A homestead feels incomplete without goats, which provide milk, meat, and potential income. Our homestead currently houses seven Nigerian Dwarf milk goats. This article explores why we chose Nigerian milk goats, covering basic care, breeding, and profit-generating ideas.
Why Choose Nigerian Dwarf Milk Goats?
When choosing goats, decide between meat and milk breeds. Boer goats are popular for meat. Nubians are a well-known milk breed, but we opted for Nigerian Dwarf milk goats. These goats are small, friendly, and cute.
While they produce less milk than Nubians, one to two pints daily suits our needs. The techniques in this article apply to both Nubian and Nigerian milk goats. Nubians are larger and can produce twice as much milk per goat.
The number one reason why we have goats at all is to produce milk for our cow’s-milk intolerant family members (3 of the 5 of us!). The first time we tasted milk from our Nigerian Dwarf goats we were blown away by the sweet and creamy taste. Our kids LOVE this fresh milk that doesn’t even have a hint of goaty flavour - you wouldn’t know its goats milk if we didn’t tell you!
I believe there are a few reasons for this, including farm freshness and proper handling and storage; but the chief reason why we love this milk so much is the high butterfat. Nigerian Dwarf goats have the highest butterfat content of all registered dairy goat breeds. Producing 1 to 2 litres of creamy milk with 6-10% butterfat a day, these miniature milkers are in a league of their own when compared to the butterfat of other breeds (2-6%).
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Selecting Your Milk Goats
Milk goats are for milk production, so focus on the udders. Firm, strong, balanced udders with good teat development are essential. Good udders in females lead to good profits when selling offspring and easier milking.
Goats are social animals; never keep just one goat. Buy at least two to prevent loneliness and constant noise. We initially made this mistake. The solo goat only ate when I was present and cried at the fence otherwise.
Besides udder development, look for a good build, clear eyes, healthy appearance, and well-formed poop. Avoid goats with diarrhea, low energy, or uncertain health. A poor goat requires as much feed and space as a good one. A goat that consistently has triplets can make a thousand dollars more in profits (over her lifetime) than a goat that only has twins.
In other words, paying an extra $100 up front is better than spending lots of food, medicine, and time on a goat that under-performs in the long run.
When I started looking at the different dairy breeds, all I cared about was the flavor of their milk. I tried a couple different breeds’ milk and there were some that had that all too familiar musky/goaty flavor. Yup, not gonna drink that!
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When I tried the Nigerian Dwarf’s milk, it was amazing! Very smooth and fresh, and a bit sweet without any sort of aftertaste. I learned that Nigerians were bred for this purpose, to have milk that tastes similar to cow’s milk. So I would personally recommend Nigerians for the best tasting milk. Nigerians are also smaller and eat less hay, so that’s a bonus. Full grown, Nigerians are only about 75 lbs.
Where to buy
The cheapest way is to buy a young doeling, as young as 8 weeks old (that’s the time when they can be weaned from their mother). Goat breeders usually have a lot of babies around the same time and are willing to offer package deals for two or more goats. The only con with this is you’ll have to wait AT LEAST a year to a year and a half before you can breed, then you’ll have to wait 5 months until they have babies and start giving milk.
For Nigerian Dwarfs, you can find a young doeling for $150-$300 depending on their parents background, milking star awards, and colorings.
The final way to purchase is to look for a FEMALE DOE ALREADY IN MILK. This is what I tried to do at first. I “thought” this was the easy way, but in the end I just kept getting does that nobody wanted and had problems.
Milking Process
To milk a goat, she must have recently had a baby. Making babies is what makes milk. If you buy a goat for milking, she should be pregnant, recently have given birth, or you will need a buck to impregnate her for future milk-production.
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Generally, you will let the kids nurse until weaning at about eight weeks, then you will start milking after that. It is possible to keep a goat in milk for months. Then she will need to be “freshened” by getting pregnant again and having babies.
If you want milk year-round you will need at least two females on rotating birthing cycles. It is also possible to hand-rear the kids on artificial formula and milk the doe from the time she gives birth. Just let the kids nurse for the first few days in order to get antibodies from their mother. We leave the kids with their doe until weaning time, but we aren’t aiming for maximum productivity.
The exact process for milking is as follows:
- Put goat in milking station (with some feed).
- Sanitize the teats and bottom of udders with warm soapy water or a sanitizer diluted in water (like StarSan). Some people also shave or trim the udders to keep hair from getting into the milk.
- Use a clean jar and milk each side of the goat. Be careful to not let the goat kick over, or put her dirty foot in, the milk receptacle.
- Cover the jars to bring into the house then STRAIN out any hair or other debris. A quart mason jar is better than a metal bucket for milking goats, in my opinion.
- Refrigerate, and drink or use to make other products like cheese or soap.
Milking a goat is simply a matter of pinching the teat up near the udder-to trap the milk in the teat-and then squeezing down (like squeezing toothpaste from a tube) to get the milk out. Repeat those steps over and over again until the udder is empty. Occasionally, I will massage the udder to get more milk to drop. Repeat the same steps with each side. You can even go back to side one after milking side two to get a little more milk.
Generally you will want to milk your goats twice each day. Milking more often creates more milk production. You will get more milk overall by milking twice each day than you would by only milking once each day. For us, the process of milking takes about 20 minutes per session per goat, or 40 minutes per day per goat. We aren’t in a big hurry. They do make milking machines for goats, but they are expensive.
My wife wears latex gloves when milking in order to keep her hands from smelling like goat.
