My name is Robyn and I live in South East Queensland in Australia. I have operated a goat dairy since 1993 with my husband, Tony, and currently milk 170 goats and the total herd size is around 225. We decided to get bigger and kept many kids over the last 2 years but discovered that our health problems (bad back and advancing arthritis) would not allow us to manage a herd of this size very well. I sold about 40 goatlings mid 2004 and my new plan is to go back to milking just 100.

I originally bought a herd of 32 milkers and 20 goatlings and sold all my milk to Suncoast. I still sell the milk to the same place although it has undergone many name and staff changes since then. QUF, Pauls and now Parmalat are the names I can remember offhand.

I love goats but find the workload to be rather large during the kidding season, although winter is nice and quiet. For the effort put in, I believe we are underpaid for the milk and our annual income for the hours we work should be way better.

I have managed to erradicate CAE/Caprine Retrovirus from my herd which took a monumental effort and if I'd known prior to when I started, exactly what would be involved in terms of hours of labour, I may not have done it at all. The herd was almost 100% infected when I purchased it. I started the erradication in 1995 and in 2000 had my first all clear test.

I had herd recorded volumes of every goat every month up until late 2002 when we simply could no longer manage to do it. From these figures I have only kept doe kids who's dams achieve greater than 750 (and later, 900) litres in 300 days. I had ignored all other important traits in an effort to get production up to an economically viable level of 4 litres a day herd average. This I achieved but it has fallen dramatically since autumn 2003 due to drought and a poorer diet and my goats are now only achieving a bit better than 3 litres per day. Lack of proven sires has also contributed to this decrease.

I haven't always been a farmer. I was born and lived in Sydney until I was 14. I was also a registered nurse for 18 years in Maryborough, Queensland and then Cherbourg Aboriginal Community near to where I live now. My nursing knowledge has helped me a great deal with the goats both with their health and with the hygiene aspect. I heard once that nurses are the only people who wash their hands BEFORE going to the toilet - maybe goat farming could fit into that category as well.

OK, enough about me. I hope you enjoy the site and even more, I hope you provide some input. I do not claim to know all there is to know about goats and I'm sure everyone else who visits here will want the opinions of others apart from myself.

And don't forget to have a look at

the section that is all things not Goat