The Gary American

Goat Milk Proven Nutritious for Infants
Dietitians Find It More Digestible than Cow Milk

"Believe it or not, Goats are coming into their own in this country." Cows have been the whole show, but now, according to a personal interview with Prof. C. R. A. Cunningham, head of the A. and T. College Dairy, holding two degrees from the University of Illinois in dairying, scientific laboratory tests by leading authorities have proved that goat's milk is more nutritious than cow's milk and in many instances is used in preference to it in feeding infants and invalids.

Prof. Cunningham says "that goat milk has long been a common article of diet throughout Europe where several breeds of goats have been carefully bred for milk production from very early times. The goat is remarkably immune to tuberculosis also, thus rendering the milk ordinarily safer than cow's milk and it is much more easily digested."

Quoting from the annual report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, at Geneva, New York, in Station Bulletin 413: "During the past few years the Station has maintained a herd of milk goats for the purpose of studying the adaptability of the milk for certain uses. The most striking results so far secured relate to the feeding of goat's milk to infants. The Station has had the opportunity to supply this milk to a fairly large number of very young children who were in serious physical condition, due to their inability to properly digest and assimilate either modified cow's milk or any of the commercial infant's foods that were tried. In nearly all cases of this kind the physical condition of the children has been built up, and satisfactory growth has been brought about by the use of goat's milk."

This Station also furnished goat milk for an extensive series of tests at St. Mary's Infant Asylum and Maternity hospital, Buffalo, N. Y., under the supervision of Doctors Sherman and Jones, Bulletin 429.

"Goat's Milk for Infant Feeding" from this Station summarizes the matter as follows:

... Goat's milk was supplied to eighteen cases of children that were not thriving on any other food that had been tried. In seventeen cases a satisfactory state of nutrition was established through the use of Goat's milk, the beneficial results in some instances being very marked.

With certain of these children, their situation was regarded as serious, and their restoration to a satisfactory nutritional condition was good evidence that goat's milk is often a very desirable resort for infant feeding."

The goat has other advantages over the cow in that it is a smaller animal and hence takes up less space, costs less and can be more easily fed. Thus poor families who are unable to purchase and maintain a cow, may not be denied the advantages of wholesome milk. The goat can be maintained from kitchen waste, lawn clippings, grass growing on vacant lots and along roadways, the only expense being for a little grain while in milk and for hay when no green feed is available.

And so A. and T. college has started a milk goat project with a foundation of three nannies and one buck, all of the Toggenburg breed.

The Toggenburg is one of the leading breeds developed in Switzerland and is named from the Toggenburg Valley in that country, where they have been bred for milk production for a great many years. Of the several established breeds of dairy goats, this breed is the most numerous and most popular in this country. These goats are vigorous and hardy and are adapted to any climate, hot or cold. The color is chocolate brown with a white stripe down each side of the face and gray or white below the knees and hocks.

The Toggenburgs are about the best milkers of all breeds of goats. The production of individuals will vary with size, age, stage of lactation, method of feeding, etc., but they commonly give up to six quarts of milk per day and milk continuously for eight to ten months and sometimes longer.

One animal in California gave 4,348 pounds of milk in 21 months of continuous milking while another made a record of 4,350 pounds in twelve months and 5,008 pounds fifteen months. They are persistent milkers. The butterfat ranges from four to six per cent and is present in globules so infinitely small that cream does not rise as rapidly as in cow's milk and it never rises completely. It is this characteristic that makes it so easy to digest. The milk is perfectly white in color.

The A. and T. college is now producing a small quantity of goat milk daily and extends a welcome invitation to any physician or dietitian for experimental purposes or any individual who, on account of hyper acidity of the stomach, cannot digest cow's milk.