My name is Robyn and I live in South East Queensland in Australia. I have operated a goat dairy since 1993 with my husband, Tony, and currently milk 140 goats although there are many young goatlings right now and the total herd size is around 280.

I originally bought a herd of 32 milkers and 20 goatlings and sold all my milk to Suncoast. I still sell the milk to the same place although it has undergone many name and staff changes since then. QUF, Pauls and now Parmalat are the names I can remember offhand.

I love goats but find the workload is just too much at times. For the effort put in, I believe we are extremely underpaid for the milk and our annual income is not good.

I have managed to erradicate CAE/Caprine Retrovirus from my herd which took a monumental effort and if I'd known prior to when I started, exactly what would be involved in terms of hours of labour, I may not have done it at all. The herd was almost 100% infected when I purchased it. I started the erradication in 1995 and in 2000 had my first all clear test.

I had herd recorded volumes of every goat every month up until late 2002 when we simply could no longer manage to do it. From these figures I have only kept doe kids who's dams achieve greater than 750 (and later, 900) litres in 300 days. I had ignored all other important traits in an effort to get production up to an economically viable level of 4 litres a day herd average. This I achieved but it has fallen dramatically since autumn 2003 due to drought and a poorer diet and my goats are now only achieving a bit better than 3 litres per day.

I haven't always been a farmer. I was born and lived in Sydney until I was 14. I was also a registered nurse for 18 years in Maryborough, Queensland and then Cherbourg Aboriginal Community near to where I live now. My nursing knowledge has helped me a great deal with the goats both with their health and with the hygiene aspect. I heard once that nurses are the only people who wash their hands BEFORE going to the toilet - maybe goat farming could fit into that category as well.

OK, enough about me. I hope you enjoy the site and even more, I hope you provide some input. I do not claim to know all there is to know about goats and I'm sure everyone else who visits here will want the opinions of others apart from myself.