Importance of Goat Rearing

1.   Goat is known as ‘Poor man’s cow’ in India and is a very important component in dry land farming system.

2.   Marginal or undulating lands unsuitable for other types of animals like cow or buffalo, goat is the best alternative.

3.   With very low investments goat rearing can be made in to a profitable venture for small and marginal farmers.



4.   Goats are prolific breeders and achieve sexual maturity at the age of 7-12 months’ gestation period in goats is short and at the age of 16-17 months it starts giving milk. Twinning is very common and triplets and quadruplets are rare.

5.   In drought prone areas risk of goat farming is very much less as compared to other livestock species.

6.   Both male and female goats have almost equal value/price in the market.

7.   Goats are ideal for mixed species grazing. The animal can thrive well on wide variety of thorny bushes, weeds, crop residues, and agricultural by-products unsuitable for human consumption.

8.   The goat meat is more lean (low cholesterol) and relatively good for people who prefer low energy diet especially in summer and sometimes goat meat (chevon) is preferred over mutton because of its "chewability".

9.   Goat milk is easy to digest than cow milk because of small fat globules and is naturally homogenized. Goat milk is said to play a role in improving appetite and digestive efficiency. Goat milk is non allergic as compared to cow milk and it has anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties and can be used for treating urogenital diseases of fungal origin.

10.   Goats are 2.5 times more economical than sheep on free range grazing under semi-arid conditions.