goat vs cow

Goats milk has a higher butter fat than cows milk on the average, not a lot, but some. Nubians, like Jerseys for cows, give about the highest. Goat milk has smaller fat globules than cows milk. Goat milk is naturally homogenized, it will separate but takes a long time and you won’t get as much cream. It will give more cream than cows milk if you use a separator. You can actually feed it to babies. Our first son ate like a hog and my wife didn’t have enough milk so we supplemented with goat milk. The doctor had a fit but only because it wasn’t pasteurized. Also, if you drink the milk don’t let the goats eat any weeds. Good hay, grass and grain only. Your milk will taste exactly like what ever they eat. Don’t ask how I know what Pine needle flavored milk taste like…. Goat milk also makes very good cheese and butter. Any of the dairy breeds will do but I always liked Nubians, I think they are a lot more contented. Also they are a very good meat source. If I wasn’t going to keep the kids I use to cross breed with a Boar buck. The kids grew taller than the Boar and heavier than the Nubian. Any more question’s just ask..

carl ny

We milk one cow on our place. Used to keep milking goats but the main reason we switched was because we like to give our animals access to fresh pasture all the time and that means rotational grazing. For us, as vegetable growers, the goats were too much of a liability as they are harder to fence than cows and if they get in the garden, will do a lot of damage really quickly. That’s not to say that a cow won’t do a lot of damage as well, but, a well fed and well cared for cow and her calf can be very easily trained to stay behind a single strand of electric tape set just above the height of your knee.

Because life is busy, and we aren’t milking commercially, we only milk our cow once a day. After morning milking, her calf is turned out with her for grazing and nursing all day. Then in the evening we herd the calf’s back into their pen for the night and let the cow build up her milk again for the morning. This worked really well for us, even in the event of having to do an overnight trip sometimes we could just leave the calf with the cow to do all the milking.

This system only worked for us because we keep a small Jersey and don’t push her for milk production. So while her milk production will be lower than most since we’re only milking once a day, her body matches the demand and we would still get about 2 gallons a day. In our experience, 2 gallons is plenty of milk to deal with each day for one family.

Someone with more experience keeping goats may have some different ideas on how to keep them more easily. I’m happy to talk family cows if you have any more questions.

Also, we have a couple dairy cows for sale. Not sure if your close enough to make that interesting to you or not but we are in the seacoast of NH. Good luck

If you get goats while they are young and haven’t learned to be a problem yet they can easily be trained to the electric net fencing. Just feed grain in a trough that you can run the fence thru, one or two feedings in this through will convince them that the fence is no fun. The electric net can be easily to move but harder to manage because you need to keep the strip mowed where the fence it to go. Once they learn to get out they become a problem so don’t give a goat the opportunity to be a problem.

If the in-laws ever get rid of their herd I would probably keep a family cow because it makes sense for us.

Up to 3 gallons…..I want to get some of your genetics Carl! An interesting comparison between goats and cows can be found here.

George

I only milked one goat…. about 3/4 gallon…. after getting 4 gal/day from my Jersey I just couldn’t justify that. I also didn’t think that the milk had that much more to offer in flavor, and I like to skim cream for other uses.

Underlying aesthetic bias against goats, and for cattle, has also directed my interests. Goats have some great features in terms of concerns about sustainable land-use, but on a small scale cows are pretty competitive. I find beef to be much more pleasing, and the return on the animal for meat is much higher as well.

One thing an old-timer told me was, “you can get a lot of life from a cow”, meaning milk, manure, beef, draft, replacements, etc. Not that you can’t with a goat too, but when the focus is just on milk, the issue is blurred. Cattle just return more in my mind.

Unless you are specifically looking to get into a niche for marketing items related to goat’s milk, cows would be higher on my list.

Carl