Table of Contents
Episode 94
For the Love of Goats
If you’ve been thinking about a meat breed and are looking for one that does well on pasture and forage, is parasite resistant, and hardy in general, the Kiko might be the breed for you.
In today’s episode we are talking to Karen Kopf of Kopf Canyon Ranch in Idaho about their experience raising dairy goats and then switching to meat goats and specifically Kiko goats. One of the reasons I wanted to interview Karen is because of the amazing records they keep on their herd, so we get into all of the details on the breed.
Kikos were developed from feral goats in New Zealand and dairy goats, and they have no breed standard. This means there is a lot of variation between individual Kiko goats. Karen talks about the wide variation in sizes, as well as feeding, kidding, and selling meat.
You can visit Kopf Canyon Ranch online at…
Kopf Canyon Ranch Facebook Page
Listen right here…
For more information on other goat breeds:
- Alpine Goats
- Angora Goats
- Arapawa Goats
- Cashmere Goats
- Experimental Goats
- Fainting Goats (aka Myotonic Goats)
- Kinder Goats
- LaMancha Goats
- Nigerian Dwarf Goats
- Nubian Goats and Cheesemaking
- Oberhasli Goats
- Pygmy Goats
- Saanen Goats
- Sable Goats
- San Clemente Island Goats
- Toggenburg Goats
- Choosing a Goat Breed for Your Farm
Transcript
Introduction 0:03
For the love of goats! We are talking about everything goat. Whether you’re a goat owner, a breeder, or just a fan of these wonderful creatures, we’ve got you covered. And now, here is Deborah Niemann.
Deborah Niemann 0:18
Today’s episode is brought to you by Goats 365, my membership program for people who are living with, learning about, and loving goats, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Basic members get access to six courses covering housing, fencing, parasites, nutrition, and health, as well as things like composting goat manure and the basics of starting a goat-based business. Premium members also have the opportunity to attend live online meetings via Zoom to talk about goats every month. Visit Goats365.com to learn more.
Deborah Niemann 0:52
Hello, everyone and welcome to today’s episode. This is another one of our breed profiles, and I am really excited to be talking about a meat goat breed today: the Kiko goat. And, we are joined by Karen Kopf of Kopf Canyon Ranch in Idaho. And, when I saw their website, I saw that she keeps a lot of really great records on weight gain and things like that. And so, you know I like statistics, so I just knew I had to have her on the show to talk about Kikos. Welcome to the show, Karen.
Karen Kopf 1:26
Thank you for inviting me. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to talk about goats.
Deborah Niemann 1:31
Awesome. So, go ahead and just give us a little bit of history on the Kiko breed and what got you involved.
Karen Kopf 1:38
So, Kiko goats are a relatively new breed. They were created, breeded, in New Zealand. Initially, goats in New Zealand were seen as pests. They were literally overrunning the country, because there are very few predators that prey upon goats, and so they had several eradication measures in place. Hunting—not even a hunting season. Wide-open hunting for goats to eradicate them. And, a gentleman by the name of Garrick Batten looked at the survivability of the goat as an opportunity. And, he knew that there were other countries that needed to increase the hardiness of their animals, because of the marginal feed that was available to them. And, seeing the wild, feral, New Zealand goats surviving on these marginal terroirs decided, “Well, if I take this feral New Zealand goat, and I cross it to some high-performance dairy goats, I might have something that would improve the meat yield and success and survivability of the herds in these developing countries.” So, that’s where it began, and an American developed an interest in what he was doing and imported a group of Kiko. And, that’s where it began for us.
Deborah Niemann 1:38
Awesome. So, I noticed your website is KikoGoats.org, which probably means you got started pretty early, because you got that URL. How long have you been raising Kikos?
