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COLLECTION: GOAT HANDBOOK
ORIGIN: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
DATE INCLUDED: OCTOBER, 1993
A SMALL SCALE AGRICULTURE ALTERNATIVE
Goats
United States Department of Agriculture
Since before Biblical times, goats
may have been the most useful of domesticated animals,
producing milk (for drinking or for cheese), gourmet
meat (cabrito), leather and fiber for clothing (cashmere
or Angora), not to be confused with Angora (rabbit)
wool. Relatively clean, they make fine pets and show
animals and number as many as 460 million in the world.
They, of course, need care to keep dogs away and skillful
management to prevent diseases and internal as well
as external parasites such as lice, mites, and fleas.
USDA's Agricultural Research Service
(ARS) says goats worldwide produce as much as 4.5
million tons of milk a year. Goat milk is so respected
that there have been people who began raising dairy
goats before learning whether they could sell the
milk or knew how to make cheese. Yet, most major U.S.
cities do not have fluid goat milk available in local
retail outlets, according to research by Judy Kapture
for the American Dairy Goat Association, P.O. Box
865, Spindale, NC 28160.
The problem is that in at least
21 States, goat milk when retailed must be pasteurized.
Pasteurization requires a big investment in equipment.
Where milk can be sold raw, licensing is required
and the nannies (the common name for milk goats) must
be carefully tested and kept free of brucellosis and
tuberculosis, which are contagious to humans. Selling
goat milk in this country requires much marketing
time.
Dairy goat owners might well follow
the lead of feeder-calf producer Lillian Buckley of
Laura, Illinois. Originally, she milked the goats,
bottled the milk, and then let newborn calves nurse
from bottles their first 10 to 12 weeks. The shortcut,
including nanny training, lets calves do the milking
direct.
She and husband Mike and family
raise up to 35 Holstein- Semental or Holstein-Angus
crossbred feeder calves, using 25 goats. They raise
their own goats and sell baby males as pets, The family
also feeds about 40 to 50 hogs and handles 50 acres
of vegetables, emphasizing sweet corn.
Major Goat Dairy
Goat dairyman Rube Salada of P.O.
Box 476, Melrose, FL 32666, said anyone who can come
up with half a million dollars is welcome to take
over his 200-goat dairy, lock, stock and trucks a
tractor, a house, well, fences, 38 acres of land he
and his wife, Virginia, "carved out of the jungle,
pasteurization and bottling equipment, and a growing
market.
He said the job keeps his son, Bill,
Bill's wife nancy, and their four children, him and
virginia, and a hired man working too many hours per
week, including trips every Monday night of about
300 miles to Miami to deliver to milk outlets. So
far, there's only one other qualified dairy in Florida.
Almost every week Salada gets calls
from goat herders who want to sell him milk, although
getting milk is the least of his worries. Much time
goes into consistent marketing and distribution, he
emphasizes. He says people wanting to enter the goat
milk business should form a cooperative sales operation.
Dairy goat information sources are
plentiful, including Dr. Thian Teh at the International
Dairy Goat Research Center at Prairie View College,
a branch of Texas A&M University, Prairie View,
TX 77556; Barney Harris or Ernest Bliss at the University
of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences,
Gainesville, FL 32611; Dr. Christopher Lu, Agricultural
Institute for Goat Research, Langston University,
P.O. Box 730, Langston, OK 73050; Frank Murrill, Animal
Science Department, University of California, Davis,
CA 95616, and Judy Kapture, Dairy Goat Information
Services, P.O. Box 298, Portage, WI 53901.
For those wanting to make goat cheese,
and information sources is the American Cheese Society,
a nonprofit organization cooperating with enterprisers
Robert and Ricki Carroll (P.O. Box 85, Ashfield, MA
01330). Annual dues are $25.
The society publishes "A Guide
to American Specialty and Farmstead Cheeses,"
by Barbara Lang. It lists cow and goat cheese producers.
