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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Indeed it does. I think my advice was fine for a homesteader who wants
> to keep 2 or 3 goats rather than 8 or more for milk and cheese

No, you were saying that you knew about goats because you had kept so many 
and that if I'd kept more, I'd know better.

"You haven't had enough goats. I would have agreed with you at one
time. I've seen too much evidence to the contrary.{"


Reminds me very much of what happened this year at Appalachian Regional Fair 
(Gray, Tennessee).  They held a milking contest where dairy owners were 
invited to take the stool and bucket and naught else and milk a cow.  They 
couldn't 
do it!  Just because they owed dairies that had 200 cows didn't mean that 
they 
knew squat about milking ONE cow.  My young daughters know more about milking 
ONE cow than they do because had they been there and invited to participate, 
the cow's eyeballs would have been sucked in from how fast the milk would be 
going out!

I've kept goats for more than a quarter century and at all times I've had no 
more than four lactating.   What I have experienced and compared for many a 
year is small, homestead based dairy goat herd integrated with a very diverse 
homestead operation.   Like the dairy farm owners who fumbled with the one 
cow,  
I've found people with experience with vast herds of goats really don't have 
a clue how to manage half a dozen goats.  They end up spending way too much 
for goats, way too much for feed, and obsessing over things that just get in 
the 
way of integrating goats into a balanced farmstead.

I bring up the 'pounds' thing because it is fun to bring it up, but also 
because in general I've found it to be a reliable clue.  Caveat agricola!  

So if that's the advice for a few goats, not a miniature commercial dairy, 
it's at best not the only way although to hear a goatatericist tell it, it 
very 
much sounds like it.