Karen Kopf 2:43
We’ve been raising Kikos for only about eight years, actually. They’ve been in the country since the ’90s. So, we aren’t one of the first to have Kiko. Dr. Ann Peschel is actually the first. But, we’ve raised a number of different breeds, and Kiko kind of came to us by accident. We started with goats in 4-H and did dairy breeds, and then decided, as the kids grew older and more interested in dairying, that it would be easier to switch to a meat goat herd. And, we went commercial with a hodgepodge of goats, and within that hodgepodge, we had a few Kiko does. And, it didn’t take long before the performance of those Kikos just dominated the herd, and it was clear that, if we needed a low-maintenance herd—because we both have jobs outside of the ranch—Kiko was the breed that would work for us. And so, we switched over; we sold our entire commercial herd, with the exception of a couple of the Kiko, and went to an all-Kiko herd.
Deborah Niemann 4:28
Okay. And, when you are talking about commercial and then versus all-Kiko, when you say “commercial,” you mean “unregistered”?
Karen Kopf 4:35
Unregistered. Likely couldn’t define all of the breeds that were within the herd. I know we had several purebred Boer. We had some Boer crosses. We had some Boer-Kiko crosses. But, I couldn’t guarantee that other breeds hadn’t snuck into that herd as well, which is the case when you have a commercial herd and you don’t have a DNA traceability to the parents.
Deborah Niemann 4:57
So, now you just have registered Kikos?
Karen Kopf 5:00
Yes. We have registered Kikos. We do have a few dairy goats in our herd, because at one time we were approached by the North American Packgoat Association president Curtis King. He wanted to see what would happen if we crossed Kiko onto dairy goats—what type of packgoat we might have. And so, we brought in a few dairy breeds; we brought in some Alpine-Oberhasli, some Alpine, and some Saanen and crossed to those breeds. And, what was interesting was, we have followers that love the crosses. But now, we have additional followers that are Kiko lovers through and through; they want purebred Kiko for their packgoats. And so, over time, as that niche has grown, we have gone away from those dairy goats. Again, we found that they just did not have the longevity or survivability that our Kiko do. It took a lot more effort to manage that part of the herd than it does a straight Kiko herd for us, under our conditions.
Deborah Niemann 6:06
So, when you said that you were really amazed by the production or performance of the Kikos, what was it exactly that made you say, “Whoa, this is what we want to focus on.” What were they doing?
Karen Kopf 6:18
The motherability. There are some Kiko standards that people talk about that sound legendary, but if that’s what a breeder has selected for, they truly are the hallmarks of the Kiko breed. They are incredible, incredible mothers. They have an extremely high foraging drive. They… I won’t say that our Kikos will survive on marginal feed. All goats do need to be fed. But, our goats never receive grain, not at any time in their lives. Not during lactation, not during pregnancy. Not even in old age. We feed alfalfa hay through the winter, and they have forage through the summer. And so, that for us was a benefit, was not to have to store and manage grain. And then, their parasite resistance. We have a herd right now; our breeding herd is just over 150 animals. And, we’ll wind up with about 200 kids at kidding time. And, when we go through our health checks, there aren’t even two hands worth of animals that need to be dewormed. While some of our animals have never needed deworming in their lifetime. So, in that respect, they were just so much easier to care for. They were so hardy.
Karen Kopf 6:18
We have probably twelve seasons in Idaho. Most of them are wet, and half of them are very cold. The other half… I wouldn’t say are brutally hot. We only have one season that’s really hot, but we can range in temperatures from the negative 20s Fahrenheit up to 115 Fahrenheit with the extremes, and our Kiko rarely seek shelter. They will sleep out in the snow; they will be snowed upon and have a blanket of snow on them and they don’t mind. They don’t mind the wind. They will forage during the rain. The only time you see them really seek shelter is if it is a driving, pelting, soaking rain or hail. Those are the two types of weather they don’t want. Otherwise, you wouldn’t know we were having weather at all.
