Thinking about starting a dairy goat herd?

Whether you’e aiming to supply your household with fresh milk or simply bring a bit more personality to your paddock, starting a dairy goat herd takes planning.
Goats are productive animals, but they’re also curious, clever, and full of character—often becoming the unexpected stars of the backyard. This introductory guide covers some key fundamentals: choosing a breed that suits your goals and region, setting up housing and fencing, feeding for health and production, and staying on top of common health issues. It’s a solid starting point
for anyone ready to take the leap into goatkeeping.

 First Things First…
Goats are not easy. They are complex beings with complex needs—but if you meet those needs, they’ll give back tenfold.

Why Dairy Goats?

• Fresh, nutritious milk: Rich in flavour, easier to digest than cow’s milk, and perfect for cheese, yogurt, and soap-making.
• Small-scale friendly: Ideal for homesteads, even with limited space.
• Lower startup costs: Compared to a house cow, goats are more affordable and easier to manage.
• Big personalities: Goats are clever, curious, charming—and endlessly entertaining.

How Do You Start a Dairy Goat Herd?

To start a dairy goat herd, choose beginner-friendly breeds like Saanen or Nubian, build secure housing with proper fencing, provide a balanced diet of hay, grain, and roughage, and follow a regular health care routine including hoof trimming, vaccinations, and parasite management.

The BIG 4: Start-Up Tips for New Goatkeepers

1️. Choosing the Right Goats
Start with breeds that match your needs, production goals, and lifestyle. A few good starting breeds to consider:

• Saanen: Large, gentle goats known for high milk volume and a calm temperament—ideal for cooler climates or shaded areas.
• Anglo Nubian: Chatty, affectionate, and heat-tolerant. They produce rich, creamy milk perfect for yogurt and cheese.
• Toggenburg: Medium-sized, curious, and beginner-friendly, with reliable milk production and good butterfat content.

2️. Housing and Fencing
Goats need secure, comfortable housing:

• Shelter: An all-weather, dry, draft-free space with good ventilation. Simple three-sided sheds often work well.
• Spaciousness: Goats like personal space and room to rest in family groups—essential for physical and social health.
• Security: Secure housing is important during kidding or when containing bucks.
• Bedding: Straw or wood shavings help keep things clean and cozy. Regular cleaning is essential.
• Fencing: Goats can be escape artists. Use stock-tight wire fencing with top wires at a good height, and back-up electric fencing as needed.

3️. Feeding and Nutrition
Healthy goats = happy, productive goats. Nutritional needs vary depending on
sex, pregnancy, and lactation. A basic diet should include:

• Hay: Pasture, oaten, or lucerne hay are all good options.
• Grain: Milking goats benefit from a combination of grain mix, ‘goat muesli’, and pellets for energy and milk production.
• Water: Fresh, clean water at all times is non-negotiable.
• Roughage: Goats are browsers, not grazers. If bushland isn’t available, regularly provide cut branches from fodder trees.

4️. Health and Wellness
Preventative care is key:

• Hoof trimming: Every 6–8 weeks to prevent lameness.
• Vaccinations: CD&T (Clostridium perfringens types C and D, and Tetanus) is standard—consult your vet for local needs and timing.
• Worm management: Internal parasites can significantly affect the health and survival of your flock.
• Observation & quick action: Watch for lethargy, poor appetite, behavioural changes, or abnormal droppings—and act quickly.

Final Thoughts and Invitation

Goats are intelligent, curious, and social creatures that thrive in herds and respond to routine and interaction. They’ll surprise you with their personalities – some openly loving, some mischievous, all endearing.

Goatkeeping isn’t just about production – it’s about showing up, paying attention, and learning to work with nature instead of against it. Your goats will test you, teach you, and sometimes drive you a little nuts. But they’ll also remind you to slow down, stay humble, and care deeply. In return, they’ll give you more than milk. They’ll offer moments of joy, connection, and a whole lot of character. So take a breath, pull on your boots, and picture yourself walking out to the goat shed. One day, the herd will be there, doing their thing – and you’ll be right there with them.

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When Straight-Comb-Bella hatched I whispered, “Be a Bella”, and she was!

Let’s celebrate the elders in our flock! Those chickens that keep on keeping on, you know the ones, they seem to have 9 lives but they’re not cats. Bella is such a chicken, turning 9 this year. Did you know that chickens can live up to 15 years? Perhaps you’ve got an older chicken too? 

When Bella hatched, I gently picked her up from under the soft warm feathers of her mum and whispered to her “Be a Bella, please be a Bella”.

Bella’s mum was also called Bella and she was very special to us in many ways. Sadly we had just lost her from complications she experienced after a fire. But we had been collecting her fertile eggs, which became, understandably, very precious.

