Backyard Goat Cost & Payback Calculator
For milking goats kept for both milk and meat. Feed, treatment, and grocery prices, all editable.
Defaults are sourced Australian figures as of mid-2026 - not guesses. Change anything below to match your own herd and prices.
Your herd
Offsetting feed cost
Pasture growth varies a lot by Australian climate zone, especially over winter. Set your zone above (or use the Find My Climate Zone tool) for guidance tailored to your own area.
Feed & treatment costs
Grocery comparison prices
Initial setup
Your results
How This Works
Every doe's daily feed cost is calculated from hay/feed pricing and typical daily intake, then reduced by whatever share you set for pasture grazing and kitchen scraps. Unlike the bird tools on this site, pasture isn't capped at a small supplement here - it's a goat's primary diet, so the cap is much higher, while kitchen scraps stay capped small since they're a minor part of a goat's diet either way. Routine worming and lice/mite treatment is added as a small daily amount based on annual product costs, not vet visits, which are too unpredictable to estimate honestly.
On the production side, your herd's yearly milk output is valued directly at your grocery comparison price. Kids born each year are split between those kept or sold as future milkers and those raised for meat, using your own slider, then a survival rate is applied before valuing the meat at your grocery comparison price, with the extra feed needed to raise them subtracted.
If you've entered a setup cost, the payback period divides that figure by your net yearly result. If your herd is running at a loss under the current settings, no payback period is shown - it wouldn't be an honest number to give you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do the default numbers come from?
Sourced Australian figures as of mid-2026: goat milk at $6.00/litre (Coles), goat meat retailing roughly $5.74-14.36/kg, and routine worming and lice/mite treatment costing around $10-20/year per doe. Every number is editable — these are honest starting points, not fixed facts about your herd.
Why is pasture allowed to offset so much more than scraps?
Because it's how goats eat. Unlike a chicken, where kitchen scraps and home-grown fodder are a limited supplement to a balanced feed, pasture and grazing are a goat's primary diet — a healthy goat can get most of its intake from good pasture, with hay or pellets as a top-up for reliable milk production. Kitchen scraps stay capped small here since they're a minor part of a goat's diet.
How does the meat side of the calculation work?
Goats kid once a year, usually with singles or twins, entered as kids per doe per year. A share of those kids are raised for meat rather than kept or sold as future milkers, using your own slider, then a survival rate is applied before valuing the meat at your grocery comparison price, with the extra feed needed to raise them subtracted.
What does the payback period actually tell me?
It divides your entered setup cost (housing, fencing, milking equipment) by your net yearly result once feed, treatments, pasture, and scraps are all accounted for, alongside the value of milk and meat produced. If your herd is running at a loss under your current settings, there's no payback to show — the tool says so honestly rather than showing a misleading number.