A female goat in a farm can start mating after the age of seven to nine months while it can be milked when the goat reaches a year. Goats give birth easily, so no special help is needed. However, the farmers need to make sure that the kids nurse from their mother, if they don’t, they should be fed from a bottle. This should be done right after the kid is born as this is when it receives the critical first milk which is called colostrum. After it is fed with colostrum containing minerals, vitamins and antibodies for a few days, the kid could be fed with milk formula or could nurse from its mother.
Breeding goats in a farm is quite similar to breeding cows. The kids of goats should be given a milk formula until they can be weaned; this is after they reach five to seven weeks of age. This is the time when the goats are then milked.
In a goat farm the females are given a two month period before giving birth, they need this time so that they could give nutrition to their kids after birth. As far as milking goats in diary farms is concerned, goats are milked twice a day, usually in intervals of 12 hours. The milk can be extracted by machine or by hand depending on the kind of techniques and work force the goat farm has. Another thing which makes breeding goats and cows similar is that the both use up to date diary production which should meet certain hygienic requirements.
If the farmer is interested more in meat production, then the kids of the goats should be nursed from eight to ten weeks. After that they are to be fed hay, grain and pasture until they gain enough weight, which can vary from 15 to 40 kilogram.
