The Journal of Dairy Research Editor’s Choice Article for February is “Rumen function in goats, an example of adaptive capacity” by Giger-Reverdin et al.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) describe the goat as “the poor man’s cow”. The term is meant affectionately, after all, the personable, inquisitive and intelligent goat is an easy animal to like. The term also reflects the lower capital cost and quicker returns from farming dairy goats, allied with their ability to thrive in harsher conditions than cows. Not surprising then, that dairy goats figure prominently in smallholder improvement strategies in developing countries. But this is only part of the story. Although they account for only 2% of global milk production, goat milk products occupy significant commercial niches in developed economies, including many high value cheeses and infant formulae.

The global value of goat dairy products is estimated to rise to €14B in the next few years, a significant sum in the context of a total dairy export market currently worth around €50B (the total value of dairy products is estimated as around ten times that amount). The dairy goat’s ability to tolerate arid conditions and relatively poor diets makes them a good animal for extensive low-input production, but at the same time the commercially more-valuable breeds such as Alpine and Saanen that were developed in Europe, if managed intensively or semi-intensively, can match the dairy cow’s productivity on a body weight basis. Their attractiveness is universal: in surveys, goats regularly appear amongst the five most popular “hobby” farm animals, usually alongside much smaller animals such as hens and rabbits. It seems that we all love goats!

That extends to our own researcher community: in 2019 the Journal published 9 papers primarily concerned with goat dairying, all but one of them relating to the animal rather than the product (catch up please, food scientists!) Historically, much of the pioneering research into lactation endocrinology and mammary cell metabolism was done in goats rather than cows, or else in goats and then in cows. Why? They are easy animals to work with (although don’t leave your precious research notes too close to them, they are inclined to chew!), and of course they are cheaper to keep. Here at INRAE in Paris, our department has used lactating goats as the whole-animal research model of choice for more than 50 years.

Our aim in the “Systemic Modelling applied to Ruminants” (MoSAR) Unit is to understand, characterise and predict the relationships between livestock and their feeding environment in order to develop tools that increase the efficiency of use of food resources whilst optimizing performance, adaptive capacity and wellbeing. We regard goats both as important animals in themselves, with some biological and behavioural characteristics that set them apart (they can be truly capricious, as their official name would suggest), but also in a more general sense as a good model for digestive and metabolic physiology across different ruminant species. In seeking to characterize the variation between individual animals in their ability to cope with environmental perturbations, the goat is certainly an excellent choice of research animal. It is fitting that this should be the very first of the Journal’s new category of short review articles, Research Reflections. In lactation research, the goat continues to lead the way!

The article “Rumen function in goats, an example of adaptive capacity” by Giger-Reverdin et al is available free for a month.

Photo credits: Photos courtesy of INRAE MoSAR