Building a Head Hold for Milking
Even the most friendly goat isn’t all that interested in standing still for twenty minutes while you milk her. You will need a head hold, or a milking station. You don’t need to buy one. They are easy to make and fairly self-explanatory. My first milking station was made from a wooden pallet and a 2×4. That’s it! Later I built an entire goat “tractor” with a milking station and a yard to hold the goats about to be milked.
A milking stand really just needs two pieces of wood with notches cut out to go around the goat’s neck and hold her head in place. It helps if you include a feed bucket where the goat can eat a little while you are milking her. The head hold in the picture is made with two pieces of wood, a screw at the bottom of one piece that allows it to pivot, and a screen door latch on top to hold it shut.
The Qualities of Goat Milk
Goat milk has smaller fat particles, so it’s harder to separate into cream and milk. The fat stays in the milk, making the milk taste richer than cow milk. Contrary to popular belief, goat milk has the same affect on people with lactose intolerance as cow’s milk. However, many people (like myself), who thought they had lactose intolerance, actually have a milk allergy. If you have a milk allergy (like I do), then goat milk will not cause gastric distress. I’m a big fan of goat milk because it doesn’t affect me like cow milk does.
You can make cheese out of goat milk. We have made both mozzarella and feta type cheese from our goat milk. You can also make soaps and lotions from goat milk. I have never done it myself, however.
What does goat milk taste like? The first time you drink it it will taste “funny” because your brain is telling you that it’s “farmy.” That quickly passes and it tastes just like cow milk, only creamier because the fat is still in it. It can have a slight “earthy” smell depending on how well you clean the teats. It helps to remember that cow milk from the store is separated, processed, and pasteurized before packaging. So consider the difference between goat milk and cow milk to be the same as the difference between fresh-picked green beans from the garden and a can of green beans. Fresh smells better even though it is “farmy.”
Benefits of Nigerian Dwarf Goat Milk:
- Many Uses for Products and Cooking: Goat milk is perfect for cheese, soap, yoghurt, ice cream, buttermilk, skin care and lip balm, butter, cream, fudge, and kefir.
- Easier to Digest: The fat globules in goat milk are smaller, making it easier for your body to digest.
- Fewer Allergenic Proteins & Causes Less Inflammation: Goat milk contains only A2 casein, making it, protein wise, the closest milk to human breast milk.
- High in Calcium and Fatty Acids But Low in Cholesterol: Goat milk is actually richer in this vital mineral.
- Improves Your Skin: With high levels of vitamin A, it can improve your complexion, fight acne and improve overall skin health.
Making Goat Babies
A great way to have fun while making profit is to make new baby goats. It’s a trip!! Baby goats are just like any other type of baby, they are fun to watch! In order to make babies you will need a buck. Having a buck in your herd is just like having a man anywhere else… it’s a bit more trouble but you need one to get certain chores done!
Picking a buck is the same as picking does. Look for healthy, clear eyes, good structure and plenty of junk in his trunk. In this case his junk is his scrotum. Don’t worry, it’s easy to spot. It hangs down farther than a does’ udders.
If you want to make “registered” babies then you need a registered buck and registered does. If you just want to make great goats of the same breed then make sure you get goats that look like good examples of the breed. I recommend against getting any sort of cross-bred goats.
IMPORTANT: If you are going to have baby goats, then it’s very useful to make your goats very FRIENDLY and TRUSTING of humans. Feed them by hand often. Make sure they trust and like you. Because when they start having kids, and you want/need to help the birth, they have to trust you. Otherwise, they will try to run away. Running with a kid hanging out of the back of a doe is not good for either party.
It is possible to just let the doe have her kids “au naturale” without any assistance. But it generally results in more dead kids and possibly even a dead doe. Having assistance can mean the difference between one live kid and three live kids. Since a goat is worth about $200, that’s a $400 profit just from helping out with the birthing process.
To help with birthing you will need a “kit.” The kit should include: iodine, latex gloves, towels, floss, and scissors. The scissors are used to cut the umbilical cord, if necessary (it has never been necessary for me). The iodine is there to treat the umbilical wound on the kid and keep it from getting infected. The gloves and towels are there for obvious reasons. The floss is there to assist in birthing in complicated births.
You will need to research how to deal with goat birthing issues. This article is not designed to do so. Suffice it to say, a kid should come out with it’s front feet and face emerging AT THE SAME TIME. The proper goat birth posture is with it’s face resting on it’s front feet. Anything other than that requires intervention to re-position the kid. One of the most common problems is Rear-First positioning; you will need to turn the kid around.
A telltale sign that your doe is getting close to delivery is to run your fingers alongside her spine all the way to the tail. Just before you get to the tail, see if you can squeeze the ligament just before her tail. If you do this about 2-3 weeks before delivery, you’ll be able to notice a definite relaxing of that ligament.
Here's a table summarizing the key differences between Nigerian Dwarf and Nubian goats:| Feature | Nigerian Dwarf | Nubian |
|---|---|---|
| Size | Smaller (around 75 lbs) | Larger |
| Milk Production | 1-2 pints per day | Twice as much or more |
| Butterfat Content | Higher (6-10%) | Lower (2-6%) |
| Temperament | Gentle, curious, and a little stubborn | Generally friendly and adaptable |
milking a goat
Raising Nigerian Dwarf goats can be a rewarding experience, providing delicious milk and delightful companionship. With proper care and attention, these miniature milkers can thrive on your homestead.