Deborah Niemann 8:25
Wow, that is incredible. And then, what is kidding season like? Because, most dairy goat breeders are pretty hands-on, whereas most sheep breeders are pretty hands off. It’s pretty much 180 degrees different. So, where do Kiko goats fall into that? How much attention or care do they need during kidding season?
Karen Kopf 8:45
Again, it depends on what the breeder selects for, because some of our dairy goats in our herd lived very Kiko. So, selection plays a big part in the management of a herd. For us, because we both have jobs off the ranch. It’s kind of like an Easter egg hunt during kidding season. When we do have the chance to go out to pasture, we look for kids. And, if we happen upon one, we have our portable sling scale, and an ear tagger, and a clipboard, and we take a note of the weight, we tag it, and take a note of the dam, so that if we ever need to match them up again, and so that we can track the data on that dam. But, it is rare that we get to witness the birth, and even rarer that we would assist in a birth.
Karen Kopf 9:33
But, I have had to assist in birth before with the Kiko. With a large herd, inevitably, there are some issues. We’ve had malpresentation things. We’ve had moms that were surprised by the number of kids they had and were separated from a few. But for the most part, they take care of it on their own. And, I think part of that is also because, in our management style, because we are unable to assist at the point of birth, we do not breed doelings. We carry our doelings over until they’re 18 months old, to breed them at 18 months. And then, they kid when they are two year olds. And, part of that is because we want them to grow and lay down a good foundation of calcium; it takes a lot of calcium to grow and lactate during pregnancy. But, the other part of it is when they get to experience birth in the herd with their mothers and their sisters as doelings, we watch them even become babysitters for their younger siblings. And, they learn a lot of these mothering skills. They watch their mothers call, they watch the babies respond, they watch how mothers discipline the babies, and they don’t seem to be as surprised by what’s happening to them when they kid themselves.
Deborah Niemann 10:10
Wow. That is really interesting, because I know a lot of first fresheners, when they are in labor, they sound like they are being torn limb from limb. And I’m just sitting there with them going, “Honey, it’s okay. It’s normal. You’re not dying, I promise.” But, once they’ve done it, then, you know, next year, they’re like, they know what’s happening, and they’re really quiet. But, we also use kidding pens, so they don’t usually see other goats giving birth, unless they happen to see it, you know, within a couple days before they kid themselves.
Karen Kopf 11:29
We don’t have any kidding pens. Ours kid on open pasture. And, in fact, their open pasture drops down into our canyon. So sometimes, part of our checking pasture involves, you know, a steep climb up and down the side of the canyon to find little ones that are tucked under logs and rocks. And, we do try to bring all of the does and kids up at night. We’ve tried to train the herd to stay on the rim at night, simply because of the predator load that we’d have in the canyon; it’s safer for them up there. There are some does, though, that just insist on staying down in the canyon with their babies and living as wild as they can possibly live. And, we don’t want to stress them. We find we have much better outcomes when we let them decide what works than when we try to decide what’s best for them.
Deborah Niemann 12:25
That’s really interesting. But, it makes a lot of sense. I know, one of the things we learned early on is that the last thing you ever want to do is move a doe that’s already in labor. It’s like, if you find a doe in the pasture in labor, that’s where she’s gonna give birth. Because, if you try to move them, everything just shuts down—which makes sense. Like, because you’ve just really stressed them out by moving them when they’re already in labor. So.
Deborah Niemann 12:53
Do Kikos tend to have twins almost all the time? Or, do they have some triplets, or even more?
Karen Kopf 12:58
We have a very high kidding percentage in our herd. A lot of the doe lines that we have have very high kidding percentages. We had a 12 year old that retired with a kidding percentage of, I believe, 274%. So, our kidding average usually is right around 230-240%. That said, we have very few singles, even among our first fresheners. We can have triplets and quads with first fresheners, and we have had four sets of quintuplets
Deborah Niemann 13:34
Wow, that’s interesting! I have not heard of other breeds having quintuplets other than Nigerians. So, it’s really interesting to hear that your Kikos have done that, too. We’ve had eight sets of quintuplets; they are not my favorite.
