favorite goat breeds

I keep a small herd of Kinder goats. While Kinders aren't one of the best known breeds, they has a lot of wonderful homestead qualities. When someone new to goats asks about recommendations, I'm always quick to point these qualities out: mid-size goat well suited to smaller homesteads, dual purpose for both milk and meat, rich creamy milk, excellent feed to muscle conversion for solid weight gain, and fantastically friendly personalities. Advantages to their mid-size stature mean they eat less than standard goats yet are excellent producers. Also, they're tall enough to milk easily.

Their biggest disadvantage is that since they are less popular, they are sometimes difficult to find.

That's me, but I know other goatkeepers have different favorites. So my question is, if someone is thinking about getting goats, which breed would you recommend and why?

When I spent some time on a goat farm that focused on cheesemaking, they had a registered alpine herd. What an incredibly intelligent breed but they can be stubborn when they wanted to. They are a hardy medium sized breed and took well to the presence of livestock guardian dogs (LGDs). I have fond memories of standing in a two stall milking parlor and calling out "one" or "two" and the herd stood at the open gate and only let the number that I called in. It was rather surreal.

I do not know if it is a common goat trait but we had a select few super-moms who would 'steal' the other mother's kids and hoard them if left unattended. I knew which ones to check in on if a kid went missing. Such funny critters.

Your Kinder goats sound excellent for homesteaders.

Our selection of dairy goats in Australia is pretty limited, and I don’t think we have Kinders here. I am a big fan of the Toggenburg for dairy. I’ve found them to be more resilient than the Saanens I’ve seen, and they give higher milk yields for longer. They don’t give much meat though.

My herd is a mixture of pure Toggenburg and Toggenburg/Saanen/Anglo-Nubian crosses.

I think it’s good to speak to breeders, and to find a specific breeder within that breed, to find animals that are being raised in a similar way to how you intend to raise them. Also for dairy it’s important to ask about milk yield.

I have been crossing Cashmere goats with Boer goats for the last last couple years. They make for the hardiest meat goats around. Excellent mothers, they raise twins and triplets on pasture. I live in Saskatchewan Canada so any dairy breeds need to stay inside a barn most of the winter, some of them even need a heated barn. These meat goats like a barn or some kind of shelter to sleep in, but they will be out in -30 if its not windy.

Leora Laforge wrote:I have been crossing Cashmere goats with Boer goats for the last last couple years. . .

Leora, does your cross produce any fiber? (Thinking as a handspinner now)

Leigh Tate wrote:Leora, does your cross produce any fiber? (Thinking as a handspinner now)

Yes the cross produces a good fibre, it will just be shorter and less of it overall. The cashmere is the soft undercoat that most goats grow, so the goats selected for cashmere just grow a lot more. They are a slower growing meat goat than the Boers are, which is why I am doing the cross. Pregnant does have a hormone shift that happens 4-6 weeks before they kid, that makes all the undercoat shed out very quickly, within few days, and the top coat sheds later, so you can comb them and get a pretty clean fleece. The combing is extremely tedious, but for a handspinner, that's probably not an issue.

I like my Nigerian Dwarfs quite a bit. Can contain them with 4 foot fences and landscape staples. They pack quite a bit of meat for their small size, good mothers, very low maintenance.

Haven't really tried milking them but some friends told me it's kind of a pain.

Sam Shade wrote:I like my Nigerian Dwarfs quite a bit. . . Haven't really tried milking them but some friends told me it's kind of a pain.

That's been my experience as well. Short teats and too low to the ground to get a milking bucket under them. They don't produce a lot of milk either. But they do have the sweetest personalities which makes them very lovable.

I have nigoras, and have been very happy with them. As a hand spinner, I like getting the fiber (larger volume than cashmere goats, softer than mohair which is too itchy for me). Milking two does gives me plenty for my family. I have found their temperaments to be good, with none of the fence breaking goats are known for. I am vegetarian, so can’t speak to the meat production, but I know some breeders do butcher their culls, so there is some meat there at least.

I love our Nubians whish I've been raising for 20 years now. They are big goats which means they are good for dual purpose. They don't make as much milk as other breeds but the milkfat content is higher and that makes for some really nice cheeses. We walk them for a couple of hours in the forest every day so their height is helpful for not dragging udders through prickly cactus or spikey catclaw.
Some folks say that Nubians are loud but I have not found that to be the case with our herd.
I am experimenting with milking them through for 2 or three years rather than breeding every year. So far with mixed results. I'll be saving kids from those who milk through longer.

