Goats

Saanen and Anglo-Nubian does, doelings and the herd buck:

white Saanen blood runs through most Panamanian herds, crossed with Anglo-Nubian, Alpine or Toggenburg, and the old native goat has nearly disappeared into those crosses. The Saanen milks hardest, but her pale skin suffers under strong sun; the lop-eared Anglo-Nubian gives less milk, richer and better for cheese, and copes with heat. A doe only milks after kidding, so a doe in milk and a dry doe are different offers, and what matters is when she last kidded and how many lactations she has behind her. Doelings are the gentle way in but mean a year or more of feeding before the first kid. Wethers clear brush and never fill a pail. The goat hardest to come by is a good buck: Panamanian goat keepers name the shortage of improved breeding stock as their biggest problem, so a buck out of a doe with a known milk record does more for a small herd than another doe would. Keep him well away from the milking does, since his smell carries into the milk. Hair sheep share many of the same farms and turn up under sheep.

Milking stands, stainless pails and small milking machines:

most farms here milk a handful of does by hand, and for that the whole dairy is a raised stand with a head bail, a stainless pail and a strainer. Stainless beats plastic because scratched plastic holds milk residue and sours the next milking. A portable machine with one or two clusters pays its way only once the herd is big enough that hand milking eats the morning. Goats hate mud, so the goat house that lasts through the rains stands on posts with a slatted floor that drains and dries between showers, and newborn kids stay off the slats until their feet can no longer slip through. Hay racks and concentrate are under animal feed, and the pickup rack or trailer for moving goats under livestock trailers.

What a dairy goat’s knees and teats give away:

swollen front knees on an adult are the classic sign of CAE, an incurable viral disease that reaches kids through colostrum and milk, so ask whether the herd has been tested. Firm lumps under the jaw or in front of the shoulder can be caseous lymphadenitis abscesses, which burst and spread through a herd on the pus. A dairy doe should have two well-placed teats and nothing more: extra or split teats get in the way of hand and machine alike, and they run in families, which matters most on a doe or buck kept for breeding. With a used goat house, crawl underneath and check slats and joists from below, where urine soaks in and rot starts. On a milking machine the rubber liners wear first, and cracked or stiff ones are replaced before the first milking.

Writing up a doe in milk or a herd buck:

for a doe, give the cross, her age, how many times she has kidded and when, and what she gives a day measured over a week rather than on her best morning. Around a litre is an ordinary yield on farms here, so a much bigger claim gets tested at the stand. Say whether she is horned or disbudded, since horned goats hang their heads in square mesh and few dairy keepers mix the two. For a buck, give his age, what you know of his dam’s milk and which herds he has already covered, because a keeper near Dolega whose does already carry his blood has no use for him. Add when the goats were last dewormed and whether the herd has a CAE test, and for kit say whether the stand folds and how many clusters the machine runs. Set the handover for milking time, so the new keeper watches her climb the stand, let down and milk out before she goes in the pickup.