Kinder goats

A small breed for milk and meat

By Kathleen Sanderson

I have had dairy goats for most of the last 20 years or so and have raised almos
t every standard breed. But when my grandmother, my youngest daughter, and I mov
ed to a bare one-acre lot near Klamath Falls, Oregon, I decided it was time to l
ook at the smaller breeds. We wouldn t have room for pasture, so all feed would ha
ve to be purchased. Smaller goats eat less than their full-sized counterparts, a
nd so would cost less to keep. I would be able to keep more of them in a smaller
area. Also, as I get older, the advantages of smaller animals to care for becom
e more and more obvious.
Pygmies were immediately ruled out because our primary need was milk and, while
pygmies can be milked, they are really not dairy goats. I looked into Nigerian D
warfs, but they are still somewhat in the exotic category and seem to be more ex
pensive than the standard breeds. When I read about Kinder goats (pronounced wit
h a short i sound, as in the German word for children), I knew I d found what we wer
e looking for. A new breed, started only about 20 years ago, they are dual-purpo
se, good for both milk and meat, and approximately in the middle between their P
ygmy and Nubian ancestors in size.

Mazola, one of the author s Kinder does. She has been recently milked, but you can
still see that she has decent sized teats for milking.

There are enough breeders already, so that Kinders have their own classes in som
e goat shows making them fairly available almost anywhere. It is also possible t
o start your own line of Kinders by crossing a registered Pygmy buck with a regi
stered purebred Nubian doe.
I chose to find a breeder, as we are limited on the number of animals we can kee
p on such a small place. I looked through the breeders listed at the Kinder Goat
Breeders Association (KGBA) website, and found someone fairy close to home.
Dawn Leaming has been raising Kinders for a number of years, and after several e
-mails, my daughter and I made the six-hour trip down to her place near Nevada C
ity, California, on a hot July day. We came home through a raging thunderstorm w
ith a five-year-old milker, twin doe kids, a little buck, and a wether to keep h
im company.
The kids were still on bottles, and settled in quickly, but Mazola, the milker,
was heartbroken at being separated from her pen-mates, and bawled loudly for hou
rs on end at first. She still thinks I ought to live in the goat pen with her, a
nd cries when I go back up to the house. But the noise doesn t last very long and th
ankfully, our neighbors seemed more amused than bothered by the racket.
However, I learned my lesson. If I purchase an adult doe again, I will also purc
hase one of her pen-mates, if possible.
I was really surprised at how quickly Mazola decided I was her friend. Within da
ys (after some struggles at milking time, as I was not the person who was suppose
d to be milking her) she was nuzzling up to me while I gave the babies their bott
les. These are very friendly, affectionate goats and really not all that noisy o
nce they ve settled in.
High quality milk
So far, I haven t found any serious downside to these little goats. Oh, if I take
up goat-packing, they might not be able to carry as much as the big guys, and th
ey don t give as much milk in sheer quantity as some larger does, but what they do
give is the best quality milk I ve ever had. The butterfat is high, ranging from
around 5½ to over 7 percent. Milk solids are also high, making for excellent chees
e yields. A gallon of milk from one of the larger breeds of goat, or from a cow,
will usually yield around a pound to a pound and a half of cheese, but a gallon
of Kinder milk will yield about twice that.
The flavor of the milk is excellent, and it seems to have good keeping quality.
Of course, it s really important to follow good dairy practice in cleaning your eq
uipment, so you don t end up with milkstone deposits. I only have one milker right
now, and she peaked at two quarts a day and was holding steady months later at
a little over a quart a day, so I haven t had a lot of surplus milk to play with y
et, but I have made kefir cheese and some yogurt.

Thunder, the brown and white buck, and Lightning, the wether who keeps him compa
ny. Goats are herd animals and don t do well if kept alone.

