It’s that time of year. Breeding season is upon us. In our goat herd, we have four Nigerian Dwarf does and one Alpine doe. Two of the Nigerian Dwarfs and the Alpine are currently in milk and not on the docket for breeding this fall. That leaves my two other Nigerian Dwarf girls to be bred for the first time.
Since we live in a colder climate I decided to wait until October to breed the girls. February can be quite brutal here and I did not want to try and keep kids alive in the extreme cold. Goat pregnancies are around 150 days, which should put us delivering in March if they conceive in October.
We have actually, already attempted breeding with our fall girls as of this post. In fact, yesterday we were able to breed the goat who I thought would never come into heat. She showed tons of signs but wasn’t interested. She still ran around a bit yesterday but I do believe our buck was able to get his job done. Both of these does have never been bred before, and our buck is about six months old and a new breeder as well, so I will not be shocked if this first time doesn’t take.
Now, we simply watch and wait. If they go back into heat we will know they weren’t successfully bred and will try again. In the meantime, I am drying off the other two Nigerian Dwarfs and will be keeping the Alpine in milk. As mentioned earlier we live in a very cold climate, and on the prairie, so it gets pretty miserable out here. I decided to dry off the other two does since they give less milk and I would have to keep two of them in milk to produce what the Alpine does alone. We will keep the Alpine in milk throughout the winter since she produces enough for our family and is really quick to milk. When temps are in the negative and the wind is blowing I want to be outside for as little time as possible.
Those are our fall breeding plans. I am not sure yet what we will do for the rest of the upcoming year. If the two bred now kid in March then they should be able to stay in milk until we hit winter next year. I am not sure how long our Alpine will stay in milk, I have read they can stay in milk for years sometimes. However, I think I may breed her sometime in the spring and have her kid next fall so we can milk her through the winter again. As long as that provides our family with enough milk then that might end up being our breeding schedule from here on out. That would actually give each goat a pretty good chunk of time off between kiddings.
I think our biggest challenge is going to be not keeping every baby born here on the farm. My kids get attached to everything!
We have five dairy goats here on our farm, and my favorite is a little brown Nigerian Dwarf named Artemis. I have loved her from the moment I met her when she licked my face through the fence. She has always been the sweetest and most calm goat……until recently.
A week or so ago I noticed that she wasn’t eating her food as quickly as usual while on the milking stand. She didn’t seem uncomfortable or anything just wasn’t gobbling down her grain. A few days of this and she started not standing as well as she usually does. She kind of scooted off to this side and I would have to move her back and then she stomped her foot here and there. This clued me into the fact that something could be wrong, but at that moment I didn’t see any other signs of anything serious. She ended up acting like she had mastitis or, at least that was my best guess. The last day that I really noticed something I went out into the pasture to check on her and she didn’t want me touching her udder at all. She moaned and groaned and stomped all over the place, basically telling me to leave her alone. So, I got a hot rag and massaged her udder, gave her some Vitamin C, and made sure to gently milk her out. I was going to call the vet the next day but ended up not needing to. I will also say that a tender udder was her only symptom. Her milk was fine, no blood, no lumps, no nothing except a tender udder.
Now, let’s backtrack for one moment. When I got them from the breeder she recommended a product called Sweet Feed from the Homestead brand. That is the grain they all get while on the milking stand. Everyone loved it and gobbled it down as quickly as possible. At some point, we ran out, on the weekend of course when our local Ag store was closed, so I bought regular goat feed from Tractor Supply. No one cared for it much and was happy to have the sweet feed back when I was able to get more. However, we have had to switch back and forth a few times because Tractor Supply is much easier for me to get to and pick feed up. So, at the time of the mastitis scare, I had actually gotten the sweet feed again thinking this was the preferred food. I once again ran out of sweet feed on the weekend and grabbed the Tractor Supply feed for the time being. This time however I started to notice a change in Artemis.
Now, I will never know for sure that this is the case, but I swear that goat threw a hissy fit and basically just refused to be milked because of the food change. She acted like she was in so much pain and almost as soon as the feed changed she was fine again. She has had her preferred food for 4 days now and she’s back to waiting at the fence for her turn, she runs full speed to the barn to get on the stand and chows down while standing perfectly still to be milked. I cannot believe it. So, either this goat had the tiniest case of mastitis ever, a bruised udder somehow, or she’s the biggest drama queen I have ever met. She did end up getting her way though.
The lesson learned. Apparently, we will be using the Tractor Supply food from now on. ( In case you’re curious it’s the Nutrena Brand goat feed in the orange bag)
My mom came for a week-long visit this past week and it turned into a very interesting experience with the goats. One of the first days she got here we had a conversation about our two male goats. One of them is the goat who is meant to be our breeder, and one is our wether or castrated goat. However, the wether has been losing his mind over the ladies. He is at the fence every day trying to smell everyone and making all the weird goat noises, and ultimately acting more like a buck than our buck. Talking to my mom, I said “I don’t understand why he is acting this way”. So, she walks over takes a look at him, and asks “Are you sure he doesn’t have anything hanging there?” Yes, Mom, I’m sure. He was banded and things fell off and I’m positive he was wethered. So, we walked over, I picked him up, she felt his belly, and sure enough, he had one testicle left up in his belly. Nothing is hanging but he does have something up in the belly. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!
