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Compared to other types of domesticated farm animals, there are a very limited number of meat breeds among goats. Since ancient times, these animals mainly required milk. Which in general is quite surprising. For a very long time, cows were used only as draft and sacrificial animals due to the fact that a person could not absorb milk. Only after a mutation, as a result of which milk began to be digested, cows began to be milked.
At the same time, dairy goats appear already in the ancient myths of Hellas. Used as an idiomatic expression since the XNUMXth century BC. The “Cornucopia” belonged to the goat Amalthea (Amalthea). Amalthea nursed Zeus with her milk when his mother Rhea hid her son from her cruel husband Kronos. For this, Amalthea received the dubious reward of providing the skin for the shield of Zeus. But her horns have become a symbol of well-being and prosperity.
But what is important is not what happened to Amalthea, but the fact that already at least 1000 years before our era, people used goat’s milk. And if the number of meat breeds of goats today is limited to three, then there are much more dairy ones.
What breeds are best
Dairy breeds of goats can be very high-yielding, but demanding to keep. In order to obtain the declared amount of milk from such goats, it is necessary to strictly observe the conditions for their maintenance and feeding. Another group of dairy goats does not produce very much milk, but it is less whimsical. These goats are often much easier to keep. With the ratio of the cost of feed, maintenance and the laboriousness of caring for animals against milk production, it is sometimes more profitable to keep less milk-producing, but also less whimsical goats. It is necessary to choose a breed of dairy goats for a particular farm, taking into account their pros and cons.
General characteristics of dairy goats
The appearance of dairy goats has common features:
- small dry head;
- thin neck;
- body with a well-developed belly;
- relatively long legs;
- well-developed cup-shaped udder.
The udder must not fall below the hock.
Individual characteristics of goats by breed vary quite a lot. Which breed of goat will be the most milky depends on several factors:
- breeding region;
- diet;
- conditions of detention;
- individual characteristics of a particular animal.
In the same breed there are high-yielding and low-yielding animals.
Top Breeds
In Our Country, among the dairy breeds of goats, Zaanenskaya is the most famous.
Zaanenskaya
Large breed predominantly white. Sometimes they may have a yellowish tint. Bred 500 years ago in the Saanental Valley of Switzerland. It appeared in Europe only at the very end of the XNUMXth century and appeared in Our Country at the very beginning of the XNUMXth century. Later, this breed of goats, as the most dairy, spread throughout the country.
The height of the Saanen goats is 75-90 cm. The weight of the goats is 55-80 kg, the goats average 110 kg. The constitution is strong. The head is medium, dry. Goats can be horned and polled. Broad forehead. Small thin ears are horn-shaped. They can be frizzy. The skeleton is strong. The chest is wide, voluminous. Straight back. Slightly sloping, well developed croup. Legs in correct position. Strong hooves. The coat is thick, without undercoat, the awn is short, thin. The skin is thin. The udder is well developed, large.
To the merits The Saanen breed is attributed to its high milk yield and the fact that it is one of the breeds of goats without a specific smell of milk.
Disadvantages: exactingness to feed and conditions of detention, as well as the poor ability of specific animals to acclimatize. Although the breed as a whole is considered highly adaptive.
Such a contradiction is expressed in the fact that Saanen goats can be bred on the territory from the southern borders of Our Country up to the latitude of Moscow. But if a single goat is transported from Krasnodar to Novosibirsk, there is a high risk that the animal will get sick. Accordingly, it is better to buy Zaanenka from the Novosibirsk region to the Novosibirsk region.
Milk productivity of thoroughbred Saanen goats is 4-8 liters of milk per day. The annual milk yield reaches 800-1200 liters. But the fat content of milk is low: 4%.
Saanen goats bring 1-3 kids per lamb.
Due to the whimsicalness of the Saanen goats, they prefer to mix with outbred or breeds. For this reason, it is very difficult to find a purebred Saanenka, and they are expensive.
With the opening of borders and the importation of new dairy goat breeds, it looks like the Saanenskys are starting to lose the title of the most dairy goats to the Nubian breed.
Nubian
Despite the name, the breed actually comes from England. But the basis for the breeding of Nubian goats was the animals exported from Namibia. The blood of English, Indian and Swiss dairy goats was added to the native Nubian goats, resulting in the large dairy goats shown in the photo.
A goat can grow up to 120 cm and weigh 100 kg or more. Goats grow up to a meter and weigh 80 kg. Goats have a small head with a characteristic Roman profile and very long floppy ears. The length of the ears is such that they hang below the skull, and in some individuals, as seen in the photograph, the length of the ears is much greater than the size of the head. The neck is long and thin. The backbone is strong, the back is straight. The croup is slightly sloping, with a high-set tail. The legs are long and thin.
The color of the Nubians can be varied, but in Our Country the color with the so-called moon spots is especially valued.
