Goat-Raising Expenses

[VolailleAmant]

I raise dairy goats, and yes, you can make money off just a few - BUT you have to be creative and NOT break any laws.

First, you want good quality animals. You're not going to show (as one poster mentioned, a show herd runs at a loss until you make a serious name for yourself and can keep enough animals to do so) so registration isn't too important, but production IS.
So pick a breed and get a couple of really nice ones that will put milk in the pail for you.

Source a good hay supplier and a steady source of grain and get a bag of high-copper goat mineral (NOT goat and sheep mineral, which is really just for sheep) with just 2 goats, you won't need a lot of grain storage, a metal trashcan will be fine.

Put a 4th side on your 3 sided shed and you're good to go!

How to make a profit; First, forget about selling milk. Just forget it. With just 2 goats and no milkroom, the regs are against you and you don't want to be fined.
What you sell will be mostly "value added product". Goat's milk soaps and lotions sell fairly well nearly everywhere. I "sold" my milk as milk-fed pork. Milk, pasture and a bit of corn raise a very, very nice pig. Another thing to look into is to offer a service - orphan raising. Baby anything thrive on goats milk.
Don't overlook the value of what YOU use. Every bit of milk and cheese you use yourself, you're not paying to buy - it counts!
While selling milk is out (just trust me, it's more trouble than it's worth) selling cheese might not be if you want to look into that.
And last but certainly not least, to make this milk, your goats will have to kid every year. Doelings can be sold as bottle babies for a decent price from productive mothers and bucklings can be sold, or better, raised, as meat animals (again, you're selling the milk, in a different package)
Many small (2-5, after that you run into economics of scale issues) goat raisers I know, the kid sales pay for the feed for the year and everything from the milk is a bonus. While years that they might each have a single buck it wont, but then other years they might both have twin does - it evens out.

Wow! That is a lot of great information! By adding a 4th side to my 3 sided shelter, would I add a door on that 4th side? (well, duh, I am so dumb!) Thank you for that!

 

[Perry17]

Love my goats! So I had to chime in hahaha. I skimmed through the other posts, so let me know if I missed something lol. Warning, this is going to be long winded.

Im 19, started my Goat Herd at 7 with a group of bottle babies and it has grown from there. Here are some things I wished I knew when I was first starting...

1. Parasites: Main killer/stunter if you don't catch it and fix the problem fast. Learn to check eyes based on famancha score chart, check regularly (I do all mine at least weekly).
So say you know one has a parasite, what now? You could take a guess and use a broad wormer, or best thing to do is go get a fecal from the vet, cost $15-$25.
Assume you got a fecal and know what worms you are dealing with, great! Now you have to use the correct wormer and dose (not all vets know the right doses for goats) their metabolism requires more than most bottles reccomend. Say you buy a small bottle of Ivomec Plus (what works in my area, different wormers treat different worms, and worms can become immune to wormers) that's $40. Plus needles and syringes, so add $10.
Caught the worms too late, now have a weak goat on your hands? Add B Complex Injectible, so plus $15. Plus hours and electrolytes trying to nurse them back to health.
With kids you have to worry about Cocci, so a another whole topic.

2. Minerals: Get a good loose mineral, with only a few goats a bag will last you all year. $15
Most will need a copper bolus a few times a year depending on the area you are in. $25 for a container of bolus
Selenium for pregnant does and kids, or you might end up with muscle disease. $10-20
There are tons of other minerals to have out, those are the main ones.

3. Diet: Goats are browsers, not grazers. If eating pasture close to the ground they have a tendency to pick up worms easier.
If you have enough room to Graze/Browse they might not need any added feed depending on the breed. But I still like to keep hay out year round. $6 a bale here for regular good quality grass hay. If only 2-3 goats, it will take a few weeks to eat an entire square bale. So maybe 26 bales a year, $156.
If you get milkers, they need added feed to keep in good shape and be able to produce, so add on a balanced bagged grain price to that. The grain I use for my show goats is $12-$20 a 50 lb bag.