Bella no 1. was a Silver-laced Wyandotte, but not your standard black and white feathered bird but a Blue-laced Silver Wyandotte. She was my last of this line and so this my final chance to breed more.

There was a lot of pressure on this chick, first to hatch successfully, then to thrive and then to have Blue-laced feathers. Anyway, she did it! There was a sting in her tail though, Bella was born with a straight-comb, which is considered a ‘major fault’ in the Silver-laced Wyandotte breed standard. And so, we could not breed from her (whilst we don’t show, we do breed to standard). So she got the last laugh.

She would reign supreme in our flock as the only VERY BEAUTIFUL Blue-laced Silver Wyandotte. A status that suits her fine!

Bella was born in 2013 in a spare bedroom in a previous house. I cannot recall why a group of brooding Pekin Bantams were in the third bedroom but I do remember it was fun. And, yes, bedlam. And perhaps a tad messy. Anyway, into creature comforts Bella and her siblings were hatched. Her start in life was good, Pekin Bantams make wonderful chook mothers, doating on their chicks. She was raised in a secure pen with the best food and learnt to scratch and explore her surrounds under the strict guidance of her mum from an early age. In essence she grew up safe and happy with strong family. That security has never left her. 

There are many reasons for Bella’s success and longevity:

• She is a high status chicken
• She is smart
• She is gregarious
• She is brave
• She is cheeky
• She has strong family 
• She is genetically robust
• She is well-cared for and finally,
• She knows ‘what side her bread is buttered on’ so to speak. 

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But in the end you have a hat full of chicks, which we call a swaddle of hope!

Pipping is when a chick breaks through the inner membrane of an egg and then through the outer egg too. You’ve waited 21 days for this to happen, wondered about the effects of the weather, the temperature, the humidity … trust me, hatching chicks can be stressful! And the pipping is only the start of it. Some chicks once pipped will ‘bounce’ out of the shell, whilst others take up to 24 hours. And did you know that the chick has a special ‘egg tooth’ which is a small sharp bump on the top of their beck that they use first to break and then to saw around the shell it to uncap it, so that they can kick their way free? Amazing adaptation. Of course the whole process is exhausting for them, which is why they need time to rest and fluff-up before tackling life. They won’t need water or food for at least 24 hours, so let them rest, don’t disturb them just yet …

Every year we ponder whether we will hatch this spring. But then the orders start coming in from folks so very excited to be beginning a flock or adding to their collection. And any musing we had about ‘having a year off’ fades to nought. Why? Because the excitement when people collect their pullets is contagious. I do remember also getting my own first chooks, so I know how special it is. It isn’t a simple operation though, for us breeding seasons starts weeks, sometimes months, before the first chick pips. First we need to choose what breeds we will go with each year, create separate housing and yards for our breeding groups and then separate them out. Then we wait 3 weeks before we start to collect eggs to hatch, that way ensuring that the lines are pure. After all of that preparation we can begin to hatch.

And so back to pipping! It’s a great moment. You can breathe knowing that the hatch is going to be OK. We will hatch every week for the next couple of months, waiting for the pipping will get to me every time! But in the end you have a hat full of chicks, which we call a swaddle of hope. Hope that they will all be strong, hope that they will all be girls and, most importantly, hope that they will all find caring and respectful homes. This year we are breeding Silver-laced Wyandotte, Barnvelder, Araucana, Australorp and Speckle Sussex. If you’d like to know more then take a look here https://www.schoolhousefarm.com.au/chickens/ for details.

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My word for kidding time is ‘intrepid’, a combination of bravado, audacity and joy!

There’s something about goats. They are charming, endearing, smart, engaging. They are also testing, frustrating and, frankly, at times exasperating. You either get them or you don’t. But if you do then you are blessed for sure.

It’s goat kidding season right now. This year we have 5 does in kid and they will birth across September. Five isn’t a lot on the scale of things but as we have goats for our personal needs only – milk and cheese – then that’s plenty. Each doe will likely have 1 or 2 kids, although it is not uncommon for there to be more. Not that we want that. 2 kids is perfect – goats only have two teats so anymore and life gets complicated. And two means that they will play together, sleep together, do everything together. It’s a joy to watch the bond between siblings and between kids and their dam (mother). Some dairy goat breeders ‘catch’ the kids at birth and bottle feed them but that’s not our way. We love seeing the kids and the mums mixing together, getting to know the rest of the herd, learning how to be goats and socialise. We do bottle feed all of our goat kids though, usually just once a day. This is by way of ensuring they will stay people-focused, which is important because as a domesticated animal they will have a life-long relationship with humans. Besides, who doesn’t like to bottle feed a baby goat, right!?

I’m writing this whilst on goat birth-watch actually. Our two maiden (first year to give birth) does are due to kid in the next few days but I have a feeling they are going to come early.

