Keeping a strong and healthy sustainable goat
Dairy goat farm Papen – Olbach is located in the East of the Netherlands, in the town “Vragender”. The partnership consists of Mattijn Papen and Anita Papen-Olbach. The company started up in 2008 with 450 dairy goats and lambs purchased in 2007. Around 1000 dairy goats are now being milked with the aim of not expanding any further but optimizing the farm even further so that they do not have to employ staff. The dairy goats are allowed outside in the period from May to October, as long as the weather is good. This gives the dairy goats, the people from the village and Mattijn and Anita a lot of pleasure.
Mattijn and Anita about their farm:
In recent years, significant investments have been made in automation by means of a feeding robot, automatic milk measurement and an individual concentrate feeding system. This means that a lot of data is available. Since 2014, only AI has been applied, so that there is a closed business operations and the biosequarity is at the highest possible level. It is becoming difficult to avoid inbreeding in the Dutch Saanen population, which is why “Goat Improvement Company” with there global network is a wonderful new challenge for us. The goal is to have our best goats participate in the breeding program of Goat Improvement Company and speed- up genetic progress.Mattijn and Anita about their breeding strategy:
“Because we want to continue the business without employees, it is a challenge to breed a healthy goat that produces as much milk as possible with as few lactations as possible with few problems.”