Why milk a cow and not goats?

[tlance]

Ok I posted this question on the goat forum now I will post the opposite here. Why do you choose to milk a cow and not goats? I'd like to hear everybodys reasons. We are thinking of getting something to milk. I see pros and cons toward both. So I'm having a hard time deciding which to go with.
Tracy

[gone-a-milkin]

I happen to think that goats milk tastes NASTY.

[Anderson farms]

My dh and I went back and forth on goats or a cow, we researched both and decided on the cow because my hubby has more experience with cows and we have a lot of uses for the milk. You won't get as much milk from a goat and goats seem to require a lot of maintenance, such as needing wormed quite a bit and hooves trimmed and prone to quite a few diseases. Plus I think Jerseys have the sweetest faces and couldn't resist having one! I also agree with gone a milkin, I can't stand the taste of goat's milk, but I heard that it depends on the type of goat you have. Good luck with whatever you decide.

[wstevenl]

I don't milk goats, and the only two goats I have are wethers that I'd like to shoot, but I feel compelled to defend goats milk. We buy milk from a friend with Nubians and that milk is excellent. This friend thinks that pasteurizing the milk causes a bad taste in goats milk. Maybe it's the breed??

[Lannie]

I milk a cow because so far, she has NOT climbed the fence to get out.

But seriously, I like cow's milk better, and I like to be able to ladle the cream off the top to make butter. I've heard (I've never had a dairy goat) that goat's milk is very slow to separate, and it's hard to make butter from it.

And I like the mooing.

~Lannie

[Anderson farms]

I read your post on the goat forum, and with child #8 on way, I would much rather milk one cow than a bunch of goats. You might also read up on CL, a pretty yucky disease that goats carry. If you do decide on goats you will want to make sure that they have been tested for CL and CAE. I have read that CL is contagious if they have an abcess bust. I think I will stick with the cows and watch my feet then worry about keeping a bunch of goats in. I like the mooing too!

[topside1]

Hundreds of reason for one brand of dairy animal or the other....I have both. Here's a few.
1. One cow, one cow dies or becomes unbreedable==no cow, no milk.
2. Six goats, one dies, sad but not the end of milk in the fridge.
3. Goats to milk can be very time consuming, simply because you are milking more than one.
4. Goats require a lot more maintenance then cows and better living conditions. Six goats verses one cow.
5. A good milk goat will give 1 gallon of milk per day, an average cow 6-8 gallons per day.
many many more...Topside

[LizD]

I had goats, that I milked and made cheese with their milk. We found that the absence of the 'goaty' taste really depends on the freshness of the milk and also the individual animal. Ten years ago there wasn't a really good market for the kids and so most would end up in our freezer, and well I am not really that keen on kid meat. Now kid-goat sells at the barn for premium prices, so having a crop of 10 - 15 from 5 goats would be ok, but .... we decided on changing to a cow (well actually two) when I found out that I was going to be on the farm full time. Reason; I wanted to have milk all year long, not just 6 months of the year; I wanted enough volume to be able to pursue my passion of cheesemaking and also we put a beef in the freezer every year so why not raise it from our own animals. After making the decision to have a cow(s) instead of goats we then went on to decide what breed of cow we wanted. For us our choice was Dexters and now I have 4 milking Dexters, am training two heifers and oh ya.... inherited a Jersey! Anybdy got a 'twelve step' for cows? I have to admit though that I get the best of both worlds as far as the milk goes because my neighbour has nubians and is always willing to trade my cows' milk for a gallon of her goats' in the season which allows me to keep on making certain cheeses.
Liz

[JHinCA]

2 words--cream and butter.

[topside1]

Goats browse, cows graze having both will keep your pastures squared away..Liz made a good point that goats will not give you milk year round. A healthy cow can.....Topside

[Trisha in WA]

I prefer the taste of cow milk to goat milk. Cows are fairly easy to fence in. I would need several goats to provide me with the quantity of milk I get from one cow. It is some what less time consuming to milk one cow than the several goats I would need...cleaning each udder etc. I like beef which is what my calfs end up being. The cream is very easy to skim for making butter.
Just a few reasons off the top of my head.
OH! And keeping a buck is a SMELLY proposition...in my opinion

[pookshollow]

Liz made a good point that goats will not give you milk year round.

