I’ve had goats all my adult life, but I’ve never really been a dairy goat owner.
My goats have always just been companions, and I’ve never really thought about owning milking does.
I just don’t drink enough milk for it to be worth it, to be perfectly honest.
The idea of it as a hobby appeals to me, but I fear how much milk I would waste.
This truth was brought even closer to home when my friend started milking his new goats, and I saw for myself just how much one goat can produce.
So, how much milk does a goat produce?
Naturally, it depends a lot. There will be a peak that is much higher over the lactation period, but on average, the figure will be around 2.5 liters per day. For goats on the right diet, it could reach 5.5 liters a day, at the peak. It will vary and depend on many factors.
There isn’t a single, concrete answer, then.
How much milk a goat produces depends on its environment, its diet, its mood and many other things.
Milking goats is a difficult thing to master, so you can’t expect to simply produce a great yield with ease.
Let’s look further into this.
How much milk does a goat produce in a day?
I may find myself saying this a lot, but the only simple answer is that it varies.
First of all, if you’ve never milked goats before, there’s a couple of things you should know.
Female goats don’t simply begin producing milk once they reach maturity.
They need to have become pregnant and given birth, and the baby then hand-reared so it doesn’t drink the milk.
Naturally, your doe producing a good yield will depend on its overall conditions.
It must, of course, be well-fed and hydrated—it will need a bit more food and water than non-milking goats.
It will also need a comfortable space to be alone.
Once you’ve got a doe milking, and you’re keeping it well fed and hydrated, you can get on average around 2.5 liters per day from one goat.
It takes a bit of elbow grease to get it all, but it’s there.
For a large, exceptionally healthy goat in the prime of its lactating period, you’ll be getting around 5.5 litres a day, at least for a while.
Naturally, this is all ball-park figures, and there will be a lot of variation.
Goats vary a great deal in size, and this leads to a lot of differences in milk production.
How often can you milk a goat?
For the most part, a milking doe should have milk for you every single day.
As I say, the figures given above are in per day amounts.
A good, healthy, well-fed milking doe will be able to be milked every day for as much as 5.5 litres—though probably less.
Your goat will produce this amount usually over two sessions of milking.
This means you can typically milk them first thing in the morning, and in the afternoon as well.
As I say, one of the things you’ll have to consider is the fact that your goat won’t produce milk unless it had, recently, kids to feed.
Sometimes, you may want to keep the kids feeding from their mother while you milk her, too.
What you may do, then, is remove the kids for one milking session after they are weaned, at about 4-6 weeks, and then return them to nurse in the afternoon.
If there are no kids feeding, you’ll have to milk the goat twice a day.
If you don’t, its udder will become bloated and painful.
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How many years do goats produce milk?
Again, it is always going to depend.
Firstly, let’s look at how long after it has initially started milking that a goat will continue to produce milk.
While this depends a lot on the breed, some of which have been bred more as dairy goats than others, you can often expect your doe to continue producing milk for up to two years.
However, if that doe becomes pregnant, the milk will start to dry up after around 10 months.
At what age they permanently stop producing milk is subject to a lot of change, and you should consider whether your goat can safely navigate a pregnancy at its age.
Don’t put them at risk.
How much does a gallon of goat milk cost?
Again, it is going to depend quite a lot.
On where you are, the demand for goat milk, the quality of your milk in particular—a few things.
However, the price range can be anywhere from $5 to $20 per gallon, depending on where you are.
So, it can be a really profitable business if you’re able to milk even a couple of goats every day.
Goat milk is almost always in demand to some degree since many believe it has properties cow’s milk does not.
Even $5 a gallon is still quite good going.
As long as you’ve got a healthy, well-fed doe with a happy and comfortable environment, you can get a really excellent milk yield during their milking period.
You won’t be surprised to hear that most large-scale goat farms are milk farms, rather than meat farms—so you can have an idea of how potentially profitable goat’s milk farming can be.
Of course, even if you’re not looking to make a profit, you can still have fresh milk many months of the year.