Goatkeeping Economics

[Leta]

Hi there, I'm new here!

We are currently looking for a place where we can have livestock, and my number one pick are dairy goats.

I am lucky enough to have an amazing friend with a herd of about two dozen, and I have learned so much from her. However, her husband is a doctor, and money is not an issue for them. When I have asked her for information on the expenses of goatkeeping, she has not been able to give me figures because I think that it's not a concern for her, and because her goats are more like pets than livestock.

I know that hay varies by the region and the season, and depending on where we end up, we'll either grow our own, work for shares, or buy a truckload at a time from downstate relatives. I also know that we'll need to invest in durable goods like a tank, buckets, cream separator, and, of course, goat housing/fencing.

The expenses that are causing me to scratch my head are consumable things like vaccines, grain and sweet feed (do you really have to feed both?), teat dip, minerals, milk filters (is there a non-disposable version that's safe to use?), etc.

We will start off with two goats, and I cannot imagine having more than four milkers at one time. We won't keep a buck on hand, and probably won't keep any wethers for longer than a season. (We will probably get a dual purpose breed, as we will be following the "milk the girls, eat the boys" model.) My husband has all sorts of experience slaughtering and butchering livestock, but none with dairying, so that's why I'm the dairy apprentice.

I'd really appreciate any information anyone could share!

 

[freemotion]

Are you looking to become a professional dairy and sell milk? If so, there are rules and regs on that and you'll have to find out what is required in your state.

If you are looking to have milk for your family and make some cheese, yogurt, ice cream, etc and do so on a budget, well, I'm your gal! The queen of improvising! I actually improvise even when I can afford to just buy stuff, because it is a fun challenge to me, it is like doing a puzzle. And it is far more interesting than just making a purchase.

What are your ultimate goals?

 

[20kidsonhill]

What breed where you planning on getting? How much land/ pasture are you looking at buying? Or are you thinking about more a dry lot set-up?

If you would have asked the economic question 5 or more years ago, many of us would have said it isn't too bad, but in the last 3 or 4 years corn prices have sky rocketed along with all the feeds and drugs that are used. We are paying more than twice as much near 3x as much for everything compared to 5 years ago. did you see the thread on here about "How much are you paying for your feed?" that might help you a little.

http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=9036

 

[KathyCo]

Are you looking to become a professional dairy and sell milk? If so, there are rules and regs on that and you'll have to find out what is required in your state.

If you are looking to have milk for your family and make some cheese, yogurt, ice cream, etc and do so on a budget, well, I'm your gal! The queen of improvising! I actually improvise even when I can afford to just buy stuff, because it is a fun challenge to me, it is like doing a puzzle. And it is far more interesting than just making a purchase.

What are your ultimate goals?

Oh, I am totally interested in what you have to say. I am hoping the OP is same as me - just want some milk for family and the ability to make cheese, ice cream, and maybe soap.

 

[AlaskanShepherdess]

It really depends on what your methods are going to be, for instance I don't vaccinate or pre-medicate, and any medicating I do it with herbs, a good number of which I can grow or harvest myself.

If you have pasture then your feed costs will be WAY down, but if you have to dry lot them then they will be eating more hay. I currently dry lot, and then take them on walks each morning for something green to eat.

I only grain my does in milk and/or any other goats that need help putting on some condition. And the grain I do give them is local barley that costs me $5 for 50lb.

It will also depend on what breed you get. The larger breeds give you more milk "in one sitting" but they don't have an as efficient feed to milk ratio as a smaller breed like a Nigerian does.

I live in Alaska so my costs are far more expensive then most folks. But here is exactly what I have spent on my goats since I bought them roughly 10 months ago, and that includes the gas to drive 400 miles and back TWICE. This includes all supplies, how much I paid for the goats, gas etc I have spent on things for my goats. I currently have 5 adult Nigerians, but at one time I had 6 adults and 3 older kids. So the total I have spent is $1,231.14 in 11 months which is when I put the first down payment on my first goat. Although I should mention that my husband traded remodeling work for some of my goats, and built a chicken tractor for others, so my costs would be nearly triple if I had paid cash money for my goats since all of them are pretty well bred, dual registered Nigerians. They would have been $2,350 in cash. Oh yes and one "set" of goats that I bought came with milk pans, de horner, filters etc. So I haven't had to buy those. All of our fencing has been for free from my husbands saw mill, and we also get our shavings from the saw mill, although during the winter we had to buy a couple bags of shavings. So while I pay a LOT more for hay, herbs that I have to buy, and any supplies. I'm still managing to remain under the costs of most I believe.

When figuring you should also remember what money your saving. For instance according to the past milking records of my girls I am expecting 1 and 3/4 of a gallon a day from all of them, if they were all in milk at one time. I don't know how long they will sustain as high of a lactation though. But anyways I currently pay $7 a gallon for raw cows milk, and we go though 4 every week and could easily use more gallons. So I have to factor in how much I am saving, by getting my own milk, and someday being able to make my own cheese, sour cream, butter or whatever I am able to do with my milk.