So, now we technically have two bucks. I am not really sure whether he can breed or not, but it is a possibility. Some research said that the testicle being up close to the body could make it too warm to have live sperm, but it isn’t totally out of the question. The bigger issue is the fact that he is acting absolutely insane. He has gotten stuck in the fencing at least six times. He puts his head through the fence squares and when he tries to pull out, his little horn scur gets caught.
I got these goats from a breeder who does show goats. Her mom has been in the goat industry for something like 30 years, and they all do shows. Thinking that this would give me a better quality goat and fewer issues over the long run. So far, they are overall good goats, but almost all of them have horn scurs and our wether has a testicle. All of these are somewhat common issues, but still a little frustrating. Horn scurs are where their horn bud is burned so a horn doesn’t grow, but some cells survive and a tiny piece of horn grows. These can be an issue because they aren’t as sturdy as a normal horn and they can rip them off and bleed. Which is exactly what this wether did. He keeps sticking his head in the fence and getting stuck due to his scur. We had to keep going out there and picking him up and trying to get him unstuck, which was quite a challenge. Eventually, somehow the scur fell off. So now, he does still get himself stuck but it’s much easier to pull his head out.
Future plans involve getting some smaller fencing and doubling up so he can’t fit his head through anymore. However, he should at some point be too big to put his head in the square. We also have to make a decision on what to do with him. His entire purpose on this farm was supposed to be keeping the buck company. Goats don’t like to be alone so we purchased him to keep the buck company. He was never supposed to be a breeder, I’m not sure that he can, but I don’t really want to take the chance. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. He did come from two nice parents, both registered, but our buck was chosen over him so I would like to use the buck we actually picked. Our options seem to be, to keep him and do nothing, get him surgery to remove the testicle, sell him, or process him. If we keep him and do nothing we have to keep dealing with him trying to get to the girls and acting insane. Our actual buck doesn’t act nearly as crazy as this one does, plus we don’t want him accidentally breeding anyone. If we get him surgery that is obviously going to be a bit of an expensive option. The cheaper option would be to get rid of him somehow and get a new wether for company. I assume surgery will be at least a couple of hundred dollars, and I can find a wether for under $50. Cost wise this would make sense. My concern with that option is that no one is going to buy a half-wethered buck. Boy goats are difficult to find homes for in general. Which, leaves us with our last option, to go ahead and process him. Before anyone gets too upset, this is a working farm. Every animal that we bring onto the property has a purpose. If they can’t fulfill that purpose they have to go. Sometimes, hard decisions have to be made. With all that said we have not made our decision yet. It will probably need to be made here soon, as winter is coming in and I would like to have it all settled before then.
In conclusion, if you ever have a goat or other animal that you need to band for castration, make sure you double-check that both testicles are in there. I did read that sometimes one can slip back up into place, so double-check. If you buy a wether from someone, double-check. You never know the shenanigans that might await you.
Sometimes the way a child looks at the world is exactly what you need. One of my big wants when I dreamed about moving onto property was an orchard. However, this first year we spent most of our efforts and budget on getting the animals set up and fencing done, therefore the orchard was put on hold for the season. The other day when I walked outside I noticed we had a ton of berries on a few plants around the property. I assumed they were not edible, but I Google lensed them anyway. To my surprise they were chokecherries. Turns out we have probably twenty chokecherry trees around the property. Right next to the original plant, we have a different tree that this spring I was told was a wild plum tree, but it turns out it’s a crabapple. I brought my daughter out to show her and she had the best reaction, “Mom, you have an orchard!” I could have cried at her words. Her sweet simple reaction reminded me to look around and be grateful for all I have. Yes, I want a large orchard someday, but how lucky are we to find these blessings already here and thriving?
We have already picked a five-gallon bucket of berries and I am working on preserving them in a few different ways as we speak. Chokecherries are described as having an astringent taste and not really for fresh eating, so I have cooked some down and made a syrup which I can turn into jelly or use as a base for anything that needs a good fruit juice. I have added syrup to hot tea and it’s delicious. I plan on making jelly in the future and I have a whole freeze dryer loaded up with the berries and a few bags in ziplocs in the freezer.
There will definitely be an orchard planted in the future, but for now I am thankful for my daughters perspective and my “mini orchard”.
We’ve got mice on our farm. With all the feed around it makes sense, and the fact that we live in the middle of the prairie adds to that. However, I don’t want mice in my milking shed getting into the feed and running amuck. One evening while I was milking two mice fell from the rafters of the shed. While funny, I don’t really want a repeat performance. I told my husband fairly quickly after moving that we were going to have to add at least one more animal, a barn cat. We have had a cat for years, but he’s been mostly an inside cat and has no interest in being a mouser, so another cat would need to be brought in.
