goat vs cow

[PeytonM]

Anyone know what the differance in their milk? I was raise on a farm but ma sold cows when I was bout 12 and didn’t really know how much milk a cow would give in a day, I want to buy a cow or few goats to milk. We go through milk like crazy. Thought it would save some money

[carl ny]

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

[carl ny]

I forgot, If you have a mare the won’t nurse her foal you can feed it goat milk from day one. I used to freeze the colostrum and saved it for emergencies. I never had to use it myself but I gave it to a couple of people around here.

carl ny

[wild millers]

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

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[carl ny]

I’ve only had trouble fencing in one goat but you could not keep her in no matter what you did.I finally sent her to the auction.I will admit that it takes a lot more fence than one strand of tape. LOL

carl ny

[dominiquer60]

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.

[carl ny]

I had goats for about 25 yrs, and as many as 23 at a time,counting all the kids. I had a four strand electric fence with the strands about 8 inches apart and never had a problem, except that one goat that didn’t care if she got shocked, or if I bought a goat that didn’t know anything about a fence. To train a goat I would put them on a lead and force them to touch the fence,usually about 1 or 2 times was enough.I always trained them after a good rain so they got a good ground. Once they get shocked a couple times on a good hot fence I never had a problem. Some people might think that was mean but it wasn’t half as bad as burning there horns. I did that too, I would not have a goat with horns. Also, don’t teach them to butt!!!! It’s cute when they only weigh about 10 lbs. but not so cute when they grow up and weigh 150 or 200 lbs..Even if they are very gentle, accidents can happen and it’s not very pretty to have a small child get a horn in the eye. No, I never had that happen but one of my sons came very close. Take it for what it’s worth. JMHO.

carl ny

[PeytonM]

How many many gallons would a Jersey produce? how many goats would take to produce the same amount of milk? I would also like to make all my own butter and try doing cheese. Whats the going rate for a good cow and Goats? Im sure milking goats are worth a bit more than regular weed burners

[carl ny]

Can’t remember about a Jersey, a good goat will give a gallon and a half up to three gallon or more. Price has a lot of factors, where you live, registered or grade, and even the breed. I bought a decent doe not to long ago for $75.00. The guy just wanted to down size and I told him I was just looking for milk for my grand daughter. Or, you can pay up to and over $1000.00 for one,way more for some of those show goats. I use to have registered stock until I started crossing with the Boar for meat. After that I didn’t worry about papers(never could get milk out of those papers anyway). I got just as good of production and didn’t have the the expense and paper work of registered.I will admit that I never really pushed for production, I was just doing it for a hobby and my own milk. I gave away more milk than I ever sold. If you really want a lot, or need a lot, of milk, buy a Jersey. The only reason I got started with goats was because I had a lot of brush I wanted cleared. I used to use the dry does, kids, and the buck for that. I never had any regrets.

carl ny

[Does’ Leap]

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

[carl ny]

That’s what I’ve been told by some people but of course it could have been an exaggeration. One of them was trying to sell me a goat for $800.00, that may very well be why she gave so much. LOL I did have one grade Nubian that gave exactly 2 gallon for about 4 months right after I took the kids off her. She had triplets every year except her first and last. I always milk them even while they are nursing. Depending on how many kids she has I don’t always get very much but it tells the doe to produce more. That was what I was told buy the old guy I bought my first goat from and it seemed to work. Like I said before, I didn’t really push them because I didn’t need that much milk. Most of them only gave between 1 to 1 1/2 gallon a day. Any milk you don’t use feed to the pigs, best pork you ever had.

carl ny

[Carl Russell]

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

[carl ny]

I’m not going to argue, I like beef better too. I only got started with goats because my wife wanted one for a pet. I figured as long as I had to feed it I might as well get some milk out of it. Well, you know how that goes, one thing leads to another and in a few years we were milking 6 and had 23 total. Now I only have one and that is my son’s buck. He told his wife that she could have a couple for milk(sound familiar) but he wasn’t going to no stinking buck in his horse barn.

carl ny

[PeytonM]

Never thought about feeding it to the pigs, I got 3 feeders last year and by the end of the year I had things down at the start I was spending way too much money on feed, at the end I had scrap food ( no meat) from family members and I also had bunch of apples that were from a feller that lived a few miles down the road. I also had 2 bags of milk replacer from when I was in H.S. I was going to buy 2 bull calves for meat and the parents put a halt to that, shortly later I got my first team of horses, ma didn’t want it but she had to deal with it.

This spring I would like to find a cow and milk her, I also would like to have some chickens for eggs and buy a few more pigs.

http://wptschedule.org/episodes/44728750/A-Farm-Winter-With-Jerry-Apps/

If you have a few hours to kill go visit the link above. I’m going to go a little bit off topic but I just was so joyful when I watched that. It made me have respect for thins. I feel he is right, everything that we do all year round is to prep for winter.

I personally feel the feds have their fingers in too many things and I’m getting to the point where I don’t trust half the things you buy in the store theses because there are so many things to preserve the foods and make them last for months and months and even years. After I had those 3 pigs last summer it really made me feel proud to have them and I really did it because a friend of mine has an autistic son and he was so in love with the movie “Babe” and everything was Babe the pig, he was tickled to death when he would see the pigs, he never wanted to leave them. Made me think of how I was raised and how we interacted with live stock and raised food.

Thanks for all the help and replys.

Do you milk with hand or small milking set ups? If I would get a small vac pump I would be able to milk with units because my parents have about 20 of them at their place and they even have some of the old surge ones that used a strap and held the milk and then you had to dump them out after each cow.

[carl ny]

I milked by hand, Not sure that a machine for cows will work on goats. Don’t know if the inflations are the same. I just about know that the Surge units won’t, goats are to short. LOL Probably could use the pail type with the right inflations. Check on vacuum pressure too.

carl ny

[Author]

Posts