Instructive that you feel that way while Bev did not.
If you feed a "good producer" and an ordinary flugle goat an artificial and
expensive dairy diet, then yes, it costs the same to feed them but you get
more
milk from the former. But that difference disappears when the goats are
managed on a natural diet, and many times the results are reversed with the
high
strung goats becoming ill and wan without the artificial diet they've been
bred to expect.
The bottom line I'd propose is that in a proper natural environment for
goats, it costs nothing to feed an ordinary milk goat.
nothing. But an over bred high strung goat in that environment would give no
more
milk than the flugle goat and possibly give none while needing to have it's
purchased feed habit indulged. Some expense for no milk. No contest there.
The statement that CAE will (that's WILL) reduce milk production to zip is
unfounded. It is like the exortation from the goatateracist that you cannot,
must not, cannot, ever even remotely contemplate having goats with horns.
will be maimed, killed, or worse, and you goats will gore each other on a
daily
basis and die with their horns trapped in fences and branches. Not if, not
maybe, WILL happen. One frothing goatateracist near here raises kids for sale
at six weeks and if the prospective buyer wants the kids to not be disbudded,
there is a hefty extra fee. Why? Because she must keep the goats separate
from the 'normal' disbudded goats so that the nasty horned beasties won't harm
the others. Raving idiot. Goats don't have horns at six weeks!
Like that is the old saw that if a goat has CAE, its milk production will go
to nearly zero. Posh! Although CAE has only been recently identified, it
has been around for centuries. SOME goats are affected by it, and most of
those
only get arthritic in old age when they are pretty far past milking anyway.
The proof is in results. We (and a great deal of other goat raisers I know)
ignore the minutia of goatiana advice and don't supplement our goats with rare
minerals, don't dehorn them, don't medicate them in any way whatever, don't
carefully inspect medical records and milking records, etc. and yet we get
all
the milk we can use, nearly 100% live births, and nearly all those raised to
maturity with no problems whatever.
That's why the emotional reaction, I suppose.
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