Goat – The Product

Consumer Products: What Comes From Goats?

There are three different lines of products from goats – milk, meat and fibre – and each has to make it to market in a different way.

The goat industry is enjoying renewed popularity for their dairy production in Canada. Goat milk is collected by milk brokers and sent to processors to be made into cheese, yogurt, ice cream, fluid milk, butter fat and powdered milk.

The goat milk industry is one of the fastest growing livestock industries in Ontario. The majority of these dairy goat farms are in the south-central and south-western parts of the province. The Ontario Goat Breeders Association estimates that about 3.2 million litres of fluid goat milk are being produced annually in the province. Even with this increase in production, supply cannot fulfill the demand as milk processors continue to expand their markets into other provinces and the United States.

Goat milk has also found its way into the marketplace in cosmetics such as soaps and moisturizers.

Goat meat is called chevon and kid meat is called capretto. Canadians may not be familiar with chevon, but in many parts of the world, it is a predominate source of meat protein. Ethnic communities consume chevon during the Easter and Christmas holidays resulting in a high seasonal demand period.

The market for chevon is mostly local, selling at places like local farmers´ markets, on-farm markets or through special orders. Some of the larger herds sell to buyers who provide chevon to specialty and ethnic markets in large urban centres such as Toronto. At the moment there is not enough chevon produced, nor is there enough of a demand for it to be regularly supplied in chain grocery stores. Most farm-raised meat is sold as live animals to buyers, individuals or sales barns. There is also a large export market for Canadian breeding stock, especially to the Caribbean and parts of Europe.

The two types of goats that produce fibre are called Angora and Cashmere goats. Mohair and cashmere fibres are sheared or combed from the animal, washed and dried, then carded in preparation for spinning. These batches of fibre are called rovings and are often found in long continuous rolls if machine prepared; if hand prepared, the rovings are smaller and resemble handfuls of fluff.

Mohair and cashmere fibre production is the smallest sector of the goat industry.

Angora goats grow mohair: a strong, soft white fleece that is a hair, not wool. Goats raised for their mohair fibre are shorn twice a year, usually in the spring and fall.

Cashmere wool is the fine undercoat on the longhaired Cashmere goat that is collected by combing when the warm spring weather arrives or collected from the bushy areas where the goats browse. The wool is soft and fine but lacks the strength and luster of mohair.

Many producers sell their mohair rovings privately to consumers or mills, or have it processed and returned to them for cottage industry purposes.

Goat hides are often made into leather products and drum skins and there is also a market for raw, unwashed fleece.