Rubbish! Where did you ever get that idea? I'm milking three goats right now. One, a grade Alpine, kidded in April, 2007, the other two, purebred Saanens, kidded in June and July of 2007. When I asked the Saanens in early October, after months of once-a-day milking, to go back to twice-a-day milking, they more than doubled their production within two weeks to about 5 litres each.

I'm not putting down cows, they have their place - it just depends on your circumstances and preferences. For me, I like the personality of goats better than cows, and it makes more sense for just two of us.

[topside1]

Pook, you must have some real special goats. The six I milk (LaManchas and Nubians) they taper off after 8 months, and don't give enough milk to justify my time.....Keep those bloodlines intact, Congrats....Topside

[pookshollow]

Well, I don't know where the Alpine came from, other than "an auction". She's most likely purebred, but who knows? The other two are my first milking goat and her daughter. The older doe is actually a Rocky Run bred Saanen, although bred here in Canada.

LaManchas should do better for you than 8 months! The ones I've seen up here are awesome milkers. I have a 3/4 Nubian that has been switched over to meat goat production, as she's not much of a dairy goat.

[francismilker]

I've tried them both and can't give any support for the goats other than it WAS the only milk my son could tolerate for the first few years of life. It seems to be more tolerable for those with an allergy to milk.
On the flip side, you don't often come home to see your milk cow standing on the hood of your car eating an old tin can or standing shoulder deep in your wife's flowerbed. You very seldom have cow hoof prints leading up the pole to the clothes line that your whites are drying on. With the goats, anything's possible.
Don't get me wrong, the lone milk cow gives it's share of trouble if it gets out, they just seem to be easier to contain and give higher contents of milk. Therefore, all the excess can be fed to other farm critters. (pigs, chickens, calves)
I'm 100% for the cow argument having had both.

[whinnyninny]

My best friend had a Guernsey when I was a teenager that I helped take care of, and for most of this year I had dairy goats. There are so many advantages and disadvantages of each. Our goats were giving us 3 quarts a day (they were not heavy milkers) and we couldn't use that much, so a cow definitely was not for us. Though... if we owned a cow, I'm sure we could've given away a lot of the milk. Many of our friends *heard* that goat milk was gross and flat-out refused to try it!!

[cathleenc]

no experience with each... yet. Currently milking one goat, expecting to have 3 goats in milk come spring. And - we're getting a 3/4 jersey/1/4 holstein calf in the spring (1/2 mini jersey, 1/2 commercial milker). I'm positively freaked out about the cow at the moment (what was I thinking!!) as I am in love with the goats and have learned to manage/care for them quite well. So if luck holds we'll get a heifer calf and find out 2 years from now which we prefer.... till then, I love the goats.

[LizD]

Wow that's great Pooks; Mine were Alpines and Toggs and I could never get them past 7 -8 months to make it worthwhile either! Do you breed them to freshen each spring and how long do you dry them off before freshening? Liz

[simplefarmgirl]

I have had both and will again, right now we have a jersey we milk, my dh and kids like the taste of the cow better. I like both, we will be getting goats again this spring, I want to feed my pigs goats milk plus they will help keep pasture down where the cows dont get to

[pookshollow]

Originally Posted by LizD

Wow that's great Pooks; Mine were Alpines and Toggs and I could never get them past 7 -8 months to make it worthwhile either! Do you breed them to freshen each spring and how long do you dry them off before freshening? Liz

Well, the older Saanen was deliberately not bred, as she kidded in July, rather late. The Alpine isn't real vocal about being in heat, so I never caught her. The younger Saanen was bred, but it wasn't a strong heat, and she didn't catch. So, I just kept on milking. I knew the older Saanen would keep going as she's very, very difficult to dry off, but the Alpine was just "let's see how long she'll milk" and I was very pleasantly surprised. They've all been bred recently, and I'm letting the Alpine dry off as she's only giving about a litre now. The other two will be milked until I (try to!) dry them off a couple of months before they kid. I have a yearling Saanen and a 1/2 Saanen yearling out of the Alpine doe that were bred a while back, so they should be in production when these girls are dried off. The 1/2 Saanen actually came into milk this summer, before being bred, but I didn't encourage it and she dried up. She's by the twin of my 2 year old Saanen, who went Reserve Champion at a couple of fairs this year, so I'm thinking she might be a decent little producer.

From the sounds of it, I got lucky with my goats.