Contrary to U.S. dairy cattle inventories, statistics for the U.S. dairy goat population are a little harder to come by. Milk goats have been included in the five-year U.S. Census of Agriculture for some time, but it wasn’t until 2005 that the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) began reporting the number of milk goats on its annual sheep and goats report.
From the data that is available, it is apparent that the number of milk goats in the U.S. has grown, more than doubling in inventory from 1997 to 2012. States with the highest numbers of milk goats include Wisconsin, California, Iowa, Texas and Pennsylvania. This is on par with dairy cattle numbers as each of these states are also in the Top 12 in the country for number of milk cows.
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