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.