If you happen to own a couple of Angora goats and were thinking about milking them, then it’s not an impossibility—although you will, for the most part, have to completely separate them from their kid if you want to milk them at all.
Let’s look further into this.
Do Angora goats produce good milk?
Angora goats produce milk that is certainly tasty, but that is about all that can be said for it.
The fact is that they produce barely enough milk to feed the kid that they have given birth to.
Some who happen to own Angora goats for other reasons, and milk them when they can, do say that the milk is pleasant to drink and tastes good.
However, there are countless goat breeds that produce tastier milk and do so at a higher yield.
If what you are looking for is a milking goat, then the Angora goat just isn’t the right goat for you.
They very rarely produce enough to make the milking process worthwhile to begin with.
Angora goats were never bred as milking goats, so it is really not surprising that they should produce such a poor milk yield.
So, while the simple answer is that yes Angora goats do produce good milk in the sense that the milk itself is tasty, that’s really about all you can say for it.
There are countless breeds that produce tastier milk at a far higher yield, so, comparatively speaking, Angora goats really do not produce good milk.
While kids usually have to be separated from the mother before suckling in order to get a good milk yield with virtually any breed, you will get nothing at all from an Angora goat if you don’t take the kid away as soon as they are born.
So, with all that said, is there any money at all to be made in Angora goat milk?
Can you make money with Angora goat milk?
Realistically you are not going to make any money selling Angora goat milk.
Again, there are a number of reasons why this is the case.
Firstly, there’s really virtually no demand for Angora goat milk.
While, of course, you could simply sell it as ordinary goat milk, an Angora goat would be a rather expensive breed to own for this purpose.
Furthermore, with the yield being so low from even the best milking Angora goat, in the majority of cases you’re unlikely to get enough out of the goat to even break even in the first place.
The cost of maintaining the goat year-on-year will, undoubtedly, far outweigh the money made from selling the milk.
If you happen to get an Angora goat that produces an unusually high yield, then there may be some money to be made.
Obviously, though, this would be an outlier case.
The point is that it is not impossible by any means to make money with Angora goat milk, but there’s also really no sense at all in pursuing this avenue for profit from Angora goats.
With all this said, plainly plenty of people do farm Angora goats and they make good money doing it.
What exactly is the main purpose of rearing Angora goats, then?
What is the primary use for Angora goats?
The primary use of Angora goats, as I have touched on, is the harvesting of their luxurious mohair fiber.
Mohair is a kind of luxury fiber which you can only get from the Angora goat, nowhere else in nature.
Obviously, the goat itself has been bred to produce such good fiber, but now after centuries of breeding we have these woolly goats that produce this fantastic fiber.
Mohair is a highly profitable business depending on how committed to it you are willing to be.
Even from a small herd, though, the annual profits can be a nice side earner.
Angora goats are typically not reared for their meat or their milk, but more or less exclusively for their fiber.
What are the best milking goats, then?
What is the best milking goat?
Without doubt the best dairy goat breed is the Saanen goat.
They can produce an enormous one to three gallons of milk per day during milking, which is by some way the highest average yield of any milking goat breed.
So, in terms of pure volume, Saanen goats are definitely the best option.
However, the Saanen goats do not produce milk with particularly high butterfat content, at only around 3%. Nigerian dwarf goats, on the other hand, produce milk with butterfat content sometimes as high as 10%!
Whether you want the higher yield or the higher butterfat content, there are countless breeds of goat that are much better as milking goats.
If you’re looking for a milking goat, then, the Angora just isn’t the right choice for you.
What little milk they do produce, though pleasant to drink, is far from the tastiest of goat milks.
Angora goats are fiber goats, really, and not much else.
They produce only enough milk to feed their kids, and so you’re going to have to put the goat through considerable stress to even milk it in the first place.
More in Angora
- Are Angora Goats Easy To Look After?
- Are Angora Goats Friendly?
- Are Angora Goats Good For Meat?
- Are Angora Goats Good Milkers?
- Are Angora Goats Hardy?
- Are Angora Goats Profitable?
- Are Angora Goats Rare?
- Do Angora Goats Need To Be Shorn?
- How Long Do Angora Goats Live?
- How Much Does An Angora Goat Cost?