I keep two jars of kefir going all the time and have found that a couple of jars
of kefir, let sit for 24 hours in a clean muslin cloth, makes a nice sour soft
cheese that is excellent with some herbs and garlic powder added to it.
The yogurt made from Kinder milk is also excellent. It isn t quite as thick as sto
re-bought, which has all kinds of thickeners added to it, but it is thicker than
the yogurt I d made in the past from Alpine or Nubian milk.
When I got Nubians for the first time several years ago, I thought their milk wa
s much better than the milk of the other breeds of goats I d raised. But the Kinde
r milk is even better than the Nubian milk was and it has seemed to keep its qua
lity clear through the lactation, even with the stress of moving to a new home a
nd several feed changes.
My little doe gives enough milk for us for kefir and a little cheese, but many K
inder does give three or four quarts of milk a day right through their lactation
. There are a few Kinder does who average over a gallon of milk a day.
Now, I realize that many Alpines, Saanans, Toggs, LaManchas, and Nubians give mu
ch more milk than that. There are standard-breed goats who average over two gall
ons of milk a day, and some record breakers that give a lot more than that. This
is good if you are selling milk, or have some other use for it. You can use goa
t milk as an addition to the feed of many other animals. However, I m a very pract
ical person, and I don t want to be feeding animals who are producing more than we
can use. Goats that give two or three quarts of rich milk each day are very pra
ctical animals for most people.

Breed year-round
One advantage Kinders have is that they will breed year-round. The Northern Euro
pean breeds of goats are all seasonal breeders, but goats from the tropics, such
as the Nubians and Pygmies, will breed at any time of the year. This means that
you can breed one doe to kid in the spring and milk through the summer, fall, a
nd early winter. Then breed the other doe in April or May for a winter supply of
milk. They ll overlap a little bit, but you can make cheese with the surplus. It s
always nice to have a home supply of milk. However, you should plan your breedin
g so you don t have kids being born during really cold weather.
Easy-milking teats
As I started looking for goats to buy, I was concerned about teat size. I knew t
hat Pygmies normally have small teats and are no fun to milk. Some of the Nubian
s I d had were quite easy to milk, but there were a couple of them with tiny teats
. I have a little arthritis and have carpal tunnel in both wrists, so easy milki
ng was important for me to look for.
Thankfully, Dawn Leaming is breeding for easy-milking goats. Mazola is very easy
to milk with her hand-sized teats, and the doe kids, Lark and Linnet, already l
ook like they will have easy-to-grasp teats when they come into milk in a year o
r so. My low milk pail with a half-moon cover fits nicely under Mazola s udder. Fr
om what I ve heard, owners of Pygmies and Nigerians sometimes have trouble getting
a milk pail underneath their little goats.

Good meat animals

The Costco carport goat shelter. Fencing is combi cattle panels, which have smalle
r holes at the bottom.

Kinders are also useful meat animals. I haven t butchered any of mine yet, but peo
ple who do butcher surplus animals are reporting dress out percentages of 60 per
cent or higher. A six-to-eight month old kid weighing 50 pounds should dress out
to 30 pounds. A 14-month-old wether weighing 80 pounds should dress out to abou
t 50 pounds, a dressing percentage of nearly 63 percent.
I plan to save and tan the hides and feed the offal to my dog as part of a natura
l diet for him. So there will be very little waste of any kind.
Having some experience with butchering larger animals such as moose and caribou
from my years living in Alaska, I know that when butchering time does come here,
I ll be thankful these guys aren t huge.
Since Kinder does have a high kidding percentage with whole herds averaging 300 pe
rcent or higher, and individual does often having quads, quints, or even sextupl
ets and the kids have a very high rate of growth (often as high as Boer kids), you
can see that the potential for meat production from Kinders is very high. One 1
15-pound doe can easily produce 150 pounds of meat, or more, in 14 months. And b
y the time you butcher the first batch, she ll have kidded again and be raising an
other batch of kids.
Two or three Kinder does, some poultry, and maybe a few meat rabbits can easily
provide all the dairy products, meat, and eggs most families can use, all on a v
ery small piece of land.

Feed efficiency
Their feed efficiency is good, also. They can milk as well as their Nubian ances
tors, but because they are smaller-bodied, they need less feed. Mazola was getti
ng fat while eating grass hay and about two pounds of grain a day, and giving tw
o quarts of milk a day. I had to cut her grain by half to keep her from getting
too fat. Now I m feeding the does alfalfa pellets, about half a pound of COB (corn
, oats, and barley mixed with molasses) each, and a handful of sunflower seeds e
ach day, and they are all in good flesh, even well into the winter.
They are also getting a loose salt/mineral mix (I m using one meant for cattle, as
goats need more copper than sheep do), and a supplement meant for horses that c
ontains selenium and Vitamin E. Some breeders use Purina Goat Chow, but my goats
 are doing well on COB, and I know what s in the COB.

