Dairy
West African Dwarf
C tier
West African Dwarf goats are trypanotolerant, short-legged animals of the humid forest and coastal belt. They supply the classic smallholder milk of much of West Africa—modest daily yield, often high solids, used fresh, in porridges, and in local soft cheeses and soaps. Flavour varies with browse: palm and shrub diets can scent the milk. In village systems the milk is central to child nutrition even when volumes look small by European dairy standards. Keep sanitation tight in tropical heat; the milk itself is a daily staple rather than a specialty bottling product.
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Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
History
Forest-zone communities kept dwarf goats for meat and milk under tsetse pressure.
Colonial records noted West African Dwarf milk in coastal and forest households.
Research stations measured dwarf goat lactation for rural development programmes.
Urban migration still left WAD goats as the backyard dairy of many West African homes.