Dairy Goat Farming
Goats all share the same characteristics, regardless of what you use them for, be it meat, breeding, milk, fiber or pets. Goats are not used to being alone. make out Plans to have at least two goats. If what you want is milk then make sure you have extra male goat to keep a neutered wether is a great choice. Female Goats always produce milk after giving birth and there are some breeds of goats which produce better quality and quantity of milk. These breeds are usually sought out while writing your dairy goat farming business plan.
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Dairy goat farming is a very easy and simple farming business compared to other farming business. A Successful and profitable dairy goat farming business doesn’t require any much hard work. Even children and women can easily raise them. And they require less food, housing and other managements than any other livestock.
Raising dairy goats is a popular and is well recognized as a very profitable business idea all over the world the world. Because, goat milk has a great demand worldwide. Goat milk and many dairy products prepared by goats milk are very popular. Goat milk is highly nutritious and easily digestible compared to cow’s milk. It also has a unique taste and flavor.
Goat’s milk is extremely configured and enriched with a whole lot of necessary vitamins and mineral supplements. Along with producing milk, dairy goats also produce meat, mohair, hide, leather and manure (used as fertilizer in crop fields). As a result dairy goat farming for profit can be a great source of income for the individuals who are interested in this farming business. You can sell other products and earn money if your goats produce less milk.
When it comes to investment, The investment in dairy goat farming business can be of any budget and the returns are can be very high and profitable however the returns from commercial dairy goat farming business is often based on the selection of breeds, feeding, housing and some other managements.
Select Breeds
Choosing a suitable goat breeds for your goat farming business is one of the most important factors to consider while starting dairy goat farming business. Because, choosing right breeds according to your area plays an important role in their production. Choose those breeds for your business which are easily maintained and will produce highly in your area.
On an average Saanen, Anglo Nubian, Alpine, Jamunapari, LaMancha, Oberhasli and Toggenburg are popular and highly productive dairy goat breeds.
Feeding
Good food always keeps the amimal healthy and productive. In case of dairy goat good feeding practices increase the milk production.
Feeding your dairy goats Can come in different feeding processes and ways but the most important thing is to make sure your goats get the best feeds for great growth and milk production. You can feed your goats forages which may include corn silage, haylage, hay and many types of by products like beet pulp and brewers grain.
You can feed them dry hay in round bale feeders or along the feed alley. In case of ensilaged feed you can set up newer and bigger operations. You can also feed your dairy goats purchased or homemade supplementary feed with grain.
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Be very careful while providing supplementary feed for your goats. Ensure all nutrition elements and necessary vitamins are available in their food. Along with providing good quality food for your goats, provide them sufficient amount of fresh and clean water.
Housing
Being small sized animal goats require less place for living than cow. You can easily keep many goat in the place required for one cow. You also can keep your goats with your other livestock animals. For commercial dairy goat farming many different buildings will be very suitable for housing them.
Breeding
Naturally dairy goats are fall breeders and produce kids in the spring. But by using different techniques and modern farming methods, many dairy goat producers are kidding throughout the year. And by applying those methods producers are producing milk over the whole year. In traditional breeding system producers use bucks for breeding. But in modern system producers are applying artificial insemination to improve their genetics.
For commercial dairy goat farming artificial insemination is very effective than using bucks for breeding purposes.
Keeping Kids
Most of the dairy goats give birth of multiple kids only once every year. And raising the kids is an intense job for the producers. Most of the dairy goat producers keep the female goats and sell the bucks after a few months. You can also keep the female kids for milk production and sell the bucks when they reach slaughter age.
Feed the kids nanny for a few days after their birth and after that you can feed them cow colostrum. After that, feed the kids milk replacer with bottles, nipple pails or with automatic kid feeder. At their age of 1g-2 months, you cal let them to go with their mother and have some food from the grazing place.
Milking
When it comes to Milking, Goats milking is very easy and simple. You can milk your goats manually or by using milking equipment and parlours like cow.
There's a popular statistics I came across in a Kenyan farming community which gave an estimated figure of what goat farmers earn in Kenya (Kenya has the largest goat farming business in East Africa)
it stated that Farmers who rear five dairy goats stand to benefit 45% more compared those farmers rearing one dairy cow.
The outcome of this comparison is as a result of goat comprehension, goats do not need much feeds and space to keep yet their milk always retails at high price as compared to that of a cow.
Here's the calculation and simple mathematics;
1 Dairy cow can give 20 litres of milk a day and a litre of dairy cow milk sells at Ksh 42.Therefore
1 Diary cow producing 20 litres × ksh 42 ×30 days= ksh 25,200.
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While 5 dairy goats can give 13 litres of milk daily fetching kshs 200 per litre.Therefore;
5 dairy goats producing 13 litres ×kshs 200×30days= kshs 78,000.
What this denotes is that in a single day, 5 dairy goats farmer, will earn over ksh 2,600 from the 13 litres much higher when compared to kshs 840 from the 20litres of milk from one dairy cow farmer and yet the production costs of the dairy goat will still be much less than the dairy cow farmer.
The cost of production is usually half the amount of litres per goat i.e kshs 78,000-39,000= kshs. 39,000.
CONCLUSION
Dairy Goat business farming is a great business to venture into, it cost less and you can start with a minimum of two goats (make and female) for great production.
You don't need a big space to begin however you need grass around except if you'd get good feeds for them.
I hope this content has been able to clear your doubts on dairy goat farming.
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