For their size, the Nubians have a rather calm nature, although a goat may well dismantle its stall piece by piece to get to the goats. But they are not aggressive towards people.
Productivity Nubiek: 4-5 liters of milk per day with a fat content of 4,5%. There is evidence that sometimes the fat content of milk can reach up to 8%. Due to its high fat content and large amount of protein, Nubian milk is ideal for making cheese, and among goat breeders, even crosses with the Nubian breed are highly valued, as this improves the quality of milk from local goats.
It is believed that this breed of goats is also without a specific smell of milk, but there are too few purebred Nubians to say anything for sure.
Nubias are distinguished by precocity and at 7 months they are already ready for mating, but for the normal development of the body it is better to wait with mating for at least a year. Goats usually bring 1-2 kids, maybe up to 3 in one lambing. Uterus after lambing recover very quickly.
The disadvantage of the breed is the same exactingness to the content as that of the Saanensky: with poor-quality feeding, milk yield and fat content decrease. The second serious drawback of the breed is the small number of these animals in Our Country and, as a result, the very high price of purebred animals.
Today in Our Country, Saanen and Nubian goats are considered the best dairy breeds. But the prices for these representatives of the goat tribe are going through the roof, so you can see what other dairy goat breeds can be found in Our Country.
Cameroonian
This is a miniature breed of dairy goat without the unpleasant smell of milk. It was bred on the border of Nigeria and Cameroon, which is why in the English-speaking space it is called Nigerian. The growth of Cameroonians is about 50 cm, and the weight of a goat is 12-15 kg, a goat is 21-23 kg. Otherwise, the exterior of these goats practically does not differ from their large counterparts. The only difference is considered to be the horns pointing backwards, with which, theoretically, the Cameroonians cannot cause injury. But the goats are very good at using these horns to hollow out everything that gets in their way.
Goats bring 1-2 kid per lamb. If we measure milk yield in absolute terms, then Cameroonians can hardly be called highly productive. Goats give from 0,5 to 1 liter per day and only for 5 months.
But the advantage of Cameroonians is that they can breed year-round and from a goat you can get 2 offspring per year. Cameroonians also have a very high fat content of milk. The average is 4,5-5%. Cases have been recorded when the fat content of milk was 10%. A visual representation of the fat content of milk in this breed is given by a simple action: it is enough to let the milk settle and collect the cream. True, you have to measure with glasses: from one glass you can collect 2 tbsp. cream spoons.
Cameroon goats are unpretentious and undemanding to the content. For food, they can even eat grass and straw that have dried up on the vine. But tasty milk in this case is not to be expected from them.
Cameroonians are very easily tamed if not offended. They can even become stubborn and arrogant. Often they are even kept in apartments as pets. In Our Country, they are bred up to the northern borders of the Moscow and Novosibirsk regions.
For goat breeders today Cameroonians are of interest as a material for crossing with large breeds of goats. For this, Cameroon goats are used, getting the so-called minis. In size, minis are average between Cameroonians and large breeds. Their milk yield is similar to that of large ones, and less feed is required. In addition, they adopt unpretentiousness to feed from Cameroonians.
Czech brown
The breed is one of the largest. The growth of the uterus is 75 cm. The goats are larger. The usual was carrying a dairy goat 50-60 km. Males can be up to 80 kg. Animals of the Czech Brown breed are quite light and high-legged. The breed was created on the basis of brown Alpine and brown German breeds. By mixing these highly productive breeds with local livestock, the Czech goat was obtained with a characteristic brown color.
Czech brown can have a brown color from light to very dark. But the obligatory signs will be a black belt on the back, a black mask on the muzzle and black legs. The breed has a characteristic exterior for all dairy goats. The udder is more often extended down.
The productivity of queens during lactation is on average 4 liters of milk per day. This breed does not have a special milk fat content (3,5%), but its products have a delicate creamy taste.
At one time, the breed was almost extinct, but quickly became popular again and is now bred throughout Europe. In Our Country, according to some data, the number of Czech Browns is 400 thousand individuals.
Minus the breed that animals cannot be bought everywhere. Czech browns are bred in breeding centers and if you need a guarantee of purebred, you will have to go to such a center.
plus breed in high frost resistance and the ability to adapt well to climatic conditions.
white
The name unites several breed groups at once. When crossing local livestock with imported European and Swiss dairy breeds, improved types were obtained. These groups got their name from the areas where they were bred:
- Valdai;
- Yaroslavskaya;
- Gorkovskaya;
- Ryazan.
The White is bred throughout the Central part of the Federation, as well as in Ukraine and Belarus.
