In the Pail

Our Herd Milk Amounts

Nigerian Dwarf

Mini Nubian

Product Yields

Recipes

Registry Requirements

There has been much discussion on some Facebook and Yahoo Groups about the importance of milking awards and requirements.  It should be noted that milk titles simply mean that a doe (or buck’s descendancy) has met the minimum registry requirement.  In order to know if an animal meets your specifications for a good dairy goat, you need to:

1. Decide what your requirements are
2. Will the conformation and udder conformation hold up over time?
3. Are you going to hand milk?  If so, you might want to search for does who have longer teats and larger orifices for ease in milking.
4. How many months of the year will you be milking? Do you have a herd sire, or are you going to be searching for one?  Do you have the place at your home for a herd sire?  For you, the answer to these types of questions might or might mean that you are searching for a doe who will milk for an Extended Lactation, or maybe this is not important for your situation

Because of these types of discussions and ways of thinking, we have created a page of comparisons for Registry Milk Requirement minimums.

We believe that one cannot look at show titles and milking award titles alone to decide if an animal is going to make a good dairy goat.  Our belief is that some factors must be considered:

1. Strong, yet dairy conformation that will allow the animal to stand strong over time and many years
2. Strong high and tight udder attachments
3. Udders that deflate like a balloon after milking.   This means that the doe will have room for milk storage, rather than having a meaty udder with no room.  Sometimes a doe will have scar tissue in the udder from udder abuse or previous udder health issues. That might have very little to do with her progeny’s udders.
4. We hand milk, so for us, we need does who have nice long teats with larger orifices for ease and quickness in milking
5. We believe in does who will milk for Extended Lactations, under harsher milk time intervals, and still keep milking.  Meaning does who don’t just milk a lot at the first of their lactation, but rather ones who milk and milk under many conditions, without quitting.
6. We strongly believe that a person has to look at the actual Milk Records, rather than just looking at show and milk titles to decide if the doe will fit our milk requirements.

Dairy Herd Improvement Milk Testing
(DHI or DHIA or DHIR)

Our herd is on DHI.  The reason for this is for herd management purposes and also to prove the milk of our does, progeny and herd sire progeny.

So how do you Milk Test?

So what are the titles on a Pedigree or Registration Certificate?

Sometimes these titles and letters can be confusing.  If we have an understanding of them and their meaning, we can learn a lot more about our goats and their ancestry.  Also this understanding can help us better research the hows, whys and whens of our animals and ancestry.