MOST of us who aspire to be smallholders have to support our efforts with some kind of paid employment. Our smallholding may well be productive and support all or some of our family needs, but, with the odd very rare exception, we will have to support our activities with earnings from a different source.

If your smallholding is essentially animal-free then there is no problem at all. Some animals can do very well with only a few minutes spent each mid week and then a more concerted effort at the weekends but what if you want a dairy animal that needs milking at regular intervals? For the purposes of this article I am going to address how one person can keep a dairy goat while working "9 till 5".

So, let us assume then that you are working and running two dairy goats and their followers (youngsters from, perhaps, the last kidding and the year before) of kids and goatlings. A kid being this year's offspring, under the age of 12 months and a goatling being last years offspring, over 12 months but less than 24 months.

The various permutations of this could be endless but this is to offer guidelines on what you might otherwise think is impossible with or without children being an additional factor.

Milking goats need to be kept to a good routine if they are to perform to maximum ability and remain healthy and happy. All animals, just like humans thrive on a good regular routine and actually by getting your animals into a good pattern of care you will find that your own routine and organisational skills sharpen up too. After many years of child (six children over a 32-year span) and animal (too many to begin to count!) care I have discovered that the two psychologies are inextricably linked and now that I am having to think about my extremely aged mother as well, I find the child/animal psychology works a treat in that department too!

One of the most important things is to make sure you are around when the goat expects you to be, so plan your day on paper from Monday to Friday and make sure you stick to it and have a contingency plan if things go wrong.

Assuming that you have to allow an hour to get you and whatever else ready for work/school in the morning, work backwards in chronological terms from the time you must leave your home. Likewise, when working out the times you need to feed/milk at the other end of the day, work forwards from the time you leave work, factoring in journey, collecting children etc.

Ideally, a dairy goat needs to be milked twice a day with 12 hours in between but it is possible to get away with once a day milking if there are kids (goat variety at foot).

If you are going to milk twice a day, you will probably need to allow 30 mins to "do" the goat. That is feed, water, wash udder, milk. Take milk to kitchen, strain and deposit in fridge. In the evening, of course, you can do it at your leisure!

So, if you leave for work at eight o'clock, allow yourself an hour for self organisation and 30 minutes for the goat, you will need to be outside and ready to go at 6.30am. If you have more than one goat to milk, allow another 20 minutes for that one.

Likewise, in the evening you might be able to milk by 6.30pm but don't worry if it is 7.30pm. Just try to keep those times the same every day.

If you have kids at foot (goat) then you will have a much easier scenario. Let the kids stay with the doe for 12 hours of every day. You can decide what you would rather do. If you prefer to milk in the mornings, separate the kids from the mother overnight and put into a pen where they can see each other but not touch. If you have goatlings and the kids are more than six weeks old, they will be happy in the goatling pen overnight. By this time they will be nibbling hay and eating concentrates and browsings and not worry about Mum unduly. I would suggest that they stay with the doe 24 hours a day for the first two to three weeks before you start the separation. If you prefer to milk in the evenings, operate the reverse scenario and keep them separate during the day.

When the kids are on the doe they will very adequately milk her and probably increase the milk supply as a result of their constant demand on her. You will have a very full udder to milk at the end of the twelve hour period and get a good quota of milk. When operating on this regime I always leave a little milk in the udder for the kids after I have taken what I need or else they can get quite rough and aggressive with her.

The above regime is for goats who are kept housed. For goats who live out, I think you would have to operate a regime where the kids were separated during the night by penning them in an enclosed building so that they could be free to run and graze during the day. Personally I think goats are safer housed at night, particularly kids and would always recommend this. My Angora goats have always lived out with shelter but I have never released kids to the outside world until they were at least ten days old as they are quite small and vulnerable. It is slightly different for dairy goats as a general rule as the kids tend to be larger and bolder but are still vulnerable to foxes and dogs.

Most kids will feed from their mothers for as long as the doe permits it. In my experience, this is between four and six months although I have had does which are quite happy to let their goatling daughters feed from them when well over a year old.

Your goat will let you know on this one!

Assuming that you have adhered to some kind of milking routine, whichever of the above works for you, then you should be able to survive on milking once a day for around six months. Ideally then this is the time to start your twice a day milking regime, or if you find the doe's yield beginning to drop, then you can then carry on milking once a day only. Be warned though, from this point forward it is likely to be milk reduction all the way and you will want to consider mating her again fairly soon.

The timing of mating your goat is all important to fit into your milking routine, given the length of days and milk requirement throughout the year. Traditionally the "rut" has been between October and February but in these days of a warmer climate I have found most goats are coming into season and ready to mate from June to April, which obviously gives you a much larger window of time to choose your mating times.

You should bear in mind that gestation is five months, give or take a day or two. Ideally, you want your goat to kid in the early spring when the flies are not yet up and the grass is beginning to grow (a lot will depend on the part of Britain in which you live). I always try to have my house goats non-milking and heavily pregnant through the worst months of the year in order to minimise my winter work and time outside in poor weather. I aim to kid my house goats in March, letting the kids have the milk through that month while still housed 24 hours a day. I then separate at night, milk the goats in the morning and turn out in the day time with shelter on good days with the kids at foot.

The kids will do 50 per cent of the work for you until June at the least and maybe through to August if you want them too but you will have longer days and perhaps want to kick-in the twice a day milking yourself depending on you milk needs. So you will need to have your goat mated in November to achieve this. By the September of the kidding year you will have to be your own master with regard to the milking and if you decide to opt for once a day, you can expect the milk supply to dwindle to nothing by Christmas. Is this a problem? Well no, not really, because there is no reason why, with good care you can't mate the goat every year and so the whole process will begin again by choosing a November mating once more. You will still be able to milk your goat through to January or February if you keep up the regime because she won't need to be dried off until she is eight weeks from kidding. If you have two dairy goats, you could breed them alternate years and let them have a year off if you prefer. Also remember that last years kid is this years goatling and she too could be ready to mate in the autumn of her second year aged 18 months old or even before is she is well grown.

Most good dairy goats will produce six to eight pints of milk a day while in full lactation, which is far more than the average family needs, even if you are making cheese and yoghurt. Shared with the goat kids, you can expect to achieve half these rates.

Goats milk freezes perfectly with virtually no detriment to the milk and so you can freeze a plentiful supply for the weeks you may be without fresh milk. Freeze in plastic bags or used plastic milk containers that have been properly washed and sterilised.

Goats cheese, once matured and then frozen will keep up to five years in a freezer with no detriment (astounding but true - I have some!) and I have kept goat's milk for up to two years and yoghurt for a year.