Breeding goats for organic production in Germany

Abstract

With only 120,000 females (year 2000), goat keeping is a niche activity in animal husbandry in Germany. Most of the goats (about 90%) are kept on part-time farms. The main reasons they are kept are as a hobby, for milk production and for landscape management; in many cases it is a non-profit oriented activity. There are estimates (no official statistics exist) that 20,000 goats are milked and 10,000 are used in landscape management to avoid shrub succession on protected biotopes. In the year 2000 10% of the goats (12,000) were kept on organic farms but not all for economic reasons. Because the dairy breeds in Germany (White and Brown German Alpine) are selected under intensive keeping conditions, breeding under the restrictions of organic farming is necessary to get adopted and high yielding flocks. This is even more true in the case of harsh environmental conditions in landscape management. The German breeds are not suitable for the needs while grazing on marginal biotopes. This paper will show some results of: · a ten-year breeding programme for more milk ingredients, fat and protein, in a flock of 30 mother goats on an organic farm and · the breeding programme of the “Witzenhäuser Landschaftspflegeziege WLZ” for the new purposes of landscape management