One other thing you should know is that I have always wanted an orange cat. I don’t know why but big fat orange cats are my favorite. We’ve had a tiny little gray cat, and now a huge white and brown tabby cat, but I have never gotten my orange cat. Until now!
Sitting on the couch one evening I get a text message from a friend asking if we need a farm cat. I replied, “Actually, we do”. His outside cat had one kitten that survived and they needed to find it a good home. Without knowing anything about the kitten I told him we would take it. He sent me a picture later on, and to my surprise, it was a tiny little orange kitten.
This little one ended up being a male and since he had been outside with his mom he was very skittish. They brought him to us and it took a few days but eventually, he warmed up to being handled and is now the sweetest little cat ever. He’s still a kitten and wants to chew your fingers all day, but when he’s tired he cuddles right up next to someone and sits there purring away. He’s sitting curled up in my lap as I type this post. His name is officially Arnold, after Arnold Schwarzenegger, since we need him to live up to the Predator and Terminator namesake, but we call him “sticky kitty.” My daughter came up with this, when you pick up a kitten and they use their claws to hold on, she called that sticky paws. Sticky paws turned into sticky kitty and we said it so much that it stuck and now his name is Sticky. Kind of silly but so cute.
Sticky Kitty has been earning his keep! Back to our mouse problem. Sticky has taken out three mice in the two weeks that we have had him. The first one I stunned and he finished off, the rest he has taken care of all by himself. If we are in the shed and hear or see anything someone runs to grab the kitten. I assume it’s because he was raised by his outside cat mother, but he is a professional mouse hunter. It’s disgusting but he even eats the whole thing after he has caught it. Sticky is still a little too young for us to feel comfortable leaving him outside all day, so he catches his mouse and then we bring him back in. He does get to stay outside and play for a while during the day sometimes, but we will keep bringing him for a bit to make sure he is used to us and won’t just run away. Plus, he’s adorable and we love having him running around.
It still amazes me how things work out. I think God gives us little reminders or gifts sometimes. I have always wanted an orange cat, and through a random chance, I ended up with one. Now I guess we wait and see how much of the orange cat personality he ends up with. Whatever happens, at least we know our mouse problem is no longer an issue!
This summer we have been eaten alive by mosquitoes, we have grasshoppers everywhere, and there are spiders and beetles galore. The bugs on this property are out of control. It makes sense, our property is in the middle of the prairie and we are surrounded by farmland, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I know there are chemical answers out there, but I don’t like the idea of covering our land in insecticides. So, I began searching for natural answers.
First, was our mosquito problem. I have never lived somewhere where we had mosquitoes like this. We do have a small fish pond but that is our only standing water and I still cannot figure out where they are coming from. I swear they live in the grass and they are making outside time miserable. We built a new goat shelter and my husband’s legs got eaten to pieces. I can’t go into my garden to take care of it without having six mosquitoes on each leg every time I turn around. I don’t love being covered in bug spray but at that point, it was our only option. So, a Google search ensued.
Most birds, including chickens, will eat mosquitoes and other pests however, they are not particularly good at it. Bats are great mosquito hunters, but as I mentioned we live on the prairie so that didn’t seem like a good answer. Ducks are better foragers and bug catchers than chickens in general, but not all ducks are as good as others. From my research, it seems that the Muscovy duck is the best duck for pest control. In fact, I believe they were called mosquito assassins and will eat mosquitoes out of the air. This was absolutely perfect for me because Muscovy ducks have been a dream animal of mine for many years. I know a lot of people think they are ugly but I love them. The fact that they gobble bugs is a giant bonus.
Bringing ducklings home
I started to look around online hoping to find adult Moscovy ducks. I did, but all the adults were a minimum of four hours away and I won’t drive that to pick up birds. So instead, I found a local woman who had four Muscovy ducklings. They won’t be gobbling bugs right away but I don’t think it will be too long before they do. If you want Muscovy ducks, I recommend starting with your local Facebook pages. Here, we have a statewide poultry exchange page that is pretty helpful when looking for poultry of any kind.
Before I continue this story let me add that we currently have three baby turkeys about 3-4 weeks old, and a gosling also the same age. They were sharing a brooder and I thought they would be too big to put the babies in with.
We picked the babies up, brought them home, and put them in their own brooder. Later that day we took them out for a little outside time and decided to also bring out the gosling to see what it would do. This gosling, we are now pretty sure is an African Goose, but still do not know the sex. As soon as the gosling saw these babies it went straight over to them, checked them out, and plopped down right next to them. They also ran right over to the gosling cuddled up and wouldn’t leave it. It was the cutest thing and not how I thought that would go at all. So, now our 3-4 week gosling is basically a mother duck. They are in the brooder together and it hovers over them like an anxious momma. Every time we go out to check on them they are all snuggled up together. This gosling was originally purchased as a chicken guardian, but I guess it is now the duck guard.