Animals are quite large: goats 50-70 kg, goats 40-50. Growth 65-70 cm. Sexual dimorphism in weight is rather weakly expressed. The main color is white, but there are gray, red, black and piebald individuals. The constitution is strong. The head is small, light, slightly elongated. Ears erect, straight, small in size. Both sexes have beards. The difference between a male and a female is in the splendor and length of the beards.
At the same time, polled individuals are also found in the breed. The body is barrel-shaped. The chest is wide. The croup is droopy. Legs well set, strong, well articulated. The udder is large. May be pear-shaped or round. The nipples are directed slightly forward.
Some of the types of White are classified as universal breeds, since the pile of fluff from these goats is up to 200 g per year. There are also individuals that do not have an undercoat, with only a short stiff awn.
The productivity of the Whites is low compared to the Saanen or Nubian. Given the size, it is low even compared to the Cameroon goats. On average, a goat of the breed gives about 2 liters per day. Although there are individuals that can give 4 liters. The lactation period lasts 8-9 months. The fat content of milk is about 4%.
The breed is good because it is very unpretentious to the conditions of detention and has high adaptive abilities. The disadvantages include only the fear of drafts. But there is no animal that does not get sick in drafts. Therefore, we can safely say that the White has no flaws.
Alpine
One of the most productive breeds. There are two types in the population: French and American. Typically, American types are very different from the parent breeds, so it is difficult to describe Alpine goats. In addition, this breed is distinguished by a variety of colors. As a breed, Alpiyki were created at the junction of three states and it is impossible to accurately trace their origin.
This color was inherited by the Czech brown breed.
Animal height 75-87 cm, weight 60-80 kg. The head is long with a straight profile. Ears erect, narrow. Polled individuals are not uncommon in the breed. If a kid is born horned, it is often dehorned. In goats, the horns are very long flat horns diverge to the sides, reminiscent of the wild ancestor of all these artiodactyls. The coat is hard and short.
The productivity of queens is average. According to French goat breeders, it is 3 liters per day. Fat content is also low: 3,7%. But the milk of this breed has no smell and according to the testimony of “eyewitnesses” it tastes indistinguishable from cow’s. Alpines are highly prolific, often bringing 4 kids. In fact, such a number of cubs is a very large burden for the uterus and it is better to destroy weak individuals immediately.
Alpines are undemanding to the conditions of detention. The cold does not matter to them, the main thing is that it is dry and not drafty. But like any rocks, Alpiyki do not tolerate poorly ventilated rooms. The high frost resistance of the Alpine breed makes it suitable for breeding in the northern regions of the Federation.
About the smell
The problem of the smell of goat milk is familiar even to those who have never dealt with goats. Just hearsay. But this question is not as simple as it might seem. No descriptions of breeds of dairy goats with or without photos will give accurate information on whether the milk of a particular goat will smell. According to the observations of experienced goat breeders, the presence of smell does not depend on the breed. The appearance of the smell depends on the conditions of detention and the individual characteristics of the goat.
Under poor conditions in an uncleaned barn, milk is more likely to stink. If a goat, in the process of milking, also washes a hoof in a bowl (and goats like to put their foot in milk), then the stink of milk is guaranteed. Also, goats are often born hermaphrodites. These individuals are sterile, but the level of hermaphrodism may be limited only by an increased amount of male hormones. And then the milk will also have the smell of “goat”.
Therefore, when buying a goat, you need to pay attention not to what breed of goats gives odorless milk, but what kind of milk a particular individual gives.
But the taste of milk depends entirely on the feed. Milk takes on the taste of the food that the goat ate. If it was wormwood, the milk will be bitter. When feeding on straw and feed, milk will be sufficient, but the possibility of eating it will be in question due to the unpleasant taste.
Which one to choose
When choosing a dairy animal for your farm, you need to know the main points on how to choose a dairy goat. If milk is needed immediately, then the animal should be after the second lambing. Only in this case it is possible to accurately determine its milk yield. You should not be guided by advertising “mother gives 6 liters at the peak”. Strange as it may seem, but the goat’s milk yield is transmitted by the father, who, in turn, is born from a high-yielding uterus. Accordingly, the lower limit of the age of the individual in question is not younger than 2,5 years.
The udder should be of the correct shape with cone-shaped teats sticking out forward. An animal with such nipples, as in the photo, is not worth taking.
The milk tanks of this individual are small, and the nipples are deformed and enlarged. When grazing, they will touch the branches and the ground. Damage will lead to infection of the udder.
Photo of a dairy goat with a quality udder. After milking, such an udder should “deflate” and become very soft. The skin on it wrinkles, the nipples also decrease. Before milking, the teats feel hard to the touch due to the milk they contain. After milking, they also become soft.
Conclusion
When choosing a dairy breed among goats, you must always take into account not only the absolute amount of milk received, but also the quality and cost of feed, which will allow you to get the predicted amount of production. Sometimes it’s better to get a little less milk for a lot less money and effort than with a high producing breed.