Not all the producers make all the
goat cheeses, which include blue caerphilly, camembert,
cheddar, chevre, feta, semi-aged, soft ripened, and
shepherd's tomme, and capriano - the last three being
hard aged cheeses.
The Carrolls also market equipment
and publish the "Cheesemakers' Journal"
about six issued per year (at $12 per six in the United
States or $20 overseas). It gives tips on manufacturing
and marketing cheeses.
The Carrolls also published a 206-page
book, "The Making of Farmstead Goat Cheese,"
by Jean-Claude Le Jaouen, head of the Goat Research
Section, Technical Institute of Sheep and Goat Research,
Paris, France ($24.45 postpaid). And their beginner's
text is "Cheesemaking Made Easy - 60 Delicious
Varieties" ($8.45 postpaid). Also available on
mold-ripened cheeses is "Goat Cheese: Small-Scale
Production" ($9.45 postpaid).
For those who don't want to get
as far as cheese production, there is fresh goat's
milk curd, used in sauces and from which cheese can
be made. Coach Farms, the 200-goat ranch at Pine plains
in the Hudson River Valley of New York, delivers curd
to New York City stores, which sell it at $6.98 a
pound. Goat curd has a special attribute for cooks,
not breaking down or separating like yogurt our sour
cream do when heated. It enriches or thickens cooked
sauces. Its fat content is 18 percent, about half
that of cream. It keeps in the refrigerator 3 weeks.
Coach Farms also produces a goat yogurt that retails
at a price much higher than yogurt from cow's milk.
Some people sell young goats for
meat as well as doing dairying. One example is Hazel
McTeer, who is not only president of the Missouri
Goat Breeders Association but also president of the
Central States Dairy Goat Marketing Cooperative.
She operates the Fancy "M"
Dairy Goat Ranch (Route 1, box 545, Springfield, MO
65803). She says dairy goat people in her area sell
about 1,500 head of kids ranging in weight from 17
to 38 pounds in March. The price in 1988 is 85 cents
a pound live weight. The goats go by truck to New
York City at Easter time.
Nondairy Goats
Some successful entrepreneurs stay
away from dairy goats, concentrating on goats for
met and leather or fine hair. Those with the greatest
chance for success may already pasturing sheep and/or
cattle and can add some meat and/or angora goats without
damaging their pasture improvement programs. Goats
eat some plants that sheep and cattle don't seek,
so they are not mutually exclusive. They pasture well
together.
Dr. Booker T. Whatley, Alabama agriculturist
and author of "How to Make $100,000 from a 254-Acre
Farm" (postpaid at $17.95 from the Rodale Institute,
222 Main Street, Emmaus, PA 18049), has a suggestion
for marketing feeder lambs that might also apply to
goats. He proposes that an entrepreneur set up a Clientele
Membership Club, seeking one member for each goat
that can be raised. At $30 to $50 apiece, that could
bring a fair supplemental income. If members wanted
their animals butchered, that would cost extra. For
humane reasons, member should not become well acquainted
with their goats, which easily become pets. (Whatley's
book also describes profitable goat dairy operations.)
Among those selling goats for meat
are Bob Buckholz (Route 1B, Box 101, Dripping Springs,
TX 78620), Tom and Helen Hill of northern Florida,
Bronwyn Schuetze and Jill Darrah of Longmont, Colorado,
Hazel L. McTeer of Missouri and many others who say
the tender meat of young goats - cabritos in Spanish
- is beginning to get recognition by gourmet restaurants.
Some say "cabrito" meat,
sometimes also called chevon, has little fat and tastes
better than venison. Goats of all sizes worldwide
produce more meat - 1.2 million tons a year-than do
cattle or hogs, according to ARS. With a flock of
350 to 400 Spanish does, Buckholz annual sells their
offspring for meat at eight months of age for $30
a head.
Since the stock is tough, thrifty,
and hardy, and he has lots of pasture and some Pyrenees
dogs to keep predators such as coyotes and wild dogs
at bay, Buckholz's expenses are relatively small.
