# The Saanen goats at Fairview Dairy Goat Farm in Paarl



## RhinoWhite (Nov 17, 2013)

Just to give you an overview on milking, keeping, feeding, rams, does and Saanen kids at Fairview, which is in Paarl, Western Cape South Africa.








































































































































Got more pics of course. And videos. Of the goats, but also some presentations from the dairy goat conference there. Oh yes, from the cheese factory, too.


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## KW Farms (Jun 21, 2008)

Wow, neat photos!

I have to ask. Some of the does have huge udders, but are practically dragging on the ground from poor udder attachments and udder conformation overall. When they breed, do they try to improve the attachments and overall udder conformation or are they only concerned with production and udder capacity?


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## Goat_in_Himmel (Jun 24, 2013)

^ That's what I'd like to know, too. It almost looks like the kids don't know where to find the teats--they are looking up, whereas the teats are nearly on the floor. Even a small kid would have to kneel down with its chin on the ground, to drink!


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## milk and honey (Oct 31, 2010)

Holy milk buckets!!!! Those look downright painful! Very cool pictures, thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Goat Forum


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## CritterCarnival (Sep 18, 2013)

Very interesting, I always look forward to the pictures you post. :thumb:


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## RhinoWhite (Nov 17, 2013)

KW Farms said:


> Wow, neat photos!
> 
> I have to ask. Some of the does have huge udders, but are practically dragging on the ground from poor udder attachments and udder conformation overall. When they breed, do they try to improve the attachments and overall udder conformation or are they only concerned with production and udder capacity?


The ones with the monster udders were the highly pregnant ones, they weren't milked. The ones milked frequently had not so big udders, but I've seen some udders that were too loose for my taste. Not sure if they're weeding them out. But I recall something that if a doe gives 8ltr's a day, he doesn't worry how beautiful she is.


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

Wow, so are the ones with the huge udders the ones that girl the 8ltr's a day? Or do they milk more? Because most of mine milk that much and more, and their udders are no where near that size!  
Looks like 5-6 gallon a day milkers, some of them!


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## Goat_in_Himmel (Jun 24, 2013)

It just looks like the poor does would risk stepping on their own udders just by walking, and dragging their teats in the dirt and dung, and snagging anything sharp. :-(


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## RhinoWhite (Nov 17, 2013)

Little-Bits-N-Pieces said:


> Wow, so are the ones with the huge udders the ones that girl the 8ltr's a day? Or do they milk more? Because most of mine milk that much and more, and their udders are no where near that size!
> Looks like 5-6 gallon a day milkers, some of them!


8ltrs is about 2 gallons. Most milk goats do milk 3 ltrs average on lactation unless they get special fodder. The Toggenburgs I showed last time had a take off of 2 ltrs average, all off them were gave milk to twins, since they didn't wean them. So my guesstimate is that they could get 4ltrs from them, if they'd been weaned and this is without any special fodder. At fairview it seems they get 5ltrs per day, but they wean kids asap.

He had them producing more then that with special feeding, but that turned out too expensive per liter milk. Not sure about the exact details of what they did, but Fairview is in mainly winelands (see the outside photos) and I think procuring extra food there may be expensive. I understood him not culling ugly udder goats, when they still produce high milk.


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## janeen128 (Dec 31, 2012)

Wow!! Thanks for the pics!


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

very neat pix....


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## dreamacresfarm2 (May 10, 2014)

Very interesting pics and I like to learn about practices elsewhere. Thank you for sharing.


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

Really? That's all, 5ltr/qt? I thought they'd be milking way way more. All but one of my milkers produce from 2 gallons a day to just shy of 3 gallons a day, each, and their udders are small compared to some of those does! :shocked:


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## ThreeHavens (Oct 20, 2011)

Very interesting. I like seeing how different cultures do things. :thumb:


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## Goats Rock (Jun 20, 2011)

I love that little sundgau kid! Thanks for posting those pictures! Really interesting!


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## RhinoWhite (Nov 17, 2013)

Little-Bits-N-Pieces said:


> Really? That's all, 5ltr/qt? I thought they'd be milking way way more. All but one of my milkers produce from 2 gallons a day to just shy of 3 gallons a day, each, and their udders are small compared to some of those does! :shocked:


2 to 3 gallons would be 9 to 13.5 ltrs That's quite a lot, what are you feeding them?

As for the udders you need to distinguish between the late pregnancy unmilked goats. And the goats actually milked on the pictures. The goats milked have normally sized dairy goat udders usually firmly attached. Although some definitely don't having bouncing others. I would discriminate against those in a breeding program, but the farm manager there said:"As long as they produce milk".


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## RhinoWhite (Nov 17, 2013)

Here is a video I took inside the cheese factory at Fairview:








https://archive.org/details/FairviewCheeseFactory


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## Trickyroo (Sep 26, 2012)

Thanks for the pictures  It is very interesting 
I was looking at the scenery in the background of the first picture , so pretty !


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