Category Archives: goats
Amanda the milk maid
Amanda loves to help with milking the goats.
Making Yogurt
Earlier in the year, our family developed an expensive food habit: yogurt. We were using yogurt on cereal at breakfast, for snacks, in smoothies. In fact, we were easily spending over $60 a month just on yogurt (normally Stonyfield and Chobani). Since we have all our own milk, we decided to start making some yogurt on our own from goat’s milk. It’s very easy.
1. Pasteurize the milk. While we drink it raw, we pasteurize it for yogurt to ensure only the desired culture grows.
2. Add 3-4 tablespoons of plain yogurt from the store per quart of milk. (We tried purchased cultures, but didn’t like the flavor and for the cost, it’s cheaper to just get a little from the store.
3. Pour into pint jars. We sterilize the jars first because when we didn’t, other cultures started to grow after about 3 weeks of storage.
4. Load into Excaliber Dehydrator.
5. Cook at 100F for 6-8 hrs.
6. Refrigerate.
The consistency is much more liquid than store-bought yogurt, similar to European yogurt. Anna is fine with that. I found that it was only a mental issue to get past and now enjoy the yogurt just fine. Alex and Vicki stay away, but they were really only eating the yogurt in smoothies anyways. Amanda will eat whatever Anna and I eat, so she’s happy.
Now selling Equine (and Caprine) Products!
Everyone knows I get very passionate about farming in general, but horses in particular. As my trimming business has been increasing, I find myself constantly talking about the products we like best on our own farm. So, after some discussion, Anna and I have decided to start selling some equine products. The good news is, some of these double as great Caprine (goat) products too! We are now dealers for Easy Care Inc horse hoof boots, Zephyr’s Garden topical horse and dog products, and NibbleNet hay slow feeders. All of these products are items we use on our own farm and can attest to the quality and value. We absolutely love the Zephyr’s Garden products because they are non-toxic, so they are safe for the horses, kids, and goats! Check out our Equine Products page for details!
A lot of Firsts!
Alex had his first horse show at the North Stonington Fair! He rode Precious in 3 walk-trot classes and got 2-4ths and a 3rd. His favorite part? Getting the ribbons.
Vicki had her first horse show at the North Stonington Fair! She rode King in a lead line class, with me as the lead holder. She got third and can’t wait to show more. She is actually ready to show in walk-trot, but Devil needs a little more reovery time first.
Anna had her first student enter a show! Kenzie rode Precious in the lead line class with Vicki. It was also her first show ever and she had a ton of fun!
Since King was already there, I rode him in 5 classes. I managed to get 1st in 2 of the classes and won Grand Champion in the English division.
6 of our rabbits got 1st place in the rabbit show at the North Stonington Fair, and one also got Runner Up for Open Show Champion!
After about a year of owning goats, we finally sold our first goat. That was followed about 30 minutes later with our second and third sales of goats to a different family.
Tomorrow we will have our first goat show! The main focus for tomorrow is to learn about showing and make sure Vicki and Alex have fun doing it.
To the fair!
It’s North Stonington Fair time! This is our first fair experience showing animals. We have been busy for the last few days making final preps. 6 rabbits are about to get delivered to their cages and will stay until Sunday night. The kids get to do unlimited rides tonight.
We will probably go tomorrow evening, but first we will be prepping horses. Saturday morning is the horse show. Vicki will be riding lead line on King since Devil is still not healed enough to show. Alex will be riding Precious, and Anna even has a student riding Precious in the lead line class. This will be Alex and Vicki’s first horse show. I may enter with King if there are other adults showing.
Then, Sunday is the goat show. We are taking 5 goats (2 for Vicki and 3 for Alex). This will be our first goat show!
We have a busy weekend ahead!
Fresh cheese and a movie
Anna and I enjoy sitting down after a long day and enjoying a glass of red wine and some goat cheese. Until recently, we were buying our goat cheese at the grocery store for $5-6 for 4oz! We have finally gotten back into making our own cheese. It is very easy and we use real lemon juice to curdle the milk. After a night of draining in cheese cloth, we salt the cheese, add some fresh garlic, and roll the cheese in fresh herbs. The biggest complication is we will run out of fresh herbs!
Now to sit back and enjoy Pete Ramey teaching about hoof trimming. What else would you watch before bed?
Pasture maintenance in progress
Horses eat grass and leave weeds. Goats eat weeds and leave grass. A little rest from the horses is a perfect time to let the goats clean up the weeds! We recently purchased a large quantity of used Premier electronet fencing for just this purpose. At their initial browse rate, it looks like the weeds will be clear in about 24 hours. Luckily, we are putting up more electronet around an overgrown area of the property for the goats to move to next!
More goats? Sounds good to me
To say this week has been busy is an understatement. I haven’t even had time to write about our newest goat herd additions. Last Sunday afternoon, I drove to New Hampshire to meet Cliff Parker of Longvu Lamanchas. I specifically went to buy Tangueray Texter, a first freshened in milk. She come from a very good pedigree and will help improve our herd. With her coloring, she should make nice babies with Apache, our lamancha buck.
While I was there, I looked at the kids they had, and decided to buy Pocohontas. I love her coloring and she is super friendly. The kids love to play with her.
We have GAS
That’s right, we have Goat Addition Syndrome. You can read more about the affliction on Backyard Herds. In September 2011, we bought our first 2 goats. Right now we have 2 bucks, 6 does (3 in milk – 2 getting milked and 1 with babies), and 4 doelings born this year. Some people would think that 12 goats are enough, but we are only getting about 5-6 quarts of milk a day from the 2 does we are milking. Farrah is either going to kid this week (she is already overdue), or she is very fat and going on a diet. Theoretically, we will sell some goats, but we just haven’t decided which ones yet. We are somewhat attached to our Lamanchas and want to expand on that herd, so that’s why we are going to buy another goat from New Hampshire this weekend. Hopefully by Monday we will be milking 3 does for about 2 gallons of milk a day. That should support the demand for a little while. The kids are capable of eating 2 quarts of ice cream a day, so we make a batch every other day. We actually drink about 3 quarts a day, and the rest will be used for making cheese. If we still have extra, we might raise a veal calf. 13 goats should be enough for a little while. Of course if Farrah really does kid, then it’s more like 15…
Sawyer Farm’s Goldilocks (born 5/18/2012)
Sawyer Farm’s Belle (born 5/18/2012)
