Moussa brought his 18 month old daughter Marie with him to talk to Stock and Land’s first U3A session in a year, on March 2.
Their farm is between the Hume freeway and the Melbourne to Sydney railway line “which was why it was affordable,” Moussa said.
Attractions from a goat farming point of view, is a 50m wide regent honeyeater plantation which encircles the farm and plantations of olives which provide snacks for the goats.
He said, “It also has a 1.8m high chicken wire fence around the boundary which is pretty handy for keeping foxes out” – “and goats in” was an audience comment.
Main improvements for the goats have involved fencing twelve 1.5 acre paddocks to cell graze and control worms, converting a shed into a dairy and making a cheesery.
Moussa and Vicky and their two children run eight Saanen milking goats which they milk by machine twice a day for a current yield of about four litres per goat per day.
Moussa said they should be getting up to six litres a day but had not achieved that yet.
“We thought they would be totally productive just eating grass but they do need absolutely top quality hay to do well”.
On the marketing front, the Taouks have concentrated on the Benalla monthly market as well as the Violet Town, Yarrawonga and Wodonga markets.
Typically they sell their cheese for up to about $8 a kg, which as Moussa said, “compares well with dairy cow cheese at about $7 a kg”.
He said their ultimate aim was to milk about 20 goats producing four or five litres each per day. “If we were selling all that cheese – with eight goats we haven’t had to throw any cheese out yet - we would have an income of about $100,000 a year.
David Palmer