Different measures of longevity, their heritability and correlations with yield and trait-types, as well as the strategies to increase herd life through selection, are reviewed. Age structure of Malagueña goats in milk recorded herds, current culling policy, and relations between herd life of goats and their yields are described. Data show that, contrary to what farmers declare, there is some culling of animals based on yields. Relations between long herd life and genetic values for milk traits seem to be negative, but they are not very reliable. Causes of the low average productive life of goats, particularly diseases, are discussed in relation to the nature of longevity and its genetic variation. Consequences of a higher longevity on the genetic progress of yield traits, studied through simulation, are negative, but these effects are encounteracted by the economic advantage of a longer herd life. Possibilities of selection for longevity under the present conditions of the selection scheme are limited, in the short term, to the 'automatic' selection realised when leaving most of the replacements from older goats. However, early life indicators of adaptation to disease hazards should be sought.