Hardy and long-lived

Linnet (left) and her twin sister, Lark, trying to see what I m doing, and Mazola,
watching the buck s antics next door. Notice how broad-chested these girls are.

In addition to all their other advantages, Kinders seem to be hardy, healthy, an

d long-lived. Pat Showalter, of Zederkamm Kinders in Snohomish, Washington, had
one of her original Kinder does born in 1986, still going strong in 2001 at age
15. They also don t seem to need their hooves trimmed quite as often as some breed
s, though this important chore still can t be neglected. If they are going to stay
productive for as long as possible, they need sound legs, and letting their hoo
ves get overgrown can damage their legs.

Easier to fence
Another advantage is that it is easier to fence them. The consensus among breede
rs is that, while once in a great while a Kinder will be a fence-jumper (and thi
s usually stops after they kid for the first time), very few will jump out of a
cattle panel fence. I use combi cattle panels turned upside down for my goat pen
s, so the smaller holes are at the bottom. This keeps young kids from escaping,
usually. I cut out a section of wire in each pen, so the goats could reach throu
gh to their water buckets on the outside of the pens, where the water stays clea
ner, and the buckets are less likely to get knocked over.
My two doe kids discovered that when the water got low in the buckets, they coul
d knock them over and then squeeze through the holes. The smaller of the twins c
an still do this, so I have to watch her when I m cleaning and refilling their wat
er bucket. She doesn t go anyplace, and right now there isn t anything she can damag
e while she s out, but pretty soon I ll be planting the garden again, so I hope she
outgrows the hole quickly.
Of all the breeds of goats I ve had over the years, Kinders are proving to be my f
avorite by far, and I plan to never be without at least a few of them around.

Resources
For more information, including milk records and a list of some Kinder goat bree
ders, go to: www.kindergoats.org.
There is also a Yahoogroups list for people who have, or are interested in, Kind
er goats at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KinderGoats/?yguid=109437082. There a
re over one hundred members, and a lot of good advice and information from peopl
e with years of experience. It s also a good place to find breeders who aren t liste
d on the association website.
The following recipes are taken from Goats Produce Too, The Udder Real Thing, Vo
lume 2, by Mary Jane Toth, 2833 N. Lewis Road, Coleman, Michigan 48618.
Plain goat milk yogurt
2 qts. goat milk
1 cup powdered milk (optional, and not really necessary with Kinder goat milk)
2 tsp. plain cultured yogurt
clean canning jars, pint or quart
Warm milk to 115 degrees. Stir in powdered milk if desired. Add 2 tsp. of cultur
ed yogurt. Mix well and pour into clean jars. Place filled jars into a roaster o
r kettle. Fill the roaster or pan with hot tap water up to the neck of the jars.
Cover and set in a warm place to incubate for 6-8 hours. Do not disturb during
incubation. Yogurt will thicken when ready. When making plain yogurt, save some
to use as a culture for your next batch. Keep refrigerated.
French style chevre
5 qts. whole goat milk
1/2 cup cultured buttermilk
2 Tbsp. diluted rennet (dilution = 3 drops liquid rennet into 1/3 cup cool water
. Do not use rennet tablets from the grocery store.)
Warm milk to 80 degrees. Stir in buttermilk. Mix well. Add 2 Tbsp. of diluted re
nnet mixture. Stir well and cover. Let set at room temperature for 8-12 hours. C
heese is ready to drain when it looks like thickened yogurt. Curds may have a th
in layer of whey floating on top.
Only use muslin cheesecloth (not the gauzy stuff called cheesecloth) or pillowca
se cloth to drain. Line a large bowl or pan with cloth. Pour curds into center o
f cloth. Gather up corners of cloth and hang to drain 6-8 hours.
When dripping has stopped, cheese is ready. It should be the consistency of crea
m cheese. To speed up draining, scrape the sides of the bag towards the center s
everal times during the draining process.
This cheese is soft and mild. It can be seasoned with a variety of herbs or spic
es. Or, use it as a substitute for cream cheese in other recipes. The cheese kee
ps well, refrigerated, for two weeks.
Freeze unseasoned, in one pound packages. Keeps well frozen for 6 months. Do not
freeze seasoned cheeses. Herbs and spices will lose their potency and flavor. T
haw at room temperature. Season after thawing. (One pound = two cups)
Wrap well before freezing, or use heavy freezer bags.