The introduction of exotic dairy goats into the country 16 years ago was met with excitement by many farmers. The goats could give as much as 6 litres of milk a day. At last farmers who had small parcels of land had an option of keeping dairy goats which required less feed and just a small housing area. Goats then became an occupation of choice for many small-scale farmers.

But dairy goat keeping is turning out to be a scandal of some sorts! First, there is a lack of bucks (male goats), leading to inbreeding and deterioration of the quality of dairy goats. Second, the goats have become a very quick source of income. Unscrupulous farmers and traders have taken advantage of the high demand. The farmers falsify records to show the goats are high quality breeds, which they then sell at between Ksh12,000 and Ksh15,000 depending on age.

Farmers who buy such goats soon discover that some have stunted growth and yield as little as 1 litre of milk due to inbreeding. Things are getting even worse. Attempts to introduce artificial insemination AI services for dairy goats, which can help reduce inbreeding, have been frustrated by the government which has set very stringent conditions for AI providers. Only trained veterinary officers are allowed to offer the service. However, they are very few vets trained to offer goat AI services.

Inbreeding reduces quality of dairy goats

Lack of breeding stock and cheating by farmers is destroying the dairy goat industry

Ruth Wambui, a member of Arahuka Self-Help Group in Wanyororo, Nakuru, was a happy farmer when she bought her first dairy goat; it was high quality goat that gave upto four litres of milk a day. For the last ten years she has relied on dairy goats as her main source of income. One of the benefits of dairy goat keeping is that apart from providing high quality milk, they do not consume much feed and require little land area to keep. Besides she can sell a goat at short notice and solve her financial problems due to the high demand for the goats.

Although she is well-versed with goat breeding, there is a serious problem she is going through; she cannot be able to get good quality bucks to serve her goats. For the last three years, she has had to rely on bucks (male goats) of unknown pedigree.

Farmers getting less milk

Wambui is not in this alone. Jennifer Nyambura bought three dairy goats some years ago. Although she was assured that the goats could produce as much as four litres of milk per day, she can only get 1 litre or less from each of the goats despite providing them with adequate feed and care.

Hundreds of dairy goat keepers in the country are faced with a big dairy goat breeding problem. As more farmers acquire the goats, they soon discover that the goats are not as high yielding as they were promised. Many have been forced to use related bucks for lack of breeding stock. Inbreeding is the order of the day, and this has considerably reduced the quality of dairy goats in most parts of the country.

Recording service manipulated

The quality of dairy goats in the country was standardized when the dairy goat project started, through proper record keeping and choice bucks for breeding purposes. One of the organizations involved in training farmers is the Dairy Goats Association of Kenya which is based at Nyeri. To ensure that farmers used proper breeding practices, each of the goats was registered with the Kenya Stud Book (KSB). This ensured that the history of the dairy goats was well known. Farmers could rely on the records to get good quality goats whenever they wanted to buy them, but this is no more.

Difficult to get a pedigree goat

The Dairy Goat Association Kenya (DGAK) is overwhelmed by the big demand for goats. It has lost the control. Most of the farmers who want to sell goats simply visit the Kenya Stud Book offices in Nakuru and buy the record cards; they then fill details about the goat as required and declare their goats as pedigree. The practice is so rampant that at the moment, it is almost impossible to tell a good pedigree goat from a poor quality one because the records are manipulated.

There is another problem. After every 16 months, the association is supposed to visit all farmers’ groups with dairy goats and rotate the bucks to avoid inbreeding. However, they have not managed to do so in all the areas. The result is increased inbreeding among all dairy goat farmers.

A ban on imports

According to the Nakuru Catholic Diocese Extension officer Laurian Nambubi, the problem of inbreeding cannot be blamed on the DGAK alone. He says the problem goes back to 1994 when the country

imported 11 goats for breeding purposes into the country. Some years later, European countries which were the main source of breeding stock, were hit by the Mad Cow Disease. As a result, the Kenyan government imposed an import ban on all life animals, which has not been lifted to date.

“Up to now the country is still relying on these 11 bloodlines to breed goats in the whole country. This is a crisis because the possibility of inbreeding cannot be avoided”, Nambubi says. He adds that organizations such as the Dairy Goats Association of Kenya simply “do not have the capacity for quality control and to cope with the orders from farmers across the country, who need dairy goats”.

AI services introduced

Use of related male goats (bucks) for breeding is responsible for low quality dairy goats.

One solution the Dairy Goats Association has tried to overcome the problem is to start an artificial insemination service for dairy goats. Already, 20 farmers in central province have been trained to serve the seven regions of Nyeri, Kiambu, Muranga, Kirinyaga, Nakuru, Embu and Western province. However technical problems emerged immediately the dairy goat AI services were introduced. The government insisted that it was only trained veterinary officers who could offer the services to farmers. The Director of Veterinary Services certified four technicians to undertake the service. The 20 farmers including other technical personnel who had been trained to offer this service were therefore rendered redundant.

But even with the restrictions, the DGAK was unable to equip the few technicians who were licensed to operate the service. They lack equipment such as nitrogen tanks, including the logistics of acquiring semen from the Central Artificial Insemination Service in Kabete, Nairobi. – The deterioration of the dairy goat quality will worsen unless urgent measures are taken to save the sub-sector.