Goats share-milked on farmlet in South Canterbury

Press, 30 October 1981, Page 14

Goats share-milked on farmlet in South Canterbury

Ope of Canterbury’s pioneer goat farmers now has a dairy goat enterprise, in which he has a sharemilker, and the frozen milk is being sent about 500 km to Brightwater in the Nelson district for processing into powder for export to Taiwan. The farmer is Mr R. G. (Richard) Macdonald, of Woodbury near Geraldine.. He began goat farming, in 1978 when he bought large numbers of feral does from the North Island as a base for crossbreeding with Angora bucks to breed Angora goats for mohair production. The chairman of the marketing committee of the Mohair Producers’ Association, Mr Macdonald now has about 500 goats, including about 250 ferals and 250 other animals including first, second and third crosses with the Angora and purebreds. He is also a member of the New Zealand Goat Council and it is through this organisation, with its representatives of mohair, meat and milk producers, and also processing and marketing interests, that he has also become interested in dairy goat farming. It has taken him about two years to get the dairy operation off the ground and it is now in its first production season.

The enterprise known as the Nigg Dairy Goat Farm is located almost in the Woodbury township on a block of about 16 hectares, of which five hectares is devoted to the dairy goat farm. At present 34 Toggenbiirg, Saanen and British Alpine does are being milked and by about December 20 the milking herd is expected to be up to about 45.

The land had a dairy shed on it having been the site of a Jersey stud, so Mr Macdonald says that he was able to make the conversion to goat dairying more economically, but he still had to put about $15,000 into the shed and the provision of a freezer to freeze and hold the milk. His sharemilkers are a

husband and wife partnership. They are Mr and. Mrs Brian Ridgway, who shifted this winter to Woodbury from Amberley, where they had a small holding. Mr Ridgway comes initially from Swansea in Wales and has been in New Zealand for 21 years. His wife, Maree, comes from Christchurch and her interest in goats goes back some 10 years when she was given a Saanen doe, Lilly, by Mr H. Ensor, oi Governors Bay, as a wedding present. They have never been without goats since. Mr Ridgway says that at first he could not stand the animals but has since grown to love them. Mrs Ridgway is a successful exhibitor of goats at shows.

The sharemilking partnership is on a 50-50 basis with Mr Macdonald supplying the grazing and the capital equipment for the enterprise and the Ridgways the animals. The Ridgways have between 70 and 80 animals, including kids, in the Takahe Dairy Goat Stud. Mr Ridgway also works part time for Mr Macdonald.

Mr Macdonald says that a key factor in making the enterprise possible has been their ability to obtain access to a factory outlet for their milk. He is a member of the management committee of the Tasman Dairy Goat Cooperative Society, Ltd, based in Nelson, which has 12 producer members and which is now in its first full production season.

The co-operative, which has as its secretary a chartered accountant, who is also a producer, Bronwyn Monopoli, has a processing arrangement' with the Waimea Co-opertive Dairy Company, Ltd, at Brightwater. This season the milk is being turned into freezedried powder which has been pre-sold to Taiwan at $7OOO per tonne. The producers are receiving 50c a litre for their milk. The co-operative organises testing of the product to high standards and also its holding near the factory, where it is building a freezer to hold 30 tonnes of frozen milk, as quantities of about 20 to 30 tonnes are required for processing runs at the factory. The Woodbury milking shed has been registered by the Ministry of Agriculture to comply with its requirements, but before milk could be sent to Brightwater a frozen sample had to be forwarded for testing and a sample bottle of frozen milk from each milking, marked to correspond with the plas-

tic packages of frozen milk, must go forward with each consignment of milk for testing.

Mr Macdonald says that transport is their greatest cost at 10c per kg and he hopes that before long there may be other goat milk producers in the province who may help to share the cost of the transport in refrigerated vehicles. But he adds that producers in inaccessible localities like Collingwood are paying as much as. 35c to 40c per kilogram for the transport of their product.

Nigg Dairy Goat Farm is budgeting for the season’s transport bill to amount to about .$3OOO.

The transport will be called in at least once a month when between two and four tonnes of frozen milk is ready for movement. The goats are machine milked twice a day and at present the milking is occupying about ai) hour. The shed has 16 bails — eight along either side of a working area on a lower level. The bails, with a neck locking system that operates for the eight bails at. the one time, have been built to a French design that Mr Macdonald obtained from a French book lent to him by the secretary of the Goat Council, Mr Garrick Batten. In front of each bail the Ridgways place a plastic bucket with a very high protein ration, specially formulated for milking goats, in it. As soon as they enter the bails the goats push their heads through into the buckets and there is no problem in neck locking the animals in the one movement. The

arrangements provide good access to the udders of the animals.

Six sets of cups are used for milking and by the time the 16 goats in the shed at a time have been milked all of the animals have finished eating their rations. At the two milkings the goats receive a total of 0.75 kg of ration.

The Ridgways have a high regard for the intelligence of the animals. Mr Ridgway says that they are underrated for their intelligence. For instance, he says that at the start they will examine a fence to see if there are any weaknesses in it and if they find there are not they will thereafter leave it alone. Rarely do they dirty the shed and the does are described as among the cleanest of animals and do not smell. Mrs Ridgway says that they will come in when their names are called. As sound feet are a vital part of the equipment of any productive animal, the feet of the goats are trimmed regularly at intervals of six weeks, but they are now being drenched for parasites as necessary and not on a six-weekly routine. At grazing as browsing animals they prefer long grass to short, and appreciate variety in their diet so that they welcome some, willow branches or pine tree branches if they are available.

Hay is fed ad lib day and night and at night the animals are held close to the house.

The milk goes from milking into seven—litre polypropylene trays, which are held in racks in the freezer

for freezing. The milk from one milking is frozen by the time of the next milking. The frozen milk blocks are packed into plastic bags, which are moved on wooden pallets from the freezer on a front-end loader to the refrigerated motor vehicles. Mr Macdonald regards the enterprise as of a pilot nature. With the present shed he says that about 50 goats would be as many as could be milked, but he believes that with a rotary platform and with adequate grazing it would be possible to handle 150 does in a unit.

They have budgeted for their animals producing an average of 2.7 litres of milk a day over a 300-day milking season. Each of their sets of cups has a milk meter attached to it and at the first visit of the herd tester last week the animals being milked were averaging 4.55 litres of milk, or exactly a gallon, with an average test of 4 per cent. However, milk production ranged up to 6.8 litres and the fat test to 6 or 7 per cent. Mrs Ridgway said that their objective would be to raise average milk production to a gallon and a half per day or about 6.8 litres. However, at an average of 2.7 litres a day Mr Macdonald said that estimated production per head for the season would amount to about 800 litres, which aL5Oc per litre would be worth about $4OO. At' a stocking rate of four per acre or 10 per hectare this would be equivalent to $l6OO per acre or $4OOO per hectare. . The total production for the season would be about 36,000 litres of milk worth about $lB,OOO.

On the other hand, costs would include about $5OO for veterinary expenses like drenches and chemicals, $750 for shed expenses including electricity, $l4OO for meal (seven tonnes at $200) and about $3OOO for transport, or a total of about $6OOO, leaving a surplus of about $12,000.

Mr Macdonald contrasts the returns from goats with cows. An average cow would produce $2.60 of milk a day from one acre, whereas four goats producing an average of 2.7 litres per head would, at 50c per litre, give about double the return from the cow on a per acre basis. It is Mr Macdonald’s prediction that in four or five /ears time there will be 400 to 500 goats being milked in the Geraldine district, adding still another element of diversification to farming in the province.