How farmers are milking cash from small goat projects

After a stressful experience with dairy cows, in 1998, Mary Wacuka started dairy goat keeping at her farm in Thangathi, Mukurweini Constituency.

“I attended a farmers' field day and was impressed by what I saw. I noticed that dairy goats are low maintenance unlike dairy cows and they fetch good returns within a short time. After doing my math, it was clear this was something I could do on my small farm,” Ms Wacuka says.

She bought four does and luckily two of them, were pregnant. Each of them gave birth to twins.

Impressed by how fast they were multiplying, Wacuka reached out to Dairy Goat Association of Kenya (DGAK) in 2000 for training on how to commercialise her small venture.

At the training, she was taught how to breed and care for her animals on zero grazing units.

Learning experience

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“I learnt about various breeds but I settled on French Alpine and Toggenburg animals because of their potential.” 

From four, Wacuka now has a tribe of 20 goats which she feeds on nappier grass, maize germ and local weeds.

“For more milk yields, I also give them water and salt to supplement their diets. I also occasionally deworm the animals to maintain their health,” Wacuka says.

She milks six dairy goats, with each producing two litres of milk per day.

She sells a litre of goat milk to neighbours at Sh60 earning her Sh720 per day, which is almost double what she makes from selling the same amount of cow milk.

“I believe my six goats earn me more than my one cow, and the cost of production is low compared to that of a cow. With my small farm, the goats are economical to keep,” she points out.

The dairy goats also provide her with an alternative source of income.

“I earn Sh20,000 from the sale of goats and during the festive seasons when goats are on demand, I can pocket Sh100,000 in goat sales,” she says.

Goat manure

She also makes extra money from selling goat manure, which she says enriches her coffee farm.

Like her, Ernest Kihangi, a dairy goat breeder in Muruguru village in Nyeri County, is also making a decent living on a modest piece of land and with minimal resources.

“Dairy goats are stress free unlike cows. Their feeds are affordable and their milk fetches more money. I keep French and German Alpine goats because of their admirable qualities,” says Kihangi, a retired caterer at a public university.

For Kihangi, sale of his goats is his main source of income with the bucks fetching more money for him.

“I also make extra cash from pedigree breeding as the seed from my goats is sought after across the country. My goats have won several awards at various field days because of high pedigree,” Kihangi says.

To monitor his profits, he keeps comprehensive records on all the animals. 

Both farmers are members of DGAK, an organisation that was formed in 1994, to cater for the needs of the dairy goat farmers in Central Kenya and beyond.

The organisation is on a mission to ensure more farmers take up dairy goat farming as a sustainable source of income.

DGAK Technical Mwangi Warui says the organisation had over 500 groups of farmers across the country actively engaged in dairy goat farming.

“Dairy goat farming is a great option for households facing the challenge of shrinking land sizes due to increased urbanisation and population. They are also low maintenance therefore any farmer with limited resources can take it up. It is easier to maintain compared to a dairy cow,” Warui says.

However, one of the challenges dairy goat farmers face is lack of quality breeds due to inbreeding which slows down the production of pedigree goats.

In addition, though goat milk has good market demand, efforts to add value to the milk through processing have failed.

Raka Milk Processors based in Nyeri County that used to process goat milk into cheese scaled down operations because of low demand.

Other challenges

Currently, the processor only buy 20 litres of goat milk a day and the cheese is still not marketable.

Other challenges are the unrestricted importation of goat cheese into the country which is cheaper than locally processed cheese.

“We sell our goat cheese for Sh1,800 per kilo due to the high cost of production while imported cheese costs Sh1,200. That is unfair competition,” Karimi says.