 

[freemotion]

Must buy:

The best 2nd or 3rd cut hay
The best loose minerals and a wall feeder
Grain of your choice as needed (I use whole oats/barley and soak/sprout it to increase nutrient availability)
Hoof trimmers

For cheesemaking:

Invest in a reasonable five gallon stainless steel stock pot if you will be milking 2-4 does
A long knife to cut the curd, needs to fit diagonally in the above stock pot....I got a wedding cake knife at a restaurant supply place
A long-handled dairy skimmer
A good dial dairy thermometer that registers at least 80-200F and is easy to read

Good to buy:

Those square-ish over-the-fence feeders for the milking stand (you can build a wooden box but goats are fastidious and you can clean the plastic ones very easily)
Cheesecloth (the real stuff, not the gauze stuff sold for straining jelly and such in the grocery store and the fabric store...real cheesecloth

You can make:
Milking stand
Cheese press
Cheese molds
Hay feeders


You can improvise:

Canning jars to milk into
Funnels (purchased or make by cutting the top off an appropriately sized plastic bottle)
A small one-cup-at-a-time permanent coffee filter to filter the milk, the kind made of a fine gold-tone wire mesh material
Various glass bottles and gallon jars to store milk in
Cotton muslin or sheeting can be used instead of cheesecloth, must be smooth and not too tightly woven or too high of a threadcount or it won't drain

I'm sure there is more but that is what I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[helmstead]

The average for minis is around $200 per head per year...and is going up every year thanks to increasing feed prices. I would say the average for standards, like our Nubians, is about $600 per head per year.

 

[Leta]

Thanks so much for all the replies!

I will pasture as much as possible, but I live in the U.P. of Michigan, so I will have to dry lot them through the winter. Pasture is under snow here 7-8 months of the year.

I already make cheese, so I have all that kitchen equipment (everything under freemotion's "cheesemaking" heading, and everything under the "improvise" heading- except for a gold coffee filter-, and I also have cheese molds and a press), plus cultures and rennet and cheesecloth.

Our ultimate goal is to not buy dairy products. Currently, if I don't make the following items, we don't eat them:

soft cheese, running the gamut from cream to chevre to farmer
ricotta
yogurt
sour cream
ice cream

I am still working toward blue cheeses and hard cheeses, and since I'm buying milk, it doesn't make much sense to make butter (not cost effective), but I have made butter, so I know I can. (To quote Barbara Kingsolver, "If cheesemaking is a art, butter making is a sport." So true!)

I don't use the whey ricotta method, it's tricky and my whole milk ricotta costs little and turns out so yummy, so at this point I'm discarding lots of whey every week. If we get goats, the amount of discarded whey will only increase, so hand-in-glove with this goal is to get a couple pigs to feed all that whey to. (DH raised hogs as a kid and he is pretty geared up about this.)

We don't have a intention to become a "real" dairy, since MI's dairy laws are... well, let's put it this way, they make me angry. Shaky-angry. If we did provide others with milk, we would, for both pragmatic and legal reasons, do it on a small level under a herd share arrangement. (The MDA has basically called a truce on herd shares. Right now, herd shares are considered "extra legal" here.)

I am on the fence about minis vs. full size goats. All the goat people I know here have and are in favor of full size goats, and I am hesitant to buy animals from people that I don't know and trust. If not for that, I would be very open to minis.

I have helped to build a hay feeder and a milking stand. I am unfamiliar with wall stands for minerals, though.

Oh, and thanks for the link to the other thread!

 

[freemotion]

Sounds like what we are doing, but we are a little ahead of you....you'll catch up fast once that milk is coming in! I'll never forget opening my fridge about a week after my rescued Alpine delivered a single buckling and all I could see was white....bottles and bottles of milk. Over 7 gallons....I was thrown into cheesemaking.

Pigs are great for taking care of the whey problem.

You can get cheaper cheese wax through Field & Forest, a company that sells mushroom spawn and supplies. Cheese wax is used on shiitake logs to keep out wild mushroom while the log is being inoculated. It is more difficult to deal with because it comes in a big hunk and is not perfectly clean, being sold for working with out in the woods, but the savings made it worthwhile. I have a ten pound hunk! After coating a dozen logs in my woods.

I figure it cost me about $150 per goat last year. It was a dry year and the pasture didn't hold up well, and I bought more than the usual amount of hay. I've been able to actually make some hay by cutting my pasture with a scythe and putting up the hay in a good year....got almost through December before getting into the purchased hay. In New England. But you have to budget for drought or rain-rain-rain, since you never know what you'll be getting.

I'm getting $125-175 for my doelings this year, so they will be paying for most of the hay bill for everyone else. One more doe is pregnant, so who knows....maybe all the hay will be paid for this year! Then all the dairy products will be basically free, or close to it.

 

[Roll farms]

A bottle of CD&T vaccine is around 5-8$. More or less, depending on where you purchase it. I use the bottles until gone, but even if you replaced it yearly, that cost is pretty negligable.
Needles, syringes, etc....for only 2-4 goats, I'd say you'd be WELL under 50$ a year for medical supplies (barring emergencies / illness / injuries).

A Jeffer's Livestock Supply catalog would be a great place to get your pricing on that sort of stuff.

A cream seperator would be anywhere from $100.00 for a good used one (manual) to $500.00 for a good electric one.

Personally I can't justify that expense *just* for butter. I tried a manual one, but my tendonitis won't allow me to crank it....
Someone on here makes butter w/ whole goat milk and a food processor, says she doesn't need to seperate that way.

I buy cow cream to make butter or to 'cream up' our ice cream so it's not so hard when frozen.

Right now I'm milking 5 does and getting just over 3 gallon a day.
3 of the 5 are being dried off / milked either 1x a day or only every other day. I was getting almost 5 gallon daily and my freezer runneth over...

I have roughly 25 goats, give or take (always kidding / selling so an exact count is hard), and we have roughly 40 kids a year. Last year, between hay, feed, supplies meds, vet, registry fees, etc. we spent $4,826.00.

That doesn't include anything like barns / stalls, milkstands, buckets, etc. because that's all been paid for years ago. I work at TSC and get 15% off our feed / some of our supplies.

Between kid sales, dehorning fees, etc. we sold $5,432.00.

That does not include the many, many gallons of milk we drank, ice cream, pies, fudge etc. consumed, and the joy we get from being w/ them.