DONATE A
KID GOAT (3 MONTH OLD, WEANED GOAT): $100
A dairy goat will give 2-3 quarts of milk a day, up to 2000 lbs. a
year, a boon to the 80% of the world's rural poor who do not
have a source of milk. With the milk from one goat, a family can
drink the milk and have enough left over to give or sell to neighbors.
They can also make yogurt, butter, & cheese from the milk. The
cheese can be stored for months, giving them nourishment during the time
of the year that the goat needs to stop producing milk in order to build
up for the next delivery of babies.
Garden Harvest places MATURE, LACTATING GOATS (already producing
milk) with the poorest families. These are families that do not
have the money to feed themselves much less buy feed, hay, or medicine
for a goat. And they are families who do not have access to fenced
pasture. So, Garden Harvest sets them up with everything they need
for an entire year: The goat already producing milk plus fencing, hay,
mineral supplement, medicine, and training. Then, when the goat
has to take her two month break from lactating until the families have
attained such sufficient financial self-sustainability by selling some
of their milk and cheese, that they can
afford to care for their goats year-round and even their goats' babies.
Until then, the family can have Garden Harvest take care of the goat
when not lactating, breed the goat, return the goat after she gives
birth and is full of milk again, and even take care of their goat's
babies until full grown. At that time, the family has the option of
receiving the adult, lactating daughter of their goat so that they can
have two milk-producing goats. At that point, they can build a very
profitable business producing, processing, and selling goat milk,
yogurt, cheese, etc.
Garden Harvest places KIDS (3 - 5 month old goats) with families that
are poor, but not as bad off as the ones receiving lactating goats.
These are families that have access to fenced pasture land, but do not
have the money to purchase goats, families that could, with just a very
little help, develop a nice little business raising goats and
producing milk & cheese for sale. They just need to be given the goats
and some training to get started. For these families, 3 month old,
just weaned kids can be the start they need.
Goats are particularly suitable to the harsh conditions
that exist in many rural areas: Unlike cows, Goats that are not lactating can thrive on woody
brush and weeds and in extremes of weather. Even when lactating, they
can be healthy with a diet of weeds, but the taste of the milk becomes
much stronger than when goats have grass.
Goats' role in a sustainable farm: Besides the milk they produce, goats do work that is essential to
farming, work that is very costly to take care of by machine. They
clear brush and all the woody weeds that no other animal will touch,
like Canadian thistle, multiflora rose, poison ivy/oak.
Unlike sheep, they will not eat grass; they prefer vegetation that
is off the ground, which is perfect for clearing land and transforming
scrub land into farm land. Goats get the land ready for the sheep
to come in and finish the weeding by eating the ground vegetation down
to just a couple of inches. And of course, goats fertilize the land,
eventually transforming unproductive land into highly fertile, arable
farm land.
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