Greetings from West Tennessee

[Latestarter]

I love milk too... I drink on average a quart to a 1/2 gallon a day. The thing is, a cow needs a LOT more of EVERYTHING than a goat... most notably space & food. They also take longer to mature & gestate. A goat reaches breeding age at about 9-12 months, a cow takes 18-24. Gestation for a goat is 5 months, looking at 9+ for a cow. And of course the animal must get pregnant and give birth to produce milk. Buying a cow already in milk is pretty danged expensive. A goat already in milk might cost $3-400. A cow in milk will cost you $1200+

Then there's that "SIZE" issue... on several fronts; you can keep a couple of goats in a very small space, not so much with cows. A goat might butt you, and it will hurt, but if a cow butts you, they could kill you. Cow's produce rather large quantities of waste in semi liquid (and smelly) form while goats produce little round (DRY) pellets with very little smell that can be swept/raked up. A full sized goat could produce up to 2 gallons of milk a day, dwarfs or small goats 1/2-1 gallon a day while a cow minimally will be in the 3-4 gallon range. That's a lot of milk (and milking, cleaning, etc) to deal with every day.

There are (as always) plusses and minuses to each. Guess you just have to decide which is better for your goals and circumstances.

You want meat and milk, a nice breed for that is the Kinder... A cross between a Pygmy male and Nubian I believe. They are larger than the small goats, but much smaller than the full sized. Maybe you could look into a couple of those to replace what you presently have?

 

[lynordb]

I love milk too... I drink on average a quart to a 1/2 gallon a day. The thing is, a cow needs a LOT more of EVERYTHING than a goat... most notably space & food. They also take longer to mature & gestate. A goat reaches breeding age at about 9-12 months, a cow takes 18-24. Gestation for a goat is 5 months, looking at 9+ for a cow. And of course the animal must get pregnant and give birth to produce milk. Buying a cow already in milk is pretty danged expensive. A goat already in milk might cost $3-400. A cow in milk will cost you $1200+

Then there's that "SIZE" issue... on several fronts; you can keep a couple of goats in a very small space, not so much with cows. A goat might butt you, and it will hurt, but if a cow butts you, they could kill you. Cow's produce rather large quantities of waste in semi liquid (and smelly) form while goats produce little round (DRY) pellets with very little smell that can be swept/raked up. A full sized goat could produce up to 2 gallons of milk a day, dwarfs or small goats 1/2-1 gallon a day while a cow minimally will be in the 3-4 gallon range. That's a lot of milk (and milking, cleaning, etc) to deal with every day.

There are (as always) plusses and minuses to each. Guess you just have to decide which is better for your goals and circumstances.

You want meat and milk, a nice breed for that is the Kinder... A cross between a Pygmy male and Nubian I believe. They are larger than the small goats, but much smaller than the full sized. Maybe you could look into a couple of those to replace what you presently have?

Well thank you for that perspective, and I agree, I was raised in NC, on a farm, and we bought cow milk from from a friend and a neighbor, 5-6 gal at the time, and I probably drank a gal a day myself as the older of seven kids. Lol I really believe that that's why my stomach is not as tore up as a lot of folks I know with gerd ect, but yes I don't think it's even legal to drink milk like that today, right from the cow with the cream floating on top, which we made our own butter too, lol but I also love my cheese too, and will want to learn how to make my cheese from the goats when the time comes. But your right I better stick to the little fellows being I don't have the space and not to mention the money. But thank you for the advice, and YHVH bless you and yours...