alpines.

If you want goat meat, I would suggest getting some Boer and keeping them separate. I know that lots of folks do well crossing their Boer bucks into their dairy does and eating the kids, but honestly, especially in your situation right now with the market, you'd likely be better off breeding your dairies as dairies and selling excess kids. If you think about it, if YOU are feeling the dairy bite, then other folks are as well, and you would have a market for those kids.

And if you have extra bucklings....well, dairy bucklings taste just as good as Boer bucklings. They just don't gain weight as fast. I would go with what Cyngbaeld said and butcher excess bucklings early. :shrug: This is not a problem I have, as I have a market here for pack/cart/pet wethers, and anything I don't sell as breeding stock goes into that market. (Pack goats are more agile and surefooted than donkeys, mules or horses, and can carry more, and are less likely to run off, than dogs. A rather perfect medium. In a pinch, you can eat them, and they taste better than dog.)

I don't know what you have in sheep, but it is kinda like having wool breeds and meat breeds. Some folks do well crossing them and getting animals that are kinda okay at both...but for the most part, when you do that, you get something that isn't really good at either.

Bucks need a friend anyway, so you might as well keep a dairy buck and a meat buck....and a few dairy does running with your meat does, and have animals that will give you the best.

You can stagger breedings to keep someone in milk all the time. Even with seasonal breeders, you can breed a couple at the beginning of the season and a couple at the end of the season, and have a 3-4 month gap between kiddings...ensuring your milk supply. If not that, then modern hormone therapy is available relatively cheaply; it costs me $7 to bring a doe into standing, ovulating heat in June. That route may be worth it to you as well.

Oh, Saanens and Alpines have longer lactation cycles as well. One of my Alpines is still giving a 1/2 gallon per day at 13 months fresh. She will be milked through this year.

The time it takes to milk depends upon the amount she is producing, size of her orifices, and how easy she is on the stand. It *normally* takes me 3-4 minutes per doe, that it from the time she jumps on the stand until the time she jumps down. Lady Nipsalot, at peak when she was giving me 14# (as a FF) took me 5-6 minutes.

Depending upon the goat, I start out milking 2x a day. Some goats, such as high producing FFs, I may milk 3x per day at first. This is because FFs are "special", and I want their udders to enlarge slowly, to keep them from stretching attachments or blowing out udders or teats their first cycle. This is not generally the case in later cycles, where the udder has already been stretched to some degree. It is more that FFs are going from "flat" to "basketball" in only a couple of months, and I try to make that less of a basketball.

~sighs~ It is difficult to explain...but my girls have longer lasting GOOD udders than many I have seen.

After peak (around 60 days), as production starts dropping, I may decide to switch to once a day milking if I find myself with a good surplus. Otherwise, I stick with 2x a day.

I NEVER do once a day milking before a doe reaches peak. Way too easy to ruin an udder that way.

GASP! Caliann, how do you KNOW that??? :teehee:

Great Discussion.

As for breeds, I'll second the recommendation for Lamanchas.

They are hardy, easy going goats.

I have always been a die hard Alpine fan, grew up with the breed and love them. Beautiful, productive animals.

Added Lamanchas, even though I swore I'd never own "earless ugly goats"...... Well, I'm quite smitten. I find they keep pace with my Alpines in production....being just slightly behind on amount,. but their butterfat is comparable to a Nubian. Extended lactations are no problem with the Lamanchas either.

The most appealing aspect of my Lamanchas is they did much better in the heat than my Alpines........ Not that my Alpines struggled, and I didn't notice any issues until I had a second breed side by side for comparison.

For instance, in the summer, my Alpines are out at the hay feeder until 10am. After that, they are taking cover from the sun and heat, and even shaved down, they were panting. Thought it was normal, until the Lamanchas came. My jet black Lamancha doe will be at the hay feeder, in direct sunlight, when it's 105° outside with no worries. No panting, no stress...... As a result, my LM milked a lil better than the Alpines did during the rough heat...

Another thing I like about LM from a registered stand point is the open herd book. I can cross breed and then breed back up to American, then on to the Purebred herdbook.... All other breeds can only grade up to the American herd book.

Any kid is edible, so I don't use a meat buck. I sell registered kids, and bucks that don't get reserved get wethered and put in the freezer.

I have 3 breeds now, like each one for their unique attributes, so you could get a variety pack to start with and then weed out who you don't like.

