Goats

Our first animals were our chickens. Next came the goats - and if you have a few - you will soon have many. They multiply like crazy.

We have a few small pygmy goats that are very friendly and sweet. We also have the big Saneen Dairy goats who are more delicate to weather and diet.

The pygmy goats don't give much milk and aren't for breeding. The Saneen on the other hand, will put out nearly a gallon of milk in the morning and half as much in the late afternoon - each.

The goat milk is key to starting off the kids of course - but also get the young hatchlings off to a great start as well as give us all the milk and goat cheese we want.

When you buy milk in the store, it has been homogenized. This means they beat the milk molecules down in order to stablize it (keep the cream from rising). Some people argue that homogenized milk acts like a sand blaster to the arties and is part of the reason there is so much heart disease.

Some of our milk gets pasturized which means it is heated to kill any bacteria. Even though we have a process where the tempurature is risen slowly, some people find this objectionable but we do it for saftey, not uniformity of product.

Actually, we find a lot of variation in the taste of our milk from week to week as the goats graze diffent fields and brush. A few days after they have taken down the raspberry canes, you can taste a slight raspberry flavor in the milk. Same goes for giving the girls oats or beet tops - it gives the milk a flavor.

A word about goats - they can be trained to haul a cart. The big Kiko goats or the Saneen billies are best suited to this work.