Muscovy Benefits
Muscovy ducks are not like most ducks, in fact, they are more goose-like than duck. They grow to be large birds that are capable of protecting themselves fairly well. They make good mothers who raise very large clutches of ducklings. This is also why they can become an invasive species, as they reproduce rapidly. If you have a homestead or a farm, Muscovy is said to taste more like steak than duck, and since they are such large birds make great meat options. They also do not quack like a typical duck but make more soft honks or hissing noises. Their water needs are less than your average duck. They do still need water, but they do not hang out in it all day like a mallard duck would. For all these reasons. plus the fact that they forage and eat insects, we decided to bring home Muscovy ducks to our little farm. Hopefully, the next update about the ducks will be a long post on how amazing they are at bug control.
Other options
We have obviously decided to bring Muscovy ducks to our property as I think they are going to be the best option for pest control, but what if you don’t want ducks? Once again, chickens do an ok job at pest control. I have seen ours chase grasshoppers around the yard and eat them, but I read they really only take care of mosquito larvae in water and not mosquitos in the air. The other poultry we have are the Turkey poults. We have recently found out that turkeys LOVE grasshoppers. Right now they are only able to catch and eat the smaller ones, but once they get big the grasshoppers are going to be in trouble. They are even better than the chickens at catching grasshoppers, but I am unsure of their skills with the mosquitoes or the beetles. One of them did eat a spider which for us is extremely helpful. Out on the prairie, we have wolf spiders living in the ground all over and I hate spiders. Wild birds will take care of some bugs for you, but for what we have they do not do enough. Another option would be something like Diatomaceous Earth. It will kill quite a few different varieties of bugs, but it can also take out your good bugs so I would be selective on where I put it. We did put that down first before the ducks came home as the mosquitoes were not bearable. I am very hopeful that when all the birds are big enough to roam around we will not have to use it again. Maybe between the combo of poultry and DE we can survive this summer without losing our minds over the bugs.
We added goats to our farm about two months ago. The first additions were a small starter herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats, which included two does already in milk, two yearling does not in milk, a month-old buckling, and a month-old wether. When we first brought them home we also brought home five gallons of frozen milk so we could try our own goat milk without worrying about feeding the bottle babies. Right away we fell in love with the fresh milk. Nigerian Dwarf milk is very creamy and not really goaty. There can sometimes be a slight aftertaste, but for the most part, it has no flavor at all. Once you have fresh milk it’s really hard to go back to anything else.
We Need Another
Out of our two milking Nigerians, we get almost exactly four cups of milk every milking. Four cups of milk per milking (twice daily) adds up to a half gallon of milk each day. Originally this was plenty of milk for our family. However, when you want to start making yogurt or other things with goat milk you end up needing a little bit more. My son alone drinks almost a quart a day. Then we ran out of frozen milk and had to start feeding our babies our fresh milk. Obviously, they need the milk and we gave it to them, but when you just got your own dairy goats it’s a bit frustrating to give every ounce back to the babies. Between the two babies, they drink a half gallon a day, so everything we got was theirs.
Originally I was looking into adding another Nigerian Dwarf to help solve this problem but she would only give us a quart of milk a day on her own. I really didn’t want to add multiple goats and have to milk four or five, twice a day. When I reached out to the lady we got our goats from she ended up not having another Nigerian anyway, but her mom had an Alpine. Her mom has been raising Alpines for about 30 years and has really nice stock. She asked if we would consider one since she would give us a lot more milk, and I agreed.
Butterfat and Volume
If you look into the different goat breeds you will find that Nigerian Dwarfs give the most butterfat in their milk. This is what makes their milk creamy. Alpines are on the lower end of the butterfat content, but they are a larger goat and therefore give a lot more volume. I think most people who want larger dairy goats tend to go with Nubians or LaManchas, but I was having a hard time finding quality goats, already in milk, within a reasonable distance from me. For those reasons, I went ahead and decided to purchase the Alpine and bring her home.
It took a few days for her to settle in, but now that she’s been here for almost a month we love her. She is one of the sweetest goats we have and she is so easy to handle. She is also giving us five cups of milk per milking, which is over a half gallon of milk a day. Currently, most of her milk is going to our bottle babies. This has been the big advantage of bringing her home. She produces enough milk on her own to feed both bottle babies and have some leftover. This allows us to keep all the Nigerian milk for drinking or for making yogurt and cheese. We have plenty of milk now! Between the three goats, we get a little over a gallon of milk a day. The bottle babies are coming up on three months old and will be weaned soonish. I’ve heard you wean them between two and three months old, but some also say to wait until they are eating solid food well. Ours are eating hay but I don’t think they are eating enough yet to be fully weaned. Once they are weaned we are going to be overflowing with goat milk.
Alpine Milk
As I mentioned Alpines have a lower butterfat content than Nigerians. On top of that Alpine milk does carry a bit of the goat flavor, and I am not sure why that is. I don’t know if it’s because they are larger goats, or if it has to do with the fat content, but it is definitely a goatier-flavored milk. It is still not bad and we don’t mind it but it is something to keep in mind when picking out a dairy goat.
