Customer Reviews

Raising Milk Goats Successfully

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I ordered 3 different books about raising goats and this one was the best.. It covers everything. Nothing left out. It is easy to read and well organized. The other books were poorly written and did not cover all subjects. This is the only book you need.

Gail Luttmann. experienced writer as well as expert in the field of milk goats, has written "the" book on this popular subject.

Selecting milk goats

Economic considerations

Feeding: pasture, forage, grains

Housing & equipment

Milk & cheese

Breeding & reproduction

Caring for kids: newborn to weaning

Health care: diagnosis by symptoms

The dairy goat business

All of the information is up=to=date, much of it hard to find. Luttmann particularly excels in her chapters on feeding, on the dairy goat business where she discusses marketing milf products as well as market development, and in her outstanding chapter on health care including a diagnostic discussion of symptoms rather than diseases. Extremely helpful.

Gail Luttmann lives on a small farm in Tennessee. She is a frequent contributor to farm and garden magazines. She is the author of two other small-scale livestock raising books.

We have been around goats for decades, but have only recently in the past year gone the next step and begun to own Nubian goats for milk, cheese and brush removal purposes. And this is a great book if you are just getting started because it covered everything one needs to know before and after getting a goat or goats.

From housing, dairy goat rations, nutritional needs, goat management, choosing dams and sires (females and males), breeding and kidding (birthing), kid care, goat milk, udder care, health care, trouble shooting, and the overall benefits of keeping goats. And a section for those who want to have goats as a business i.e. milk, cheese, meat. And there is a good section on where to buy goats and supplies.

We live in the Sierras where we are encouraged to own goats for fire protection, since they are great at keeping brush clearer in high fire areas. And they are such wonderful animals to own and easily become members of the family.

I am new to raising goats, and found this reference book to be extremely useful. My Alpines are in a herd with the woman who boards my horses, so I am not completely on my own, but having this book allowed me to expand my knowledge without having to email my friend every two minutes with another question!

Luttermann's book covers pretty much everything a goat keeper needs to know about dairy goats, although having been published in 1986 it might be a little out of date with regards to supplementation of various minerals such as copper. However one can find that info in other places, and its lack does not negate the value of this book.

Bottom line, if you're getting into goats, you should buy this book!

After reading through the book, I feel motivated to buy some goats. I bought a ranch and was interested in goats, but have never dealt with them. I already have dairy cows and am planning to do cheese processing. This book was extremely helpful at giving knowledge in all areas from the different type of goats to expenses in raising goats. It mixes hard facts and data, like nuitritional contents of certain feed and the needs of a milking goat, to the more human side, like talking with your goats and how to reduce their stress. I think this book is well written in simple language by someone who understands what a novice needs to know to even try goat milking as a farm activity. This is a definite must book for neophytes like me.

I have owned this book for years and really like it a lot it was great when I was new to goats and knewn almost nothing. Now 18 years later it is still a great book with lots of info on lots of subjects. Wish she would write a new one that covered some of the new problems we face now.

For the first time goat owner, there is some good basic information, but some information needs to be updated (you will notice that the last update to this book was quite a while ago). Two important pieces of information come to mind as a present day dairy goat owner. First, the importance of testing for CAE as well as looking for potential CL abcesses (a very contagious disease) is not mentioned and CAE is only touched on and CL not even mentioned. The second important bit of information is the importance of copper in a goat's diet as well as providing proper minerals with copper and even copper bolousing as ways to greatly improve a goat's health. In addition, bucks and wethers need to have their diets supplemented with Ammonium Chloride to avoid urinary calculi (stones) which could potentially kill a male goat. For a first time goat owner, the ABC's are touched upon, but there needs to be more up to date information added for sure.

I read most of this book because i am debating weather or not to get live stock for my small acerage. Goats seem to be a good starting point. This book was very informative. I never knew you could milk a goat let alone make cheese and other stuff with the milk. Good source of info for the novice like myself.

I got this book for my dad for the holidays and he had finished reading it three days later. A solid introduction to goat farming, it covers all the major bases and we will continue to refer to it in the year to come as we begin a hobby farm!

I needed a book to cover every basic dairy goat husbandry topic. I got just that when I purchased this book. I consider this to be one of the best references on dairy goats in our library.