Research Library

Researchers wanted to see how omitting the “dry period” (i.e., milking goats all the way through late gestation) affects the mammary gland’s structure and subsequent milk production. Essentially, they compared udder tissue changes between goats with a usual dry period and goats continuously milked right into the next lactation.

This review compiled recommendations and scientific findings on managing dairy goat kids (from birth to weaning) in intensive systems, focusing on topics like colostrum, feeding, housing, and health.

Researchers interviewed French dairy goat farmers who keep mother goats with their kids for an extended period (rather than separating immediately after birth). They wanted to see why farmers do this, how they implement it, and what outcomes they observe.

Researchers analyzed how individual goats’ milk yield, body weight, and body condition develop over multiple lactations, aiming to categorize distinct “lifetime performance patterns” and see how goats shift among these patterns as they age.

The study investigated how milking goats once a day compared to twice a day affected total milk yield, milk quality (fat, protein), and udder health over a whole lactation.

This study looks at the genes in dairy goats that may affect milk production, reproduction, and adaptation (e.g., thriving in different climates). The authors used whole-genome sequencing from 58 goats (34 dairy goats, 24 wild goats) to see which parts of the genome have been shaped by breeding for traits like milk yield and resistance to disease.

This third part zooms in on dairy goat operations specifically. It looks at milking routines, milk quality, how does and kids are managed around milking (like weaning schedules and feeding methods), and marketing of goat milk and goat milk products.

This second part explores health-related practices and preventive measures on goat operations. Topics include vaccination trends, parasite control, disease testing, kidding management, biosecurity, and how farms deal with illness or injury.

This document focuses on general goat management practices on U.S. farms. It looks at herd sizes, primary uses of goats (like meat, dairy, fiber, or companion), breeding methods, kidding (birth) practices, record keeping, and basic farm-level biosecurity measures.

Researchers explored goat lactation’s unique physiology and management to highlight how it can spur growth and improvement in the dairy goat industry.

This study looked at how a high-grain diet (which can cause subacute ruminal acidosis, SARA) affects goats over a longer period—specifically focusing on milk yield/composition and liver gene expression related to metabolism.

Scientists studied how heat stress interacts with mastitis-like inflammation in goats’ udders. They gave goats an intramammary lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge to simulate infection and tracked changes in milk yield, composition, and metabolite profiles.

This work explored how extended high-grain feeding affects goat milk fat yield and fatty acid composition, and why. The team focused on mammary gland gene expression and DNA methylation patterns related to milk fat synthesis.

Researchers wanted to understand how dairy goats’ health and performance are affected around kidding time—especially focusing on two hidden (subclinical) problems:

1. Subclinical hyperketonemia (SCHK) – slightly elevated “ketone” levels (BHBA) in the blood, often due to the goat mobilizing too much body fat.

2. Subclinical hypocalcemia (SCHC) – slightly low calcium levels in the blood around kidding.

Both issues are called “subclinical” because goats might look fairly normal while their blood tests reveal these imbalances.

This literature review looks at best feeding approaches for young dairy goats, starting from colostrum feeding in newborn kids, through milk feeding, and then transitioning to solid feed up to breeding age.

The study investigated the main factors (bacterial infection and other non-infectious influences) affecting somatic cell count (SCC) in Norwegian dairy goats. They repeatedly sampled goats for milk bacteriology and SCC, while also tracking parity, season, and stage of lactation.

This study investigates the welfare status of dairy goats on 30 commercial farms in the Midwestern United States. It explores a range of animal-based indicators—such as body condition, lameness, hygiene, claw overgrowth, and others—to pinpoint the most common challenges affecting goat well-being in commercial dairy settings.