Karen Kopf 13:46
They’re fine, as long as you’ve got a good mama. Last year, we had to set up quintuplets—or actually, this year, 2022. And, one of the little babies was blue, and the other four were black. And, I think it happens from time to time that, when one of the babies doesn’t match, it confuses the mama. And so, this little blue one wound up in our bottle baby section, but she did raise the four. And last year, we had five on another doe; she raised all five, and we retained her four doelings, and they are in our breeding herd this year. They were outstanding.
Deborah Niemann 14:28
Wow. That was nice. Of the five, four were doelings… Yeah, well, it makes sense that if you are breeding for meat, that more kids could be beneficial.
Deborah Niemann 14:38
So, I know you keep a lot of records on weight gain and stuff like that. So, let’s talk about weight gain. How much weight do you want to see your Kiko kids gaining?
Karen Kopf 14:48
We wean at 90 days, and we like to see our doelings achieve a minimum of 40 pounds by 90 days, and our bucklings a minimum of 50 pounds. And so, any average daily gain between .3-.5 is usually right on track. What’s challenging though, as you keep records is, you’ll find that—just like with people—they hit their growth spurts at different times. So initially, we took our weights at three intervals during those 90 days; we had 30 day intervals, just to watch their growth patterns. And, some babies just skyrocketed in those first 30 days, but then they would taper off in the 60 to 90 days. And, the others didn’t look like they were going to be doing very much at 60 days, and in that 60 to 90 day period, just shot up. And so, we’ve learned that it’s hard to predict at a single point in time, with an average daily gain, what their finished weaning weight might be. They do tend to level out. Average out. And, we expect that type of gain regardless of the litter size of the dam. So, even with our triplets, and quadruplets, we want to see those weights. In a meat goat herd, there’s no sense having that many kids on a doe if they’re not going to score well enough at a saleyard.
Deborah Niemann 15:05
Yeah, exactly.
Karen Kopf 15:47
So, you’d rather have two strong, well-developed kids than four weak kids, but if a doe can raise four strong kids, she’s a rockstar for us.
Deborah Niemann 16:34
Yeah. That’s why I’m mostly happy with triplets, because they seem to all do really well with triplets. And then, once you get to quads, with the Nigerians, there’s usually one that’s going to start to fall behind the others. And sometimes, that has to do with the kids personality as much as the doe, because one kid is just more shy than the others, not as aggressive. So, just for comparison, for anybody wondering, like, with my Nigerians, I won’t wean them before they’re 20 pounds, and they will hit that usually around 8 to 10 weeks.
Deborah Niemann 17:09
So, tell us more about the other data that you’ve got on weight gain.
Karen Kopf 17:14
So, when we evaluate a herd, a Kiko is different from other breeds. We don’t have a great standard. So, while it is important to have a good structural confirmation so that the animal can perform, the animal can give birth, the animal can walk correctly, the animal can lead correctly, we don’t judge them the same way other breeds are judged. We’re looking at other criteria. And, those criteria are all measurable criteria with data. For our does, we’re looking at her kidding percentage; we’re looking at her motherability.
Karen Kopf 17:50
In our herd, a fascinating bit of data that we keep is her weight at breeding. And then, we compare that to her weight at weaning. And, what we want to see is a doe that has not lost weight during pregnancy and lactation. And, some breeders will compare that weaning weight as well to the doe’s litter weight—how much her kids weighed at weaning—and the goal for some breeders is to have a litter weight of kids that exceeds the weight of the doe at weaning. That is a slippery slope sometimes, because if the doe has lost weight at weaning, it doesn’t give an accurate picture, because there’s going to be a cost to that breeder trying to bring that doe back to her breeding condition, because she has deteriorated during pregnancy and lactation. So, we just look at the breeding weight and the weaning weight to see, is this a strong doe? Is she set back? And even when they’re two year olds, we look at that, and we want to see two year olds continuing to grow even while they’re pregnant and lactating. So, that’s one bit of data that we keep on our does.
