Over the years, I’ve done a fair amount of research on raising chickens, so I’m feeling pretty confident about that, but raising goats is something Matt and I decided to just a few weeks ago, so lately I’ve been trying to do as much research as possible.

Since I plan on using the goats for milk, the milk breeds available are: Nubian, La Mancha, Alpine, Oberhasli, Toggenburg, Saanen, Sable, and Nigerian Dwarf goats.

At first, I was planning to adopt a rescue goat, but since my husband is extremely wary about drinking goats milk, and I also want to make sure our goats will be friendly for toddlers, I think a pure bred kid might be better. According to Weed em and Reap, Nigerian Dwarf’s milk has been bred to taste more like cow’s milk, which Matt seems happy with, and I like the idea of having a smaller goat (cuter and less scary for my daughter and eats less).

On the other hand, I was a bit worried that restricting myself to one breed of goat, might make it hard for me to find a kid to buy. So I looked on the America Goat Society for members located in my state. The American Goat Society, only lists goat breeders that use pure bred goats, so I know that any farms listed should be on the up and up.

For NJ, there was only one farm listed, Aisling Farm, but lucky for me, it looks like they’re located nearby. From browsing theire website, they also seem to be the type of farm I was looking for, so I’ll probably contact them in a few months when we’re all set up to see when they expect to have any does for sale.