Top States for Number of Fiber Goats
More than 85 percent of the fiber goats are produced in the top four states for the number of fiber goats (Table 9). Most of the fiber goats are produced in the Mid-South (Texas), the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico) and the West (California, Oregon), with a little production in the Midwest (Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota). Although the number of fiber goats continued to decline from the 2002 USDA census, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota and Missouri experienced more than an 80-percent increase in the number of fiber goats.
Table 9. U.S. top 10 states for numbers of fiber goats in 2007*
Fiber Goats | % of Total | 2007 % of 2002 | |
U.S. | 210,000 | 100 | 70 |
Texas | 150,000 | 71.4 | 65 |
Arizona | 18,000 | 8.6 | 65 |
New Mexico | 7,500 | 3.6 | 106 |
California | 4,000 | 2.0 | 88 |
Colorado | 2,000 | 1.0 | 199 |
Minnesota | 1,500 | 0.7 | 153 |
Nebraska | 1,500 | 0.7 | 154 |
Missouri | 1,400 | 0.7 | 56 |
Oregon | 1,400 | 0.7 | 65 |
New England | 1,300 | 0.6 | 113 |
- Reflects the 2007 USDA-NASS sample data.