A study was conducted in Mufindi district to determine the production performance and
contribution of dairy goats to income of small-scale farmers. Purposive sampling was
employed to select eight villages from five wards, and a sample of 80 dairy goat farmers
and another set of 80 non-dairy goat farmers. The farmers were individually interviewed
using a structured questionnaire. Non-dairy goat farmers were included as a control to
ascertain the effect of dairy goat production on household income.Theresults show that
keeping dairy goats is very important as it was found to play multiple roles to the
households’ needs such as providing milk for home consumption (42.5%), household
income (47.5%) and manure(10.0%).The dairy goat breeds kept were Toggenburg and
Saanen. Average milk yield recorded from the two dairy goat breeds was 171.4 ± 8.89
litres per goat per lactation. Toggenburg dairy goats had slightly higher milk yield with a
mean of 171.6 ± 11.9 litresper lactation compared toSaanen dairy goats which had a mean
lactation yield of 171.3 ± 12.6litres. The mortality rate for Toggenburg kids (45.9 ± 4.4%)
was relatively higher compared to that of Saanen kids (39.6% ± 4.8).The results also show
that the mean total income obtained from dairy goat enterprises was TZS 197 897.49 ± 23
699.29 per year and accounted for 26.2% of household income.Apart from keeping dairy
goats farmers got income from other sources such as crop production, other type of
livestock species and doing small business. Diseases, lack of concentrate feeds, few
breeding bucks, higher price of inputs and inadequate extension services were the major
constraints faced by small-scale farmers in the study area. It is recommended that
production performance of dairy goats should be improved through improving
management practices in terms of feeding, breeding and disease control.