YouTube/Modern Homesteader AppleJo Farms

Thinking about getting Nigerian goats for your homestead? 

I get jars of goat milk where the whole jar is two-thirds cream!! And it's sweet with no hint of goat flavor. No other goat breed can compare to the flavor and quality of a Nigerian. 

An interesting fact we learned, however, as we started our journey raising dairy goats about 9 years ago, was that not all dairy goats are created equal in the milking department. Our first couple of "dairy" goats came from a very well-known breeder in the Midwest, but it wasn't a breeder who actively participated in milk testing; basically, she just bred for fun colors and blue eyes (nothing wrong with that; that was actually a big part of what initially drew us to this breed). They were perfect goats for us to start with; we didn't have a huge investment in high-quality genetics while we figured things out (translate: made lots and lots of mistakes). But the milk these does produced was just okay...nothing special to be sure.

A few years later, I got more interested in milk test programs and genetics and spent many hours researching. We started working with breeders like Southern Grace (and shortly after Sinai Thunder and D & L Meadows), who were actively breeding for excellent dairy goats. We got our first goats from each of them in 2019.

The difference in milk quality after this was night and day! We were amazed. It made me realize how worthwhile it was to invest in the better goats, from breeders who track the milk production and quality. After all, the feed and infrastructure are typically going to cost more than the actual goat; even the price of a very good quality show goat is not going to surpass all the other expenses over its lifetime. And those feed and infrastructure expenses are the same regardless of whether it's a great milker or a poor one. For the past several years, we have also been actively tracking our milk and weeding out the poor producers with low butterfat from our herd (except for the ones my mom is really attached to and won't let me sell, lol). Now, as you can see by the photo, all that hard work and selection is paying us back with liquid gold!