Goat’s milk problem: here’s what you can do about it
Goat’s cheese, feta, goat’s milk: demand for goat dairy is growing. That means more baby goats are being born, and that’s a problem…
A goat only gives milk after she has had a kid, understandably. The same applies to cows and sheep. Around 130,000 goats are born in the Netherlands every year. The problem: half of those kids are male. Goat farmers have no use for them, because they don’t produce milk. The male kids are sent to the slaughterhouse and then end up in, for example, dog food or cans of cat food. Apparently, people don’t like eating male goat kids.
Hand in hand
It can be done differently, as Keuringsdienst van Waarde shows. Farmer Egbert ter Veen keeps the kids with their mothers for a few months. After that, the male kids live in the meadow for a few more months before they are sent to the slaughterhouse. And Egbert believes we should simply eat the meat from male goats. Egbert: ‘Dairy always goes hand in hand with meat. By not eating the meat, the animal is worth nothing. If you eat the meat from the kids, you give value to the buck and thereby improve its quality of life.’
Go ahead, eat goat
If you eat goat’s cheese, you should therefore also eat male goat every now and then. Because when the meat is sold as animal feed, goat farmers receive next to nothing for it. A real shame, because the meat is tasty and healthy, say the initiators of the website Vooruit met de geitenbok. The website lists places where you can buy male goat meat, as well as recipes for preparing it. Male goat on the menu soon?
Image: Keuringsdienst van Waarde, KRO-NCRV
Also read:
- 3 things you didn’t know about goat’s milk
- Recipe: quick tagliatelle with green asparagus and goat’s cheese
- These cats are actually in charge at the supermarket
Source: 24Kitchen, Keuringsdienst van Waarde