No matter what breed or quality goat you buy, those expenses will be the same. Even if you buy a herd of $100 pet goats, assume you will sale their kids for $100. 2 goats, assume 2-6 kids a year. Profit $200-$600 if everything works right. So technically, yes you can break even/make slight profit. But you also have to be willing to spend a pile before you even receive that first profit. Now up that to 3 or so better quality or registered $500 goats for broodstock, 2-9 kids produced a year, $1000-$4,500 profit. You get back what you put in just off of kid sales, assuming you don't loose any and can get rid of the kids easily.

With my experience, you have really good good moments and really bad bad moments. I have had times where everything goes wrong, and times where everything is perfect. Just a big learning curve to get over.

 

[VolailleAmant]

Love my goats! So I had to chime in hahaha. I skimmed through the other posts, so let me know if I missed something lol. Warning, this is going to be long winded.

Im 19, started my Goat Herd at 7 with a group of bottle babies and it has grown from there. Here are some things I wished I knew when I was first starting...

1. Parasites: Main killer/stunter if you don't catch it and fix the problem fast. Learn to check eyes based on famancha score chart, check regularly (I do all mine at least weekly).
So say you know one has a parasite, what now? You could take a guess and use a broad wormer, or best thing to do is go get a fecal from the vet, cost $15-$25.
Assume you got a fecal and know what worms you are dealing with, great! Now you have to use the correct wormer and dose (not all vets know the right doses for goats) their metabolism requires more than most bottles reccomend. Say you buy a small bottle of Ivomec Plus (what works in my area, different wormers treat different worms, and worms can become immune to wormers) that's $40. Plus needles and syringes, so add $10.
Caught the worms too late, now have a weak goat on your hands? Add B Complex Injectible, so plus $15. Plus hours and electrolytes trying to nurse them back to health.
With kids you have to worry about Cocci, so a another whole topic.

2. Minerals: Get a good loose mineral, with only a few goats a bag will last you all year. $15
Most will need a copper bolus a few times a year depending on the area you are in. $25 for a container of bolus
Selenium for pregnant does and kids, or you might end up with muscle disease. $10-20
There are tons of other minerals to have out, those are the main ones.

3. Diet: Goats are browsers, not grazers. If eating pasture close to the ground they have a tendency to pick up worms easier.
If you have enough room to Graze/Browse they might not need any added feed depending on the breed. But I still like to keep hay out year round. $6 a bale here for regular good quality grass hay. If only 2-3 goats, it will take a few weeks to eat an entire square bale. So maybe 26 bales a year, $156.
If you get milkers, they need added feed to keep in good shape and be able to produce, so add on a balanced bagged grain price to that. The grain I use for my show goats is $12-$20 a 50 lb bag.

No matter what breed or quality goat you buy, those expenses will be the same. Even if you buy a herd of $100 pet goats, assume you will sale their kids for $100. 2 goats, assume 2-6 kids a year. Profit $200-$600 if everything works right. So technically, yes you can break even/make slight profit. But you also have to be willing to spend a pile before you even receive that first profit. Now up that to 3 or so better quality or registered $500 goats for broodstock, 2-9 kids produced a year, $1000-$4,500 profit. You get back what you put in just off of kid sales, assuming you don't loose any and can get rid of the kids easily.

With my experience, you have really good good moments and really bad bad moments. I have had times where everything goes wrong, and times where everything is perfect. Just a big learning curve to get over.

Wow! That is a lot of GREAT information! Thank you so much! What breeds do you have? Thank you again!

 

[Perry17]

I started off with mixed breed/briar goats given to me as orphan bottle babies. Which are the main breed average farms have around here. Those kids go from $40-80 and adults $90-200, only somewhat profitable for people that own a huge herd. But they are very hardy and require very little upkeep (pasture year round, stay healthy).