The Hills (Route 3, Box 1560 Lake
Butler, FL 32054) sometimes feed kid goats only about
2 months, until reaching 35 to 40 pounds. They then
sell them at nearly $1 a pound, mainly in the Miami
area. They say there is often a shortage of goats
in November and December.
Some of the kids they produce from
their own 50 nannies. They also buy day-old billies
at $5 apiece from the Salada dairy, which does not
wish to bother feeding them. The Hills say they invest
only about $5 worth of grain in each. If they were
fed until they were eight months old, whey would bring
as much as $100, considerably more than Buckholz's
goats.
Mohair Makes Bucks
Buckholz also manages about 1,800
Angora goats, which in recent years have been making
him and other Texans some profits. Mohair prices range
from $1.75 to $7.25 a pound, depending upon quality.
The raw adult mohair price has ranged from 25 cents
a pound in the 1970's to $2.06 in mid-1987. Kid hair
ranges up to $7.25 a pound. USDA's Agricultural Stabilization
and Conservation Service (ASCS) also helps keep growers
in business by matching the price with a substantial
subsidy under the Wool Act.
An adult doe producers anywhere
from 8 to 16 pounds of mohair during two shearings
a year. Buckholz has been selectively upgrading the
quality of his flock. He finds a registered Angora
sells at $300 to $500 in Texas, with a quality nonregistered
female bringing $85 to $100. Bucks are usually higher
priced, at $250 to $5,000, depending on quality and
registered bloodlines indicating quality and production
totals. He's also looking for cashmere lines, with
enthusiastic backing from Teh at Prairie View. The
Texas Town of Junction, incidentally, is the biggest
goat market in the country, having handled as many
as 23,000 of all types in one week.
The mohair business needs to be
approached on the basis of along-term investment,
since lean years can be mixed with good ones, according
to Dr. R.M. Jordan, Professor in the Department of
Animal Science, University of Minnesota (St. Paul,
MN 55108), and information source on mohair.
A New Industry?
Bronwyn and Schuetze and Jill Darrah
have been gathering Spanish and feral (wild) "junk"
doe goats that they are crossbreeding with a cashmere
buck from Australia worth about $10,000. They hope
some of the mixed offspring will produce cashmere
"down" that could bring as much as $50 a
pound. If they are successful, they can claim credit
as pioneers in launching a new U.S. Farm industry.
They will be competing not only with the Chinese,
but also the Turks, Iranians, Iraqis, New Zealanders,
and Australians.
Schuetze and Darrah have about 100
head of females and have launched the American Cashmere
Growers Association, P.O. Box 443, Longmont, CO 80501.
If they and Buckholz were able to
get clean cashmere from their goats, they could get
from $39.98 to $77.93 per kilogram (1 kg. = 2.2046
pounds), notes Hugh Hopkins, transplanted Australian
employed at Forte Cashmere Company (148 Halet Avenue,
P.O. Box 869, Woonsocket, RI 02895), one of three
cashmere processing plants in this country. (There
are only eight in the world, Teh reports).
Forte pays its highest prices for
first quality Chinese fiber that is clean and white.
The longer and finer the fiber, the higher the price.
Teh and Hopkins agree that the United
States as the goat population to produce cashmere
in about 10 years. That might require imports of semen,
embryos, or male goats from Australia or elsewhere.
Teh says cashmere could get started in 2 or 4 years
if some stock from Chine or elsewhere were imported.
A few people are exploring the idea.
Dr. J.M. Shelton, professor of sheep
and goat genetics and physiology at the San Angelo
Research Center at Texas A&M University (7887
N. Highway 87, San Angelo, TX 76901), says it appears
the cashmere ideas is "a long shot but has potential."
The cashmere goat can provide double as a meat goat.
Teh at Prairie View is also exploring the idea of
crossing cashmere with dairy goats.
GOATS
COLLECTION;GOAT HANDBOOK
ORIGIN;United States
DATE_INCLUDED;June 1992
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