Our Alpine is only a year old and on her first freshening. She is currently at around 10 cups of milk a day and I assume she will only give more as time goes on and she gets older and freshens again. When you research Alpine goat production it says they can produce 1-2 gallons a day. There was an Alpine at the place we got ours from that was the biggest goat I have ever seen. She was massive and her udder was huge. I would assume she’s closer to the two gallon a day mark. If you are looking for volume, I would think an Alpine would be a good consideration.
Another benefit that I have read is you can keep an Alpine in milk longer than you can a Nigerian. I have seen many posts saying you can keep an Alpine in milk for a few years even, while Nigerians tend to dry themselves off by ten months. So, if you don’t want to breed every year an Alpine might be what you need to look for. They do take up more room being a larger goat, but they are pretty easy to handle. At least our girl is easy to handle. She is also easier to keep fenced in. Yes, she requires more space, but she doesn’t try and squeeze under the fence like the Nigerians do. I have been surprised by how small a hole the Nigerians can manage to squeeze through. We have had quite a few escapes but the Alpine has never been the culprit.
Yogurt, Cheese, and More
There are many uses for goat milk. Basically any dairy product can be made from goat milk just like cow milk, with maybe a few adaptations.
Our first use for goat milk is fresh drinking. My son uses it in his cereal, we put it in our tea and coffee, and we drink it from the glass. It was an easy transition for our family to switch over completely. I was worried that they wouldn’t like it, but I think having the Nigerians first really helped with the transition to only goat milk.
My next favorite way to use the milk is homemade yogurt. I had never made yogurt before and it was much easier than I expected. I make it and strain it so that it is closer to a Greek yogurt and it’s fantastic. My husband has even brought some to a friend and he loved it. He has asked for more and downs it as soon as he gets it. You can make homemade yogurt with store-bought milk and if it’s anything like the yogurt we made I would highly recommend trying it.
The third would be a simple quick cheese. I’ve seen people call it a farmer’s cheese, or a Chevre cheese. You need an acid, (vinegar or lemon juice) and milk. It’s a pretty quick and easy process. You end up with a cheese similar in consistency to a feta. You can flavor it however you want and it’s great to add to salads or even eggs for breakfast. I would like to try and make more of a mozzarella cheese, I think this would be a bigger hit with the whole family, as the kids don’t care too much for the simple cheese.
Lastly, I made Cajeta. It’s a Mexican caramel typically made from goat milk. It was so good, but very very sweet. It also has a cinnamon stick added to the boiling process and I don’t know if I would add that next time. My daughter did say it reminded her of Christmas and I have to agree, there was something about it that was very much reminiscent of Christmas-time flavors. If I make it again I will not cook it as long. It turned out pretty thick and while great, was a little hard to use. I think I would like a more pourable consistency to put on ice cream.
So far I have not been able to make butter or even just heavy cream. Goat milk is naturally homogenized, meaning the fat doesn’t separate the same way cow’s milk does. From what I have read it will separate if you let it sit long enough, but the flavor of the milk will also change if it sits so I haven’t tried. For goat’s milk, it is most recommended that you buy a milk separator. I would love to have one someday, but they can be pricey so we will have to wait a little while to work that into the budget. Once we add that to our gadgets I hope to make butter, ice cream, sour cream, and heavy cream. For now, most of our excess milk is being made into yogurt.
How to Handle Goat Milk
The goaty flavor is what we are all trying to avoid in our milk. While a little goaty flavor can’t be helped sometimes the way you handle fresh milk can really make a difference. First and foremost everything has to be clean. From what you are milking into, to the goat itself, it’s very important that you make sure everything is really clean. You should avoid plastic whenever you can as it can hold onto flavors and leech those into your milk. I like to use stainless steel or we have a big glass batter bowl that I milk into, and then I store all our milk in glass half gallon or quart size mason jars. Next, you want to strain and get your milk cold as quickly as possible. The faster you get it cold, the longer the milk will keep fresh. I like to bring my milk in as soon as I’m done milking, strain it, and then I stick it in the freezer for about an hour or so. Be careful because I often forget the milk in the freezer and end up freezing it.
Milk will stay fresh in the fridge for a couple of days. After a few days the milk is still good, but the flavor will start to change. Fresh milk doesn’t go bad the same way store bought milk does, but the flavor changes quite a bit as it sits. I like to use our milk for fresh drinking within about two days, and then if I have any leftover I will turn that into yogurt. Everything is better when it’s made with fresh milk, but don’t be afraid to make yogurt or cheese with the older milk.
Finally, keep an eye on your goats and make sure they are healthy. You don’t want to use milk from a goat that is sick in any way. When our Alpine first got here she was stressed and had runny poop so we didn’t keep her milk. Once she settled in and returned to normal, her milk was fine to use.
