A wholesale market for goats in Bulgaria has not existed for about twenty years. There is no redemption and there is not a single slaughterhouse that works with goat meat.
Deyan Todorov, chairman of the Association for Breeding Dairy Goat Breeds in Bulgaria and co-chairman of the National Sheep and Goat Breeding Association (NOKA), commented on this for Agri.BG. In the days before Easter, the demand for goats increases, but their breeding has long been unprofitable.
“Sales are only retail, but the price is slightly lower than that of lamb, which makes it pointless to produce goats for meat at all. The cost of a kid to grow up to 22-23 kilograms is 2 times higher than the cost of a lamb with the same kilograms,” Todorov’s words make clear.
The calculation: A kid consumes about 300 liters of milk to reach 22-25 kilograms. If we assume that this raw material is at a minimum price of BGN 1, the cost becomes BGN 300. At the same time, the price per kilogram of live weight of the kid is between BGN 8 and 10. For an animal of 22-25 kilograms, this makes 220-250 BGN. That is, only from the milk stage of raising the kid, the farmer is behind by a minimum of BGN 50.
“That’s why it makes no sense to raise goats for meat.” “Unfortunately, this year there is a downward trend in the prices of goat’s milk on the Bulgarian market,” commented the expert.
