H - University of Illinois

A FLACE FOR THE MILCH GOAT
The Milk Is a Valuable Food Product and the Animals Themselves Are Easy to Care For and Very Easfly Fed
R OBERT E. J ONES
YOU say, "better babies," to the
IF first woman you meet in Pasedena,
California, she responds;"Milch goats."
, ¦ •;." Recently the city fathers repealed
the old ordinance against keeping livestock
in the city limits of Pasadena,' for
it had become a dead letter. Milch goats
browsed on front lawns in select residence
districts and were, staked everywhere in
vacant lots. ' It is fairly safe to say that
the milch goat population of that little
city is as great as the cat population. . At
a milch goat, show which was held there,
Professor. Edwin C. Voorhies of the
University of California, had to pass upon
600 does before he could select the grand
champion.
The goat thrives in all sorts of climates
in the old world, from that of the balmy
Mediterranean region to the Alpine valleys
of frigid Switzerland. There is no
reason why the-, goat should not be likewise
well distributed in the United States.
Though- goat's- milk in commerce has
been regarded largely as a product for a
special trade, immigrant families keep
goats for the home milk supply. Even
if the:doe were an expensive feeder, which
she is not, many could well afford to keep
one or two, for the milk is of such high
quality that, an additional expense is warranted.
-But .the milch goat is an economical
feeder—a most efficient milk machine.
-
While on a vacation trip along the Central
California Coast a year ago, I visited
what is said to be the largest milch goat
farm in the world, It is odd, of course,
to think of the largest of the kind being
so far from the original home of the goat,
yet I doubt if there is a herd anywhere in
the old world that numbers 5,000 does.
This goat herd is on a 10,000 acre farm
in the Salinas Valley. It furnishes raw
material for the largest goat's milk condensing
plant in the world. In this plant
the food of goats' milk is concentrated by
the evaporation of moisture and the 1 product
is canned to oeTetailed through drug
stores all over the United States. The
consuming public is made up almost exclusively
of babies and invalids. *
This farm and condensing plant afforded
an opportunity to make a closer study
of the goat. It has often heen jokingly
stated that the goat (and the average
person doesn't, know the difference' between
a milch goat, a town-lot billy and
an Angora) is a scavenger, living on tin
cans from the dump heap. Such, I have
learned; is not the case. The goat is most
fastidious in its choice of foods but a
starved goat will eat the paper off- a tin
can to get the paste just as a starving man
will chew leaves.
At this great goat ranch \ learned that
milch goats will not even drink muddy
water unless forced to do so. An ample
supply of clear water from an artesian well
is available for them at all times. As to
their food ration, it is much the same as
that given to dairy cows. The goats
range in the natural pasture of the hillside
and valley, and are also given daily a
in life, and that is at breeding time,- so
he is kept far away from the milking barn
and the'does .in milk, - Thus the product
is kept free from the objectionable smell,
and to the unsuspecting, the taste or odor
of the milk seldom can. be distinguished
from that of cows' milk. -
Almost everyone knows that a goat
climbs with the agility of a ten-year-old
boy. --This propensity makes it necessary
to use a peculiar type of fence to keep
them within the fields but it comes in good
use at milking time. . Goats enter the
barns almost with the discipline of a soldier,
and mount stands some two feet high
for milking. If a cow tried a-similar athletic
performance she'would be ruined for
life, but the goat finds it easy to hop upon
the stand. Some goats are milked byhand,
the milker being seated to the real 1
but machines have come into use now
even in goat dairies. Before milking begins,
the udder is carefully 'wiped' with a'
clean damp towel. The milkers" all wear
are taught to suckle until weaning time,
at three or four months of age, when they
gradually begin to take grain and eat in
the pasture.
I mentioned that the kids come in twos,
threes and fours. Injruth the herds increase
with remarkable rapidity. The Department
of Agriculture reports the record
of one Nubian doe in Europe that
gave birth to eleven kids in a year, quadruplets
twice and triplets once. But the
goat people like to have twins come, for
they„are usually stronger animals than if
there are so many.
What is the daily yield of the average
milch , goat? At the great goat farm in
California the average was about a quart
- and a half daily, but that may be regarded
as low for in assembling this herd it was
- necessary, to buy everywhere and it was
not possible to get a.uniform lot of does.
There are hof enough in the country to
supply the. demand. ; Good breeding practices
have been put into effect on this farm
Upper Picture. An Automatic Meal. Below) Two Congenial Friends
ing the year she duplicated her weight •
twice in milk. Her weight is about 120 .
pounds and her yield for the year was over .
twenty-four times her weight.
Why is goats' milk better for babies and
invalids than that of cows? Because the
fat content is high and the fat globules are
so minute that the milk is easily assimilated.