If during milking the milk gets dirty for any reason consider tossing it. Straining the milk is essential because goat hairs and some dust will fall in the milk while you are milking, but anything else really shouldn’t be kept. It was pretty muddy here recently and somehow we kept getting dirt in the milk during milking. I gave that to the bottle babies or the chickens. If you drink your milk raw it’s best to err on the side of caution.
If drinking your milk raw scares you go ahead and pasteurize it. I may get a lot of grief for saying this but I think pasteurized milk is fine. There is a chance that heating the milk up might bring a bit of the goat flavor out, but sometimes it’s better safe than sorry. From what I have researched pasteurization doesn’t kill as much of the nutrients and benefits as we are led to believe. I personally think even pasteurized, your own fresh milk is better than anything you can buy. We all have to do what we are comfortable with and not what social media platforms are telling us.
For our family, I make sure to keep everything very clean, and we use our milk raw. However, if I think for any reason the milk has been contaminated we don’t drink it. If it’s not bad I will turn it into cheese or yogurt as you cook both of those, or it goes to the babies since they would drink straight from the udder anyway. Chickens will also help you dispose of your unwanted milk, or even yogurt that didn’t quite work out. So far, we have all drank our raw milk and been completely fine.
Who Wins? Alpine or ND
Both! That didn’t really answer anything, but we love all our girls. Each breed brings something the other doesn’t have and therefore I like having them both. Taste wise, the Nigerians win hands down, but the Alpine is still a good choice and you get so much more per goat. Maybe a mixed herd is the best option.
For future breeding plans I plan on trying out the mini Alpines. Mini goats are simply a large goat bred to a Nigerian Dwarf Buck. You don’t want to breed the other way around because it could cause issues for the doe to have a larger kid than she should but a smaller buck to a larger doe works just fine. I am curious to see if the Nigerian Buck brings any more fat content to the Alpine milk. A mini Alpine will still produce more milk than the Nigerian Dwarf, so I am really hoping it is the best of both breeds. I can’t find a ton of information on the internet about Mini Alpines so I guess we will wait and see. Our buck is still too young to breed and I am in no hurry. Once we find out I will let you all know. Until then research your goat breeds, make a choice, and jump. I do not regret our goats for one second. They have been such an awesome addition to our home and the fresh milk is everything I dreamed it would be.
I recently sat down with my phone and started scrolling garden plans on Pinterest. I saved a few ideas here and there and thought nothing of it. That is until I went back to my board to clean up a few pins I knew I no longer wanted. It was then that I realized I had saved pins to a board named “Future Farm”. I was so struck at that moment with the realization that I was no longer living in “future farm” dreaming but in current farm reality. This dream that I’ve been hanging onto for years has finally come to fruition. I took a moment to say a prayer of thanks and once again marvel at how quickly life can change. Sometimes it changes for the worse, but sometimes we get lucky and it changes for the better. I still have a hard time believing we made this dream come true, but here we are.
My job now is to love this property and use it as best I can. I have big plans and I have to catch myself sometimes and remember to take it slow. Not everything has to be done right away. The garden for example will stay small this year. I have plans to expand the space by quite a bit, but we decided for this first year it was better to use what we already had. My husband and I have moved around quite a bit and have never been somewhere before that we could put roots down. It’s such an odd concept for me to think about putting together a five-year plan for example. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I have time. God willing, we plan to stay here for quite a while. So, for now, I will be grateful for the space I have, learn what I can, and look forward to really making this space our own. Always thankful that sometimes dreams do come true.
Wow! I can’t believe we’ve been on this property for a month now. It’s been an incredibly busy month. I knew moving onto a new property was going to be busy, but I did not know it was going to be this busy. I will take the blame for a lot of the craziness though, because I went ahead and moved full speed with my farm plans. We’ve gotten a lot done, but there is still so much to do. Let’s start with talking about the animals.
Chickens
The first animal we added to the farm was chickens. In fact, if you read any of the earlier posts you would know we got hatching eggs before we even closed on this property. We only ended up with three chicks from that hatch, so of course we stopped by our local feed store and grabbed a few more. When we had been here for about a week I picked up some hens that were already laying. We wanted eggs right away and our chicks weren’t going to start laying for a while. Next thing I know people are asking if we have eggs so of course, I had to get a few more chickens. Currently, we have 10 laying hens all about a year or two old, and 10 chicks. I wanted to focus on just a couple of breeds so I could hatch my own chickens, but like you tend to do we ended up with a barnyard mix. The chickens have pretty much been my favorite addition. They are easy to care for and going out to the coop and bringing in eggs feels very rewarding. Plus they are just plain fun to sit around and watch.
My one complaint about the chickens is they don’t go out into our “pasture” area. I have tried to get them to go out to the 1.5 acres we are calling the pasture but they seem to prefer the backyard or their coop area. I want them to go out into the pasture because we have had a few ticks show up. I cannot stand ticks, they gross me out so much. I was hoping to have the chickens roam the pasture area and eat the ticks, but it looks like I may need to find another solution. I have read about guineas, which I am considering, however I have also heard they are very loud. We may do a chicken tractor in the future so the chickens have to be out in the pasture, but I haven’t made a final decision. However, some form of tick control will need to be decided upon soon. Despite that the chickens have been a very easy and fun addition to the farm.