In Middle school I started showing Market Goats, so I traded my mixed herd for high percentage Boers. Kids sale from $100-$500+. Now these gave me a hard time, came from great show lines from all over the US. But the thing with those good lines, at least with these particular goats, they have different management practices. Were used to being kept in a dry lot and fed mostly grain their whole lives, not very parasite resistant and you had to baby them. When I brought them home, I assumed they would be just like my Briar Goats. But nope, from middle school until I graduated, I fought parasites and illness in my herd very hard. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, no joke. I couldn't even tell you how many of my herd I lost those first 4 years after switching to that line of Boers. Finally I had it figured out by my sophomore year of highschool. But as soon as I graduated and didnt have to worry about Show standards, I sold all my hard keepers, kept my lower percentage hardy Boers, and I have slowly built my herd up to good looking Boers that are parasite resistant. ---where I was going with that lol, make sure you buy from a good line, from breeders that have the same animal husbandry you plan to use. Try not to bring in parasites onto your land

Now that my Boer herd is stable, last year I started up a separate herd of Nigerian Dwarfs. I bought some already bred Does to start my herd for $300 each. But more than got my money back off kid sales once they kidded. That's a good route to go in, fast money back to expand. LOVE these little guys. Mine stay hardy and fat on pasture alone. I have a doe that isn't even from milking lines, that gave me 2 pints of milk a day when on grain, so with the right lines you can get enough milk to play around with. So cute! Easy to sell kids because everyone wants small pet goats these days. Would really reccomend these lol.

If not NDG, I would reccomend maybe Pygmys or Fainters. Those three breeds are small framed, hardy, easy to sell kids.

...I think I have a rambling issue

 

[VolailleAmant]

I started off with mixed breed/briar goats given to me as orphan bottle babies. Which are the main breed average farms have around here. Those kids go from $40-80 and adults $90-200, only somewhat profitable for people that own a huge herd. But they are very hardy and require very little upkeep (pasture year round, stay healthy).

In Middle school I started showing Market Goats, so I traded my mixed herd for high percentage Boers. Kids sale from $100-$500+. Now these gave me a hard time, came from great show lines from all over the US. But the thing with those good lines, at least with these particular goats, they have different management practices. Were used to being kept in a dry lot and fed mostly grain their whole lives, not very parasite resistant and you had to baby them. When I brought them home, I assumed they would be just like my Briar Goats. But nope, from middle school until I graduated, I fought parasites and illness in my herd very hard. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, no joke. I couldn't even tell you how many of my herd I lost those first 4 years after switching to that line of Boers. Finally I had it figured out by my sophomore year of highschool. But as soon as I graduated and didnt have to worry about Show standards, I sold all my hard keepers, kept my lower percentage hardy Boers, and I have slowly built my herd up to good looking Boers that are parasite resistant. ---where I was going with that lol, make sure you buy from a good line, from breeders that have the same animal husbandry you plan to use. Try not to bring in parasites onto your land

Now that my Boer herd is stable, last year I started up a separate herd of Nigerian Dwarfs. I bought some already bred Does to start my herd for $300 each. But more than got my money back off kid sales once they kidded. That's a good route to go in, fast money back to expand. LOVE these little guys. Mine stay hardy and fat on pasture alone. I have a doe that isn't even from milking lines, that gave me 2 pints of milk a day when on grain, so with the right lines you can get enough milk to play around with. So cute! Easy to sell kids because everyone wants small pet goats these days. Would really reccomend these lol.

If not NDG, I would reccomend maybe Pygmys or Fainters. Those three breeds are small framed, hardy, easy to sell kids.

...I think I have a rambling issue

Whoa. Not at all! You don't have a rambling issue Not to be creepy or anything, but I think that you are my new hero

 

[Perry17]

Hahaha If you can think of any other question just let me know! As you can see I am happy to help in anyway I can lol.