We do both! Jersey cows and goats. We raised bottle calves with the excess but I have to admit, the milk that comes to the house for MY (and DH's) coffee is....goat milk. You'll love it. I don't think I would be without a cow though. (I'm warning you, there's a ramble coming...) I told my DD not long ago that even if it were just DH and me, I still think I'd have a cow. However, since we still have 10 children under 18, I am not seeing solitude or loneliness in my near future. :hrm: Somedays, that makes me happy. Others, I have to dig deeper and remember the big picture and that the ones that are gone (19 and 21) are beginning to develop brains and realize that I am smarter than I look. :rolleyes:

OT:"Growing a brain": We have strict rules about no driver's license until finishing school and being 18. Missouri has fairly strict laws about beginning DL as well. Our older children, of course, believed that this was just torture. When they would ask, "Why?" I would respond with, "It is my job to keep you alive until you grow a brain." The response to which was deep sighs and eye rolls as they walked away. Recently, however, DS21 was talking to me about his friends and mentioned "growing a brain". I said, "Hmm?" (sarcastically, of course). He leaned toward me and whispered, "That's really real, you know." I chuckled and said, "Yes. I did know." Wow, they were listening...to something. :spinsmiley:

If you have small children, goats are a great "smarter" responsibility. Our "young" children (4 and 5yo) have taken to the animals/milking like ducks to water. When I introduced the older children to cow milking in their early teens, well, let's just say they thought it was torture. They appreciate now the experience and the work ethic that they learned. The younger children "love" the goats and want to care for them, milk them and love them. Our DS7 has had his doe in milk for almost 2 years. He is anxiously awaiting her babies to be born this spring. He goes out and plays "hide and go seek" with her and she is a "friend" to him. She knows her name and his voice. I wish I had had a relationship like that when I was a kid.

All the best...

~laughs~ Anita, I've been around a lot of different cultures, and one thing I know that you do NOT do is ask "Oh, what is this made of?" and then push it away and say "Ewwwwww!" when told. Instead, you smile appreciatively and tell your host that that is the best whatever-it-is that you've ever had.

But I also understand the cultural issues involved. We are culturally conditioned to think of some foods as acceptable and others not. Take the dog for instance: I admit, I will never, ever be raising dogs for their meaty thighs. It is not just a cultural issue (although I do have some of that), but the fact that I do not like the taste of carnivores. I do not like the taste, in and of itself, of dog...or for that matter, jaguar or leopard. (And I have had both of those as well.)

But for the PURELY cultural aspect...I am Lakotah. I simply can NOT bring myself to eat horse meat. I know it is favored in some countries, such as France, but I cannot do it. It feels too close to cannibalism for me due to my upbringing.

A lot of good advice. I've enjoyed reading the thread. Very glad you brought it up.

I will add, it would be wise to study your local market for kids. A lot depends on if you have registered stock or not. My herd is very small and all of them are inexpensive, unregistered crosses. I buy the best bucks I can but don't register them. The expenses involved aren't warranted since non of the offspring are registrable above 50%. A recent quandary has been whether to breed my LaMancha/Saanen cross doe back to a Saanen or to a Boer. I bred her to a Saanen this year due to her size as a 12 month old. As stated in an earlier post, those big Boer heads are difficult to birth. With the offspring being unregistered, I will be hard pressed to give away any bucklings. Can't breed them, too skinny for meat, and little demand for standard size pet wethers. The unregistered doelings are marketable as dairy animals but are only worth about as much as commercial BoerX breeding stock. So for that reason I'm leaning toward breeding her back to a Boer. At least I'll have usable bucklings.

The game changes completely if you have registered dairy goats. Buck kids can be sold for breeding and the does get a very good price... for a reason! The caveat... your stock will be more expensive initially to purchase. And buyers of your offspring will demand testing of your entire herd regularly for CAE, CL and Johnes. They will also want to see production tests of your animals and close relatives. So if you will be expanding and developing a breeding program over generations, you may find linear appraisals(and good ones!) are necessary to get top dollar for your kids. Not to mention, a whole lot of genetics research and possibly and investment in showing. Another consideration for sales is CAE prevention. This involves carefully removing kids from their dams at birth and bottle raising them; a much bigger time commitment than simply letting the dam raise them, and also more housing.

It really does matter what goat "lifestyle" choices you prefer. If you are really into genetics or like the idea of starting your own dairy, or want to have your family involved in showing. Registered stock is the way to go.

But if your life is already too hectic and you don't think you can eek out time for two milkings a day, and you just want a few for your own milk or meat, you might be happy with a few grade does.

Either way, you'll find they eat you out of house and home, drive you crazy and have adorable babies and the best tasting milk... and you wouldn't have it any other way!

*** as a side note: There are duel purpose breeds like Kinders and, to a degree, Nubians which are registered and do produce a more predictable meat carcass. I don't have any experience yet crossing dairy with Boer but my BoerX bred to Boer(or BoerX) have been highly variable but not a lot of difference in price when I go to sell them as weanlings. I know others here do have experience and could give you advice on that.