Dairy Goats
One of my main goals for our farm is to improve the quality of our food. As part of that plan finding a dairy animal was high on my priority list. I have been researching which type we wanted for years now. I would love to have a milk cow, but decided we didn’t have the room. On top of needing more room cows are harder to breed and the vet costs are much higher. Not to mention I don’t really need gallons of milk a day. So once I decided on goats, I started the research process to find the right breed. I really wanted Nubians but I couldn’t find any quality breeders in my local area, and for right now I was unwilling to drive six or more hours to pick up goats. So, instead, I found a good Nigerian Dwarf goat breeder who was only an hour away. I feel pretty lucky to have found her, as she shows her goats. This typically means more care is put into the goats as well as better genetics. We ended up purchasing two does that were already in milk, and two yearling does who have not been bred. I also picked up a buckling and a wether, both were born on April 2nd of this year. It will be a few months until the Buck is old enough to breed, but that gives us time to get used to the does we already have in milk and get our routine down.
Having does in milk has been wonderful but also very challenging. First, the milk is delicious. Nigerian Dwarfs have some of the highest butterfat content which makes their milk creamy and delicious. I won’t lie and say it’s exactly like cow’s milk, but it’s pretty close and maybe even better. The flavor of goat’s milk is very dependent on how you handle it. Other than being really clean, one of the most important factors is how fast you get the milk cooled down. I like to bring the milk into the house, filter it, and then get it into the freezer as soon as possible. I tend to let the milk hang out in the freezer for about an hour to get it cooled down and then I put it in the fridge. There are bacteria in the raw milk that will start to eat the sugars as soon as it is out of the udder. Cooling it down stops the bacteria from eating the sugar as fast and changing the flavor of the milk. Everyone who has tried the milk so far has been really impressed with how good it is. The part that is a little bit goaty is that sometimes there is a tiny bit of an aftertaste. It’s not bad at all and I do not feel like it ruins the milk but it is something to know about if you plan to have goats for milk.
My absolutely favorite thing to do with the milk is turn it into yogurt. I have made goat milk yogurt twice now and it’s the best yogurt I’ve ever had. I am currently a little sad that we have just enough milk to drink because I can’t wait to make more yogurt. We like to make it extra thick almost like a Greek yogurt, but it’s not near as sour as a Greek yogurt can sometimes be. I just top it with some honey and I’m in heaven. I have also made a quick, almost feta-like, cheese. I really enjoyed that as well, and it seems that when the milk is made into other things the goat flavor is completely gone. Not that the flavor is strong to begin with. It’s a very barely there flavor but it disappears completely in homemade goat cheese and yogurt.
Another pro to the Nigerian Dwarf goat breed is their size. I am 5’1″ and the goats come up to about my knee. They are about the size of a medium to large dog. This makes fencing and housing much easier than larger breeds. Also, when bringing them home they rode in the back of the truck. We have a topper on the truck and that’s where they went, no trailer is needed. Their smaller size makes them easy to handle, house, and transport. The con to their size is less milk. I know over time we can work on their udder size and milk capacity, but out of our two does, we are currently getting about four cups of milk each time we milk. This does add up to about half a gallon of milk a day, which sounds like a lot, but when you want to have milk to drink and make cheese/yogurt it isn’t quite enough. We also have two bottle babies still, so if I forget to thaw the frozen milk, almost all of our fresh milk goes to them. They are drinking around a half gallon a day, but they are absolutely adorable so I don’t complain.
All in all, I am very pleased with our goats. I will say one more thing that I learned along the way. If at all possible try and start out with quality stock. You can find cheaper goats from people selling off their backyard farms, but it isn’t always the best option over time. Look for goats that have been bred with milking quality in mind and from someone who has taken very good care of their goats. Starting with registered stock is not required but it may be something to consider. It will make your offspring more valuable since you can register them as well. Like I mentioned I found someone who does 4-H and other goat shows and really tried to focus on quality traits. They are all registered and healthy. They also test their herd every year since they travel and have to make sure they don’t take anything to the shows or pick something up while out. This gave me peace that even though it was more money upfront, we would be better off over the long haul. Plus the woman I bought them from has been very helpful and willing to be more of a mentor. Sometimes what you start out with really does matter.
For milking purposes on a small-scale homestead/farm Nigerian Dwarf goats are a great option. If you are thinking about a dairy animal I would highly suggest looking into these adorable troublemakers.
