Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ambolia | Hacker News Reader

Similarly goats can be grown feeding them almost anything in climates where nothing of value can be farmed otherwise.

I see this argument made about other ruminants and even pigs, but is that the reality? Maybe a pet goat eats the vegetable peels out of the family compost bin, but industrially farmed ones will be eating corn-based feed that was specifically grown for the purpose, on land that could grow anything.

Go look at satellite imagery of the Israel-Egypt border. The Egyptians herd goats in the area, the Israelis do not.

You can clearly see the lighter shade of the Egyptian land, because the goats strip it clean. That is mountainous land that has no value for farming, but the goats can roam it and eat anything that happens to grow.

>but industrially farmed ones will be eating corn-based feed that was specifically grown for the purpose, on land that could grow anything.

Not sure how goat farming works, but AFAIK for cows they spend the first half of their lives on pasture (ie. eating grass) and the rest on feetlots (ie. eating corn).

Yes, the NPR piece [1] mentions that as well, that all cows eat lots of grass, and so-called grass fed beef really means grass-finished beef.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is...

As someone who does not know anything about herding farm animals... are goats easier to shepherd than cows? My first thought is "yea, they are smaller!", but is that true?

Better question...given the nutritional information on goat's milk painting it as more nutrient rich - why aren't we all drinking it?

Goats don’t produce much milk in comparison to a cow

Reply on news.ycombinator.com