Karen Kopf 19:06
And, we look at worming records over a lifetime. So, when we put out our sale list for our kids, we show the kid’s weaning weight, we show the dam’s weight, we show the sire’s weight—because Kiko can range significantly in weight. You can have mature does that are 90 pounds and mature does that are 190 pounds.
Deborah Niemann 19:10
Wow.
Karen Kopf 19:21
And you can have mature bucks that are 175 pounds, and you can have mature bucks that are over 300 pounds. So, it’s very important to a buyer—particularly a distant buyer—to know more information about the sire and dam when you don’t have these breed standards. Like, what is their current weight? Their mature weight? We also put in that information how many times have a sire and dam been dewormed in their lifetime, the dam’s kidding percentage, and any other interventions we have on that animal.
Karen Kopf 20:01
There’s a lot of different ways you can look at weaning weights, too. And, it’s always important to ask the breeder how they’re gathering those weaning weights, because there is an actual weaning weight—which is the day that you wean. Whether it’s 83 days or 90 days, this is how much they weigh and to know how old they were. There’s a calculated weaning weight. That’s what we use, where we have a whole group of animals that come through the scale on one day. And, they’re not comparable, because some are 80 days old, some are 94 days old. And so, we do what’s called a “calculated” weaning weight, where we take their age and their weight, and we divide it to get the average daily gain, and then we calculate to 90 days, so you can compare the whole kid crop at 90 days. The other weaning weight that you can see is called an “adjusted” weaning weight. And, an adjusted weaning weight is fascinating, but we don’t use it. It actually takes into consideration the age of the dam, and it gives a deduction based on the age of the dam. It takes into consideration the litter size that the kid is raised in. It also takes into consideration the gender of the kid. And so, it’s adjusted based on all of those factors. So, it’s not an actual weight.
Deborah Niemann 21:24
Wow, that’s interesting. And, it’s definitely interesting because of the fact that, like, a first freshener isn’t going to make as much milk as a doe that’s, like, in her prime. Or, a goat that’s, like, 9 or 10 years old is not gonna make as much milk as a doe that’s in her prime. So, that is also interesting information to have. It’s also fascinating. I love it. Is there anything else that you have in terms of data on your goats?
Karen Kopf 21:51
Yes. Out of each kid crop, we retain a group of doelings and buckings. We do like to see 6-month weights, and we like to see yearling weights. Because, a weaning weight tells you a lot about the performance of the dam, but doesn’t tell you necessarily the performance of that kid, particularly when you’re offering breeding stock to other breeders. Once the kid is removed from the dam at weaning, there are kids that go through weaning shock, and you’ll see a steep drop off on their trajectory of weight gain. Some kids recover quickly from weaning shock; some kids do not recover from weaning shock. And, some kids never experience weaning shock. But, apart from the dam, at that point, you see the strength of the foraging skill of that kid, and the kids who feel the need to convert the food that it’s going to be eating for the rest of its life, because it’s not going to be nursing. So, we find that to be very important data to collect to understand the performance of that pairing and not just that dam. And then, yearling for the same reasons. It gives us more time to observe them adjust from a weanling to an adult. And, we look for weights with our doelings. We want to see over 100 pounds as yearlings. Most of ours wind up in the 125-135 range as yearlings as bucks.
Deborah Niemann 23:23
Wow, this is great. So obviously, you sell breeding stock, and it sounds like you are a wonderful breeder to get breeding stock from, because of all the data that you keep. That people would really be able to drill down on exactly what their goals are and figure out what goats to purchase. Do you also sell goats for meat?
Karen Kopf 23:44
We do. We do. Half of the kid crop this year did go to the meat market.