We raise Nubian/Nubian Boer crosses for milk and meat and I love the best of both worlds. We feed our cats (rodent control) and LGDs (livestock body guards) raw meat so the meatier our milkers can be without losing so much dairy quality is a plus. I created my own breed by crossing the two and then keeping the ones who make the most milk. The bonus to that is that when I cull there are always several mouths ready to eat whatever we deem unfit to stay in our breeding program. Birria anyone?

I love the Chamoisées from the French Alps.  

They are a horned dairy breed, small, vigorous, healthy, less hybridized, and are a dark mouflon coloring. Black or as light as brown main coat color with light fawn under belly and under chest, up under tail, and caramel and white stripes down the face.

They are mostly run on pastures from place to place and aren’t bred at all for confinement or much grain, browse and pasturing being their main food source historically.

I have not seen this breed in the USA however.

I keep mostly Alpines and love them, they're friendly and trainable. Bigger goats are surprisingly easier to fence in than little ones, and it's easier to help with rare kidding problems if you can actually fit your hand up there.

Favorite breed should really depend upon your ultimate goal for keeping goats.  Love our Nigerian Dwarf does.  We have two.  We milk them everyday.  The girls jump up on a stanchion and we sit on a stool to milk.  Easy peasy to reach.  Small teats?  We do 'finger tip' milking.  Super easy to learn.  Takes 1/2 hour for milking chores in the morning and evening.  We get a quart of milk a day from each of them.  More than enough for our household of 2 humans...and the grandson who visits weekly.  We have goats for their milk to make CHEESE!  Glorious cheese.  I make cheese 2-3 times per week, plenty for us with plenty to share.  We make yogurt from their milk.  We eat yogurt for breakfast every morning.  1 gallon of milk keeps us in yogurt for two weeks.  Lower qty milk than larger goats, but higher butterfat so the return on our milk into cheese is much higher.  A 2 gallon batch of milk gives us 3+lbs of cheddar, along with another pound of ricotta from the whey and this after skimming the cream for butter.  

We keep our girls on deep litter and just topped off 300sq ft of new raised garden beds with the litter from their pen.  Incredible compost.  Their spent hay...that which drops to the ground while they are eating...provides a beautiful mulch cover on our garden beds to help keep the beds from drying out in our summer heat.  

We are on 1/4 acre in suburbia.  Small stature of Nigerians is perfect for our backyard.  We walk the goats in the neighborhood every day for exercise.  We know MANY more of our neighbors now that we walk our goats.

Our girls have kidded twice in our backyard, twins and triplets, then quads and twins.  No issues.  If you have good stock, good nutrition, and good herd management you are less likely to have issues with kidding.

I do comb them every spring to collect their cashmere....but pulling the guard hairs has prevented me from doing anything with it yet.

Leigh Tate wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:I like my Nigerian Dwarfs quite a bit. . . Haven't really tried milking them but some friends told me it's kind of a pain.

That's been my experience as well. Short teats and too low to the ground to get a milking bucket under them. They don't produce a lot of milk either. But they do have the sweetest personalities which makes them very lovable.

We get 2 cups a day with 1 milking in the morning. It'd be difficult to get a bucket under her, I use teatcups with hoses going down to the ground where my suction machine and bucket sit. We're completely off grid but I still harness modern technology. You might be able to milk her directly into a 1 quart stainless cup. I wouldn't use glass, she'd probably smash it with her hoof. And milk forward (of udder) not backwards, because she'd probably lay some dropping into the cup.

Our white 5 year old ND is a little taller but she's still pregnant.

Gordon, milking machines for short or small teated goats is a good thing to mention. I looked at the Henry milker several years ago but never bought one.

Also, I think the desired amount of milk production is highly personal. Even with goats, I never needed several gallons per day for just the two of us. I'm happy to milk once a day and adjust our dairy products to what we get. It depends on the family's need.

Leigh Tate wrote:Gordon, milking machines for short or small teated goats is a good thing to mention. I looked at the Henry milker several years ago but never bought one.

Also, I think the desired amount of milk production is highly personal. Even with goats, I never needed several gallons per day for just the two of us. I'm happy to milk once a day and adjust our dairy products to what we get. It depends on the family's need.

I was looking at the situation this morning while I had my fancy machine hooked up. You could probably get a 2 quart saucepan under there. With some care to keep everything clean it could be done. Even with my closed system I filter the milk through a cheese cloth when I'm dumping it into the Mason jar.

A couple days ago I tried milking by hand but couldn't get a single drop out.

I like the Nigerians but these are the only goats I've had so there's nothing to compare them to. I've heard some of the other milk tastes more goaty but again, I haven't tried it so I don't really know for sure.