(Radio Iowa) – Iowa is third in the country among states for raising and milking goats. Extension Dairy specialist Fred Hall calls goats a gateway livestock enterprise, similar to chickens.  “People have chickens in a little barn on the back side of the property because they can,” he says, “they can afford to buy the hatch eggs and take care of them and they have table eggs and maybe sell it dozens of the neighbors. That’s a gateway to doing something else. Goats are the same thing.”
He says it allows people to get into the milk business at a much lower cost than buying cows.

“You can afford to get started. You can learn sanitation, you can have a healthy quality product. You can make cheese, you can drink the milk, you can make yogurt,” Hall says. Hall says he’s seen the goat gateway lead to bigger things. “I’ve seen several different families start out you know, Dad maybe was a carpenter or whatever. And now they’re milking ten does and you know, it’s a lifestyle for them,” he says.He says goats have another advantage over cows.

“Goat milk has a higher yield. If you are going to use it for cheese, make the cheese from goats’ milk, you’ll have more cheese from goats,” he says. Hall and I-S-U Extension recently held some information sessions for those interested in getting into goat milking.