Increase your net profit from dairy goats.

Tom Miller used to buy newborn dairy calves and raise them on milk replacer and pasture to market either as stocker calves or replacements for local dairies. However, according to the December, 1993 issue of The Stockman Grass Farmer, he found the high cost of the milk replacer and the poor calf health it produced kept profits low.

Enter the dairy goats! After reading an article about goats suckling calves, the Macon, Mississippi farmer acquired several. He now uses goats to suckle calves until they reach 150-200 pounds. At this stage they are readily drinking water and consuming hay and about 1 1/2 pounds of grain per day. They are thus ready to be weaned onto pasture until they are marketed. Miller calculates his value of gain on the calves to be about $1 per pound, which is excellent.

The calves are kept in pens made of wire panels and between every two pens is a bench. Six-inch square holes are cut in the sides of the panels next to the bench to allow the calves to reach through and suckle. The goats initially suckle two calves at one time twice a day, and then two goats are used as the calves grow larger. The goats continue to chew their cuds while being suckled, so they apparently enjoy the experience.

The main problem he has is finding dairy goats which have a high milk volume, long lactation period, long breeding season and which will stand the heat and humidity of his area. He is now breeding his does to a large frame buck to try to increase their milk potential while adapting the goats to his climate.

He now considers himself to be in the dairy goat business--the calves are just a way to market the goat milk. However, it might be more accurate to say he harvests solar energy through forages by first converting it into goat milk and then into calf gain. He eventually plans to market 200-250 calves a year through this method and also to graze them to 700-pound heifers as dairy replacements or 800-pound steers as light feeders, thereby also getting the stocker phase profit.

Another option for him would be to contract with dairies to raise their purebred replacement stock from newborn to first calf, retaining the calf for raising while the cow goes to the milk line.

For those who love dairy goats, find a limited market for their milk or milk products, and have ready access to recently born dairy calves, this could be a way to market goat milk at a substantial increase in profit.

If interested, check at your local library to see if they have, or can borrow through inter-library loan, a copy of the 1943-47 USDA Yearbook of Agriculture: Science in Farming. Read the chapter Advances in Feeding Calves by Henry T. Converse. The dairy goats would substitute for the milk replacer mentioned in the different methods.

(When buying calves, they should be worth more if purchased directly and it can be guaranteed they received their dam's colostrum for 1-3 days. The higher cost should be returned several times over in increased calf health.)