Deborah Niemann 23:50
And, how does that part of the business work? Do you have a regular buyer every year? Or, do you advertise directly to the public? Or, how do you do that?
Karen Kopf 23:59
We do both. We have a large ethnic population in our region that appreciates being able to come to the ranch, and see the herd, and see how they live, and know the source of their meat. We also have a buyer that just takes dozens at a time. And then, we also have tried having meat processed under a USDA label, so that we can sell individual cuts, and that gives people the opportunity to try goat if they’ve never had goat before without having to buy an entire goat to add to their freezer.
Deborah Niemann 24:37
That’s great! So, you pretty much do it all in terms of selling the meat. All the different options. Do you sell to any restaurants?
Karen Kopf 24:45
Not at this time.
Deborah Niemann 24:46
Okay.
Karen Kopf 24:47
We’ve talked about it, but we haven’t gone that direction yet. The restaurant market is challenging, because they prefer certain cuts, and they have to have a high volume of that cut. And, as we know, a goat only produces so much of that cut, and then what happens to the rest of the goat? And, we had a local restaurant that wanted goat legs. And that’s wonderful. They make a fantastic curry, the bone-in, and that’s one of our favorite restaurants, one of our favorite meals. However, we can’t just sell goat legs without having a buyer for the rest of the goat. So, restaurants are a different market, and it’ll take a little bit more finesse on our part to have everything lined up so the whole goat is used.
Deborah Niemann 25:41
Interesting. So, is there any particular type of person or goat owner or whatever that Kiko would be especially good for or not good for? If somebody’s considering Kikos?
Karen Kopf 25:55
That is another reason that we absolutely love the Kikos is the diversity of the breed. And, as we started, you’re correct in saying Kiko is known as a meat goat. In fact, the name “Kiko” is Māori—the native New Zealand language—for the word “meat.”
Deborah Niemann 26:14
Oh.
Karen Kopf 26:14
But, as we talked about the origin of the Kiko breed, remember how they started? They were feral goats that were crossed with high-performing dairy bucks. So, one of the reasons that Kiko excel with this rapid growth as kids is because of the milk quality of their dams—if they’re selected for that. And, it’s interesting that when we DNA test our Kiko, we have the option of testing for Alpha-s1 casein, which is a dairy trait. It is the milk fat content, the protein content of the milk. And, we find that a lot of Kiko have very, very strong A, B, Alpha casein traits. And so, we’ve found a lot of homesteaders in our region are interested in Kiko for the possibility of using both Kiko to produce milk for their family and meat for their family. And then, there’s another group of people that like Kiko for packgoats, because Kiko tends to be very teachable and docile. But again, temperament is very heritable. It depends on their herd that they come from. So, you always want to meet the Kiko herd if you’re looking for a Kiko for packing purposes.
Karen Kopf 27:35
But, another big market for Kiko is the land management companies that are using goats. Because, these goats are ranging over acres and acres of land without shelter, without a lot of management intervention. And Kiko, with their hardiness and parasite resistance and ability to manage stress in a lot of different environments do extremely well for the land management companies. And, that’s another thing, Kiko are thriving. Initially, they thought the Kiko would be perfect for the hot, humid southeast part of the country. And, that’s where you find most of our Kiko breeders, because that’s where the breeding really took off. But, as the years have gone on, we’re watching Kiko spread throughout the country. And, they’re doing beautifully in the hot desert areas of the Southwest, and they’re doing exceptionally well in the cold northern climates as well.
Deborah Niemann 28:32
Wow, that is so cool. I knew they were a fascinating goat. There’s a breeder fairly close to us, a vet, who raises Kikos, who’s been raising them for probably 15 years or longer. And, I know she’s got very strict culling standards and everything, because she’s very much into all the things you’ve talked about. But, it’s just really wonderful to get your perspective on all of this. Is there anything else that people should know about Kikos before taking the plunge and getting some?
