Caprine Farming In Puerto Vallarta

Few will recall that in Puerto Vallarta, livestock activity was once highly prominent, with ranches housing numerous goats. Historically, these animals have been tremendous producers of milk and meat for birria. They were raised on a larger scale, which is what we call livestock farming. However, over time and with the rapid rise of the hotel and tourism industry, Caprine farming lost much of its strength and ended up practically abandoned.

Nevertheless, Jalisco contributes to 4% of the goat milk production in the entire country. However, Puerto Vallarta is limited to a few ranches that still raise goats, albeit at a very low level. This is due to the lack of support from the governments, the economic crisis, and as previously mentioned, the dominance of the tourism sector.

The goat is a small-sized noble animal, with curved horns, highly agile, and adapted for jumping and climbing. Their distribution is very wide, and they can be found practically all over the country, mainly in mountainous areas. In Puerto Vallarta, which has many mountains, you can even find wild climbing goats in the most difficult-to-reach places.

In the metropolitan or urbanized area of Puerto Vallarta, you will find many "Cyprus Goats" that were brought in 2015 by the Federal Government to improve the genetics in favor of Caprine farming. At that time, the SEDER (Secretariat of Rural Development) reported that Cypriot goats have very positive characteristics, such as their great reproductive capacity, as well as very good yields in their milk and meat production. Hence, their importation was highly favorable and faced no sanitary objections.

However, the activity that was being attended to in 2015 was practically abandoned by 2018. Today, it would be worthwhile to invest in this economic sector as it represents significant value for goat milk production and the widely sold goat birria. It would be fabulous if, instead of buying meat from companies that import from other states, people could buy locally produced meat, which is much cheaper and fresher.