Abstract

The nutritional intake of the rural households, which is largely characterised by carbohydrates at the expense of protein intake, has the potentials of being improved through the consumption of sheep and goats’ milk. With the widespread of small ruminant keeping by rural households in most developing countries, the study embarked on investigation of possible acceptability of sheep and goats’ milk for consumption by farm families in selected rural communities of Ogun State. With the use of interview guide to obtain information from the conveniently selected 150 rural farm families, the results showed that 72% of them reared goats, keeping between 6 and 10 of the animal; 84% consumed wara (local cheese) as milk product from cow’s milk; and 20% occasionally consumed milk either in evaporated and/or powdered forms. Although, none of the rural farm families ever consumed sheep and goats’ milk basically because it was hardly available in the Nigerian market in any form, 57.3% of them slightly accepted to consume the small ruminant’s milk. Chi-square test of the relationship between farm families’ socioeconomic characteristic; their milk consumption pattern and their probable acceptability of sheep and goats’ milk for consumption showed no significant relationship. The study concluded that the rural farm families had a slight potential of accepting the small ruminants’ milk for consumption and thus recommended that the farm families should be educated and trained on technical exploration of the small ruminants’ milk for production and consumption.

Key words: Sheep and goats’ milk, probable acceptability, consumption, rural farm families, Ogun State.