GOAT MILK PRODUCTION GUIDE

Goat milk are rich of many nutrients needed by the human body. As temporary substitute, it can be given to a new baby for few weeks before it can be permanently replaced by breast-feeding. This dairy animal became one of the source of milk for our milk requirement. Goat is not so expensive to raise, for as long as there is enough grass around the farm. It can easily multiply without too much management. It eats almost anything that caught their fancy even flowers in the garden are included.

Goat milk is easily digested in the body compared to other dairy animals. To have a goat production project only need a small starting capital and it can multiply faster. The breeder should weigh 45 kilos or about 10 months. Early breeding will stunt the animal. There should be a complete development of its fetus.

Check any sign of heat. Once a doe is in the stage of estrus, she is willing to receive the buck. It may last for 3 days. It is best to breed the doe in the second day of heat to ensure conception. Gestation period may last 150 days from start of conception to kidding.

There are many instances in the failure of breeding. If the doe will not become pregnant even in three successive heat period, then there is something you have to consider:

-it may have abnormal egg
-it may have disease
-due to hormonal problem
-infertile sperm from the buck
-over fatness of the doe

Avoid malnutrition for your doe. She should be given enough proteins and minerals, vitamins to have a normal reproduction ability. If the doe insist to reproduce, then you have to find another one, a valuable breeding female as your new breeder.

There are many forms of breeding goats. You can select any of them that you think best for certain circumstances after evaluating consideration of its effectiveness to produce. The most commonly type of breeding goat is by cross-breeding. The mating of 2 different breeds. It will increase the size of the offspring, especially if the 2 inbreeds were cross-breeds. It gives an increase vigor to the would-be offspring.

A doe become fretful and emits a low bleat, restless, paw bedding around, a slight mucus discharge appears several days before kidding as a sign of forthcoming birth. After birth, place the doe in a well-lighted, spacious, comfortable pen. Put clean dry straw as her bedding mattress. In an abnormal presentation where a doe cannot deliver a kid without assistance especially if it is in an abnormal position, your help is needed. You have to pull-out it free in a proper position to easily take out the kid.

Feeding the kid especially at birth should be allowed to suck his mother's breast for 2 months in order to obtain high nutrients and antibodies in resisting diseases and act as laxative to clean the digestive system of the newborn kid. The kid should be given salt and water.

Then start weaning the kid. Use concentrate feed by directly rubbing the feed to his mouth in feeding for 2 months. Allow the kid to nibble grass around one month.

How to do the milking?

-Wash your hands with soap. You need plenty of water. Wash the udders with clean warm water. Dry them with a clean cloth. Dry your hands also.

-Close your thumb and first finger around the teat so that milk will not go back to the udder. Close the second finger to squirt the milk out. The first squirt must be discarded as it is not clean.

-Close the 3rd finger. Put a steady pressure. Do not jerk the teat down. Close the little finger and squeeze the entire hand until the milk comes out.

-Release the pressure of your hand on the teat and open your fingers so that the teat can fill up again. Repeat the process. Continue doing alternately with the other hand on the other teat until only a very few little milk comes out.

In feeding the doe, it should be allowed to access in good pasture. Give roughage and concentrate.

In feeding the buck, maintains a good pastures. Include concentrate to his food. Give shelled corn, green feeds from the pasture. Give a little amount of copra meal for protein. Give table salt, water and oyster shell powder and grains.

In the production of milk, you should select a numbers of good breeders (buck and doe) for your continues supply of milk. Any inability for a doe to produce enough milk should be replace with another that can produce more milk that has good composition and in best milk-type class.