Challenges
It hasn’t all been fun and games. As I said, I moved pretty quickly when we first closed on the property. Chickens were added right away but we already had a coop and a fenced area so that was no big deal. I did however rush the goats. I had found the goats I wanted and they were ready to go, so I jumped. I don’t think this was the smartest way to do it, but sometimes when you find what you want you have to make it happen. We ended up bringing them home when their fencing wasn’t even finished. They hung out in our backyard while my husband and I finished fencing their pen. We also didn’t have a housing structure, but luckily there was something already here that we ended up using and it worked out great. It’s not perfect and will need some work in the future but it’s been exactly what we needed to get them here and safe right away. Our first night milking was quite a disaster since I also didn’t have a milking stand. We ended up milking them on the deck. We were slow and they were annoyed and it was a total disaster that ended with us all frustrated. A milking stand is expensive and shipping one would have taken time that we didn’t really have, so my husband converted an old bunk bed frame into a milking stand. Sometimes you have to use what you have. It has been serving us well ever since. As you would guess milking is a skill that takes a little while to get down. In the beginning, we took extra bowls out with us. We would milk into one bowl and then dump it into the other every so often, just in case one of the goats decided to step in the milk. Which they did, OFTEN. Even a few weeks in we are still learning. Last night I ended up with a lap full of milk because my daughter, who was helping, moved her hand and the goat thought we were done and kicked the bowl right over. Of course, this time I hadn’t poured it into another bowl so we lost the whole thing. The saying ” no crying over spilled milk”, does not apply here. It is so frustrating to lose all that milk.
The other most challenging part of the goats is keeping them in the fencing. A quick tip, make sure your gate opens inward. Our gate opens out and it gives the goats enough space to try and head-butt their way out of the gate. Quite often we have had to wrangle goats after they all pushed their way out of the pen when we were trying to put one back. You can also throw treats into the pen to distract the other goats while you get the one you wanted for milking. Goats will take advantage of any hole left in fencing or gap left in a gate. They have wormed their way into the chicken area when we cut what we thought was a chicken-sized hole in the fence. We wanted to give the chickens easy access to the pasture, that hole is now closed. Once, we had a goat in the chicken coop. It was so funny. I kept hearing a goat cry but couldn’t find her. It sounded like she was behind the chicken coop, but there was no goat to be found. I thought, “No way she’s in the coop”. She was! She had climbed up the chicken ramp and somehow had knocked the door closed behind her and was stuck inside crying for someone to help. So, if a chicken can fit, so can a goat. Who knew?
Other challenges we can’t do anything about. Where we live the wind is absolutely insane. It’s no fun trying to milk goats when the doors to the shed are rattling on their hinges and you feel like you are going to blow away walking them back to the pen. That is unfortunately something we will have to get used to. I do believe the animals will get easier as we get more experience, but the weather is something we will just have to suck it up and deal with.
This last month has been wonderful and I am so happy that we have been able to make this dream happen. I have loved adding the chickens and the goats and I can’t wait for garden season to start. However, even a month in I can tell you it’s not like what you see on the internet. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be a lot of work. I always to try and keep my why in mind. Why is this what I wanted? What do I hope to accomplish? It helps me when things get hard, to remember why I started all this in the first place. To remember my goals. To remember that this is what I have dreamed about for years. I am now living in it and I don’t want to forget that and ever become ungrateful. There have been hard days and I know there will be more, but I hope to never look at this with less than thankful eyes, challenges and all.
We’ve only had the Yoto player for 3 days now, but it’s a hit! My daughter absolutely loves her Yoto player and has barely put it down over the last few days. She has already finished four books and uses the player to fall asleep every night. In fact, the first day she had it, she climbed into bed with me during the afternoon, while I was reading, and fell right asleep listening to a book. She never takes a nap but she was warm and quiet and passed right out.
In addition to playing audiobooks, the Yoto player does have other things it can do. Her favorite is the Yoto daily podcasts. If you do buy a Yoto player they have an app that is pretty cool all by itself. The app is full of extras like podcast options, kids’ music channels, and ways you can customize the player for your child. You can set them alarms, change the light colors on their player, and even play books or sleep sounds from your phone. I still find myself scrolling through the app and finding new things each day. In fact, there are so many options that I would be typing all day to explain them all, so I would highly suggest going to their website and taking a look. I would also suggest the Yoto Club membership. It’s $10 a month and you get two credits to spend on books, but it also gets you free shipping and a 10% discount. I would sign up for the club membership first and then order my Yoto player to get the discount and free shipping.
If you want to order a player but not the membership everyone with a player has a code for 10% off your first purchase over $69.99. Mine is https://prz.io/1dGAgBas0. I do get points to use on their website if you use that code. I do not believe you can stack the 10% code and the Yoto Club membership 10% off. It seems to be one or the other.
As of right now, my daughter says the Yoto player was her favorite Christmas present and she’s thrilled with it. I can’t recommend it enough if you have a child who likes to listen to their own books, music, etc. It’s screen-free so there is no concern with them stumbling upon something they shouldn’t. I love that I don’t have to worry about anything and I feel completely safe letting her have full control over the player and what she listens to on it. It is 100% a hit in our house.
Wattles and Combs Farm 