With goats' milk the fat does not
rise rapidly to the top as does the cream on
cows' milk. Then, too, the goat that has
tuberculosis is a rare creature—some.authorities
say that she is immune from the
disease.
As with all other kinds of domestic livestock,
there are common goats, high grade
milch goats and pedigreed milch goats.
Breeding of these animals has not gone far
enough in America, however, so that lines"
of good and indifferent breeding are as
well defined as in dairy cows. Leading
among the breeds in this country, ace, the
Toggenburgs, an aristocratic breed, which
originated in Switzerland; the Saanen,
from Switzerland; and the Anglo-Nubian
from the native goat of England; the Nubian
from Upper Egypt. Then we have
in development the American Milch Goat,
which is a melting pot product, as are we
Americans ourselves.
It is best to invest in a goat of good breeding,
for the higher initial investment will
be many times repaid in the quantity of
the milk flow and the sale value of kids
from a parent of family.
It is no trick at all to fit up a home for
the milch goat, for she is not so particular
as a cow in the matter of sleeping quarters.
There must be a roof to keep out the rain
and snow, and sides to the little building,
hardly larger than a dog house, to stop the
winds. The doe does not ask for straw
bedding; since the days when her ancestors
slept on the rocky mountain sides she has
preferred a hard bed and the bare wooden
floor pleases her best.
Other than a house, the equipment must
include a milking stand, which consists of a
ten or twelve-inch board shaped something
like an ironing board, and set on legs about
eighteen inches from the ground. At one
end is a stanchion, through .which the
goat thrusts her head at feeding time, and
a holder for a pan of grain. The other end
of the stand board should be extended a
foot or so beyond the length of the doe
and rounded into a seat for the milker.
At milking time, when the owner appears
with a pan of grain, the doe will beat him
to the stand, clamber upon it, and be in
position for milking by the time the grain
pan is in place.
As to feeding the goat, she will eat and
turn into value most of the surplus from
the garden, besides many of the weeds.
She also likes alfalfa hay. In addition
there should be fed some grain, for it induces
a heavier and richer milk flow, just
as grain does with the cow. The California
Experiment Station suggests four different
concentrated mixtures, mostly of
grain, any one of which is good and may
be chosen according to availability of the
ingredients. At the heaviest
milking period, goats may be M-\
fed up to- two
iBL
pounds bffeaicen- g\* l^T
Milking the Goat at Home
ration of chopped alfalfa, bran, oats, cocoa
me>I, linseed meal and rolled barley.
Sheds are provided to protect them from
the rains of winter and the heat of summer.
They are never let in the milking
barns except at milking time.
Some suspicion has been directed at
the goat and at goats' milk because of the
peculiar, odoriferous nature of the buck.
The buck, however, has only one purpose
white suits which are washed and sterilized
daily. The floors and drains of the
milking barn are of concrete and are easily
cleaned by the use of hose.
After the milk is removed from the
dairy barns, from which it is carried in
buckets, it is filtered in the dairy house
and cooled, passing through a modern
type of machine, for the purpose, and
finally, at a temperature of forty degrees,
reaches the 10-gallon cans in which it is
carried by a motor truck to the condensory.
The condensing process is similar
to that employed in milk plants for condensing
cows' milk.
For the sake of the human babies and
the invalids who wish the goats' milk,the
kids born to the does on this goat farm are
cheated of their heritage. They are raised
on the plebeian cows' milk. As soon as
a doe freshens, her kiddies, for they come
in twos, threes and fours, are taken from
her and put on their foster mother, which
is a nippled bottle or a short trough with
a number of nippled spigots. There they
and each succeeding generation of freshening
does will undoubtedly show an increase
both in milk yield and in length of
lactation period. Some of the high-grade
animals on the place now give four to five
quarts daily but they do not keep that up
for many months. The lactation periods
average from seven to eight months.
The queen of the milch goat world is
owned by the University of California
Farm. She won her crown through the
milk pail. This goat has the stagey name
of California Gretel. She was milked
twelve- months under official .supervision
and every pound of her milk was weighed.
For the year she gave 2,941.5, or 1,470
quarts. Milch goats do not ordinarily
give a quantity of milk for more than
eight or nine months but California Gretel
kept right along through the year and gave
eighty-two quarts in the last month of her
test. During her best month she gave 145
quarts or about five daily on the average.
California Gretel is truly a wonderfully
efficient food factory, for each month dur-
World's Champion,a Pure-Bred Toggenburg
trates daily, seldom more.
Does are at their prime between the
ages of five and seven years. They usually
freshen at 17 to 18 months, and may
be bred regularly thereafter—twice a year
if the owner wishes. They live to be
12 to 16 years old.
On farms where they can be accomodated
and the milk used or disposed of,
raising goats could well be a profitable side
line for the women and the young folk.