Goats In The Philippines:

[mikey]

goats are becoming ever so popular in the Philippines.Here in our area of region 7,more people are now getting into the goat business after watching the progress made into goat raising in the last few years.Goat raising started in the 1970s and the demand has been growing ever since.The Philippine native or common goat as it is known as,is a tough but small goat weighing approx. 25 kg. when mature.Average daily milk production is only enough to feed the kid(s) approx. 350 grams with a 4.6% butterfat content.There are 2 types the fine and coarse hair breeds and they range in colours from red,black,white and painted.,widespread throughout Asia.The Dadiangas breed of goat is common in the city of General Santos,South Cotabato.Some say this is a mixture of native,anglo and jamnapari goats.Some may even have some alpine or saanen blood in them.Their milk production and butterfat content is higher than the natives and seem to adapt better to dryer areas of the Philippines.Of the other breeds the anglo nubian performs the best along with the newer introduced boer goats.Dairy breeds such as the saanen,toggenburg and alpine perform relatively poorly.One of the main problems as I see for the goat business in the Philippines is that most of the imported foundation stock was bought from only a few farms in Australia and America,this down the road can lead to inbreeding,due to the fact of the limited breeding numbers imported.Some independant producers with overseas financial backers can only sit on the sidelines because there is no infrastructure for the importing of top semen from those countries known to produce top quality stock and the breeding sires have long died,making AI a good second choice and helping to diversify breed genetics.This is my personal opinion only as a goat producer.
By: mikey Proud Independant Producer#Region -7