Karen Kopf 29:04
Again, because Kiko don’t have a breed standard, you don’t know what you’re buying in a Kiko unless you ask a lot of questions. Again, you could get a doe that’s 90 pounds when she’s mature, or 190 pounds when she’s mature. A buck who’s 175 pounds when he’s mature, or 300 pounds when he’s mature. So, ask lots of questions of your breeder about the lineage of the goats that you’re buying. Kiko do have a registry. There are several registries for Kiko. Our herd is registered primarily with the AKGA, the American Kiko Goat Association, which was the original herd book for Kiko. And, they require DNA testing. It’s required. And as such, all of the other registries recognize the AKGA registration, and I can transfer them into other registries.
Karen Kopf 29:59
It’s been interesting as I watch the forums to see someone post a goat and they say, “What kind of goat is this?” And, it’s not too hard to pick out a Saanen or an Oberhasli or a Toggenburg or a Nigerian Dwarf or Lamanchas are really easy. But, I always laugh when someone says, “It looks like a Kiko.” Because, as a Kiko breeder, I say to myself, “Well, what does that look like?” Because, in our herd, they come in all shapes and sizes, all colors—except for red hoods. I’ve got spotted ones. I’ve even got a brindle Kiko in my herd. So, it looks like a Kiko. They have upright ears. They have pendulous ears. They have airplane ears.
Deborah Niemann 30:44
Wow, that is interesting.
Karen Kopf 30:47
So, if you want to know for sure you have a Kiko, then that’s when the registration might be important to you, and the DNA testing, to know for sure you have a Kiko. And then, the other part is to definitely ask your breeder about their records. Because we don’t do shows like your Boer and your dairy goats, and we don’t have milk tests and those types of things, the only way to know what you’re getting is to ask questions about the data that that breeder keeps. How many times have the dam and sire been dewormed in their lifetime? You know, what is the kidding performance of the dam? What was the weaning weight of her kids last year? And, just get to know the bloodlines that you’re looking at purchasing.
Karen Kopf 31:30
And, more importantly is to look for a breeder whose management style is similar to the management style that you’re going to use. So, if you’re thinking you want a “grassfed” herd—grassfed in quotation marks. That’s hay and forage—then you’re probably better off going to a breeder that has a grassfed herd, simply because their rumens develop differently. And, the epigenetics of the goats that are in utero for a grassfed dam are different than a grain-fed dam. So, recognize also that your breeder may be your mentor. And, if you are going to depart significantly from the way they manage their herd, it will be difficult for them to support you and answer your questions. Does that make sense?
Deborah Niemann 32:22
Oh, totally. Yeah. This was so much amazing advice that you just gave here the last couple of minutes. This is really great advice for somebody getting started with not just Kikos, but really any breed of goats. Thank you so much for all of that. And thank you for joining us today.
Karen Kopf 32:39
Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate it.
Deborah Niemann 32:42
And that’s it for today’s show. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to hit the “subscribe” button so that you don’t miss any episodes. To see show notes, you can always visit ForTheLoveOfGoats.com, and you can follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/LoveGoatsPodcast. See you again next time. Bye for now!
I thought my Kikos had a higher quality milk than my Sanaan! You don’t really hear any talk about the quality of Kiko milk. This is the first time I heard a breeder mention it. I knew there was dairy in the Kiko ancestry, so I assumed that their milk would be decent. I now have a Kiko/Sanaan cross doe that I hope to breed in the Oct., 2023. Looking forward to seeing what her milk quality and production will be.
Thank you for sharing your story! Let us know how it turns out.
In your opinion witch is the better goat for low input meat farming in the southern appalachin mountains, kiko or spanish? Considering paracites oredators and other chalenges they face, both are reputed to be survivors, just wondering if you had insight on whitch is more suitable.
Kikos usually get bigger than Spanish, but it would probably be worth the time to raise a few of each and see which one works best on your farm since every farm is different.