We choose to be at the birth of all kids, to reassure the does and in case of complication. Our bond with these goats is strong; when you milk an animal by hand a robust relationship forms. They also put a lot of trust in us and so we like to be there with them. But back to our two pending first-time dams, Rose and Tilly … typical of their Toggenburg bred they are cheeky and robust. These girls are 2 years old and it being their first kidding, we don’t really know what to expect. We’re not anticipating any complications, they are both healthy and in good birthing condition but it’s best to be sure. Mothering doesn’t always come naturally either, it depends a lot on their heritage. These does were both dam-raised though so we anticipate that they too will be good mothers. Good luck Tilly and Rose, we’ve got you!

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What we first noticed was the sound, an orchestra of bees, thousands of them, circling. 

Spring is not to be trusted. This is the time of the year when one never knows what the weather may bring. It’s time to celebrate ‘layers’ and be prepared for just about anything. But even for those of us who, by nature and nurture, have learnt to cater for all contingencies this week has been challenging – we’ve had spring sunshine, torrential rain, blustering winds direct from the snow-capped mountain peaks and now we return to sunshine. The kind of sunshine that makes you rejoice and sow seeds. It’s also the kind of sunshine that encourages bees to take their chances and swarm. Which is exactly what ours did … at the beginning of the week. The same aforementioned week of chaos. Last Sunday our bees decided to re-camp. Their timing was good and their luck was in. Their timing fortunate because they picked a divine T-Shirt wearing windless day, which is their want of course. If you’re a queen bee asking the workers to follow then you need to get that right.

It’s not a random act though, before the swarming event the hive have initiated the production of several ‘successor queens’, one of who will be the chosen one in the existing hive. But before the new queen hatches the old queen has to leave. And that is where the timing comes in, there is about a week between the making of the new queen and her entry into the hive. And so, on a spring day last Sunday our queen took her chances and swarmed. What we first noticed was the sound, an orchestra of bees, thousands of them, circling.  The sight was likewise amazing. Not unusually they didn’t go far from the original hive, settling on a piece of garden furniture, right by our front gate!

The luck component relates to the fact that we were home, that we knew what to do and that we had a spare top-bar hive ready to go. And so with much excitement we donned our bees suits and set about manoeuvring them from the wooden bench into the top-bar. Unexpectedly, bees are not angry when they swarm, they have a belly full of honey and are focused on re-homing. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t some moments of “yikes!” to be had but generally we stayed calm, as did the bees and luckily (there’s that word again) they liked the new real estate on offer. So they settled in. Which was very very fortunate because the next day the torrential rains began. Happily they’ve stayed, which means we are a 2 hive family again, just like we were before the black summer bushfires. Timing. 

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But in the end you have a hat full of chicks, which we call a swaddle of hope!

Pipping is when a chick breaks through the inner membrane of an egg and then through the outer egg too. You’ve waited 21 days for this to happen, wondered about the effects of the weather, the temperature, the humidity … trust me, hatching chicks can be stressful! And the pipping is only the start of it. Some chicks once pipped will ‘bounce’ out of the shell, whilst others take up to 24 hours. And did you know that the chick has a special ‘egg tooth’ which is a small sharp bump on the top of their beck that they use first to break and then to saw around the shell it to uncap it, so that they can kick their way free? Amazing adaptation. Of course the whole process is exhausting for them, which is why they need time to rest and fluff-up before tackling life. They won’t need water or food for at least 24 hours, so let them rest, don’t disturb them just yet …

Every year we ponder whether we will hatch this spring. But then the orders start coming in from folks so very excited to be beginning a flock or adding to their collection. And any musing we had about ‘having a year off’ fades to nought. Why? Because the excitement when people collect their pullets is contagious. I do remember also getting my own first chooks, so I know how special it is. It isn’t a simple operation though, for us breeding seasons starts weeks, sometimes months, before the first chick pips. First we need to choose what breeds we will go with each year, create separate housing and yards for our breeding groups and then separate them out. Then we wait 3 weeks before we start to collect eggs to hatch, that way ensuring that the lines are pure. After all of that preparation we can begin to hatch.

And so back to pipping! It’s a great moment. You can breathe knowing that the hatch is going to be OK. We will hatch every week for the next couple of months, waiting for the pipping will get to me every time! But in the end you have a hat full of chicks, which we call a swaddle of hope. Hope that they will all be strong, hope that they will all be girls and, most importantly, hope that they will all find caring and respectful homes. This year we are breeding Silver-laced Wyandotte, Barnvelder, Araucana, Australorp and Speckle Sussex. If you’d like to know more then take a look here https://www.schoolhousefarm.com.au/chickens/ for details.

More Stories