Oliver Radcliffe
Two Does, One Household: What You Are Actually Taking On
A well-bred dairy doe in full milk will give you somewhere between two and four litres a day at her peak, tapering as the lactation progresses. Two sensible does, hand-milked morning and evening, will comfortably keep a family in milk, cream, yogurt and the occasional round of soft cheese. That is the good news, and it is genuinely good.
The rest of the news is that a goat does not take days off. She will need milking twice a day, every day, and she will need you to be reasonably consistent about it. Goats are herd animals and deeply habitual; a single goat kept alone is a miserable goat, so the minimum sensible unit is two, ideally three so you can rotate and have company for a doe while her companion is in kid.
Before you bring anything home, ask yourself whether you can be at the holding at roughly the same times each morning and evening for the next ten months. If the answer is yes, the rest is mostly planning.
Fencing: Get This Right Before Anything Else
Goats have a reputation for escaping, and it is largely deserved. They climb, they lean, they push, and they will find the one weak point in a boundary within about a week. Sort the fencing before the animals arrive, not after.
- Height: 1.2 metres as an absolute minimum; 1.4 metres is better if you have a doe who likes to stand on her hind legs against the wire.
- Mesh: small-aperture stock netting, ideally with a square weave. Large mesh is a head-trap waiting to happen.
- Electric: an offset electric wire on the inside of the fence, plus one along the top, is the single most effective addition you can make.
- Gates: hung so they swing shut, with latches a goat cannot nose open. Goats are excellent with latches.
Walk the whole boundary yourself, on your hands and knees in places, looking for gaps under hedges and holes at gate posts. If a dog can get through it, so can a kid.
Shelter and Housing
Goats hate rain and draughts far more than they hate cold. A simple field shelter or a converted stable will do, provided it is dry underfoot and airy above head height. Allow roughly 1.5 square metres of bedded space per adult goat, and more if you plan to kid indoors.
Deep straw bedding over a solid floor, topped up daily and mucked out properly every few weeks, keeps feet sound and udders clean. Put a hard standing of scalpings or concrete outside the entrance so the ground does not turn to liquid mud by February. Ventilation should be at high level, with no howling draught at floor level where the animals lie. Kids need somewhere fox-proof and genuinely warm for their first weeks.
Feeding, Water and Minerals
Goats are browsers, not grazers. They want variety: hedgerow, brambles, tree browse, good hay or haylage, and grass as part of the mix rather than the whole of it. A diet of nothing but lush ryegrass is a recipe for worms and scours.
- Forage: good hay available at all times, plus daily access to browse and rough grazing.
- Concentrates: a dairy nut or coarse mix during lactation, typically 0.5 to 1kg per doe per day split across the two milkings. Introduce slowly and adjust to body condition, not to the bucket.
- Water: constant access to clean water. A milking doe can drink eight to ten litres a day.
- Minerals: loose goat minerals, freely available. Goats need notably more copper than sheep, so never use sheep minerals for goats.
Keep a salt lick and a tub of bicarbonate of soda available; goats will self-medicate for rumen acidity if given the chance. Condition-score monthly by hand over the spine and loin, because fleece and winter coat hide a lot.
The Daily Routine and Milking
Milking is a skill, and like most skills it rewards consistency. Wash your hands, wipe the udder with a clean cloth and warm water, strip the first few squirts into a separate cup to check for lumps or discolouration, then milk steadily into a clean stainless bucket. Filter and chill the milk quickly, and you will have milk that tastes sweet rather than goaty.
Keep the two milkings roughly twelve hours apart. Goats settle into routine fast and become difficult only when the routine slips. Alongside milking, build in a weekly once-over: feet, eyes, coat, udder, and a look at droppings. Hooves generally need trimming every six to eight weeks, more often on soft wet ground.
Paperwork, Health and Buying Well
In the UK you need a County Parish Holding number before you can move goats onto your land, and the animals must be registered with the relevant authority and identified with an official tag. Keep your movement records up to date; they are a legal requirement, not a formality.
Buy from a breeder who tests for CAE and Johne's disease, and ask to see the results rather than taking a nod and a smile. Quarantine new arrivals away from your existing stock for at least three weeks. Find a vet who actually keeps or treats goats before you need one in a hurry, and have a conversation early about disbudding, worming strategy and kidding.
Do those things properly and two good does will repay you every morning with a bucket of warm milk and a herd that comes running when they hear your boots on the yard.
