American milk goat numbers were unchanged last year as the national goat herd fell 4%.

The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service says the U.S. all goat inventory was 2.86 million head on January 1 while milk goat numbers held at 360,000.

The data shows the breeding goat inventory fell 4% year-on-year to 2.38 million head. Does one year old and older, at 1.78 million head, were down 3% while market goats and kids fell 5% to 487,000 head.

The kid crop fell 2% last year to 1.88 million head.

Meat and all other goats dropped 4% to 2.36 million head, while Angora goats fell 15% to 146,000 head.

Mohair production was 865,000 pounds from 149,000 goats and kids clipped for an average weight per clip of 5.8 pounds. Mohair price was $4.12 a pound with a value of $3.56 million.

NASS obtained the figures through a random sample of producers. Survey procedures ensured that all goat producers, regardless of size, had a chance to be included. Large producers were sampled more heavily than small operations.

About 23,000 operators were contacted during the first half of January by mail, telephone and face-to-face personal interviews to report their inventories as of January 1 and 77% of the reports were usable.