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| Ivory has now been renamed Abby by her new owners. |
But, the good news is we sold her to some old friends of ours that we haven't seen in years that are both deaf. Just kidding. Just wanted to see if you're paying attention. They're not deaf, but they did buy the goat. They had a tragic accident at their farm a while back. Their barn burned down, and all of their goats perished. So, they needed a milk goat, we had planned on selling her anyway, they knew the circumstances as to why we were selling her, they were okay with these conditions, so it was a good fit for both of us. And we had a great visit to boot.
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| Copper is still in milk, barely. |
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| One Stripe |
Now we have two adult does, both pregnant. One is in milk, but she is drying up, and the other one is not in milk. What this boils down to, is in a couple of weeks our source of fresh milk will dry up, literally. Somewhere around February 10th we will be back in fresh milk again.
It's really nice to live in a country where I can go to the grocery store and have a choice of skim milk, 1%, 2% or what they call whole milk, that, of course, has been homoginized and pasturized. Seriously, it is nice to be able to buy just about any food item we want or need. As most of you are aware, this situation will someday change. Let's take advantage of the good times we have. We often write about the failures of our garden, because now we can afford to fail. But that may not be the case tomorrow, six months from now or six years from now.
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| Cricket & Lady Bug will miss their mom that left today. |
Back to the goats and the milk. We have two adult does that will be giving us babies, which means we will start having fresh milk again. We have three young does that we will breed November 1st which will give us babies around April. Then we will be flowing in milk. We will have to train the three young ones to milk, and then make the decision who stays and who goes. If things go according to schedule, we will have about 8 to 10 babies. We will evaluate how the new mothers are doing, but will only keep four milkers at the most. This means we will sell one new trained milker, and we will probably have three to four young females to sell. All of the boys, except for the billy, will become next year's meat supply.
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| Penny is our third young doe. |
So that is where we are on the goats right now. We are going to have a dry period with no fresh milk. Now that it is cooled down we need to butcher last year's wethers. And the cycle continues. The goats we keep fit into our scheme of things. The goats we sell, hopefully can benefit some family needing milk. This is what we do. I hope you find this interesting, and I hope you're preparing for what's coming.
We'll talk more later. Frank
Yes I do find it very interesting. I purchase goat milk from a local farmer but would love to have my own dairy goats one day. I don't know if I will be able to manage adding goats to my homestead because my husband works outside the homestead and all the homesteading falls on me or it wouldn't be a homestead. You and Fern are so blessed to be partners in your homestead.
ReplyDeleteShannon, it's good that you have a source for goat milk. If it is possible, you can still make butter, cheese and other assorted milk products. For years, Frank and I both worked off of the homestead, and I do the vast majority of the goat chores. Frank does help, when I need help, but otherwise, I'm the goat lady. Thank you for your comment.
DeleteFern
Interesting info on the goats, I'm not a milk drinker outright but do use it for cooking. I'm lactose intolerant. I use soy milk for cereal. Never tried goats milk nor have I ever eaten goat. Just doesn't appeal to me. On preparing for what's coming, this Ebola thing scares me to no end. The problem with this disease is it's exponential ! And I do not believe we are being told the whole truth by our official scoundrels. So I am hunkering down refraining from crowded places, big stores with lots of traffic and eating out. So be mindful of where you go and what you touch! From N.W Illinois.
ReplyDeleteWe agree about the Ebola issue. The second nurse who contracted Ebola had called the CDC with a fever that did not meet their criteria, and they told her to go ahead and fly anyway. I don't have words to express how I truly feel. It seems that every avenue or venue we look at, our government is doing something that is against the overall good of the people. What is the government's true agenda? Are they wanting a crisis so that some type of Martial Law can be declared?
DeleteAbout goat's milk. Some people that are lactose intolerant can drink goat milk, but then some can't. We cook goat meat just like we do beef and we cannot tell a difference except for the size of the portion. Just food for thought. Once the meat is processed, it's just in a package like beef.
Thank you for your comment, N.W.
Frank
The other choice for not having fresh milk is, of course, doing without. To me it would be the same as eating in season. But I don't drink or use any type of milk.
ReplyDeleteBellen we try to follow the seasonal calendar. When we have an abundance of milk is when we make cheese, butter and other dairy products. That's also when we put away a few gallons of frozen milk. During that time of year, the chickens and the dog get a whole lot more fresh milk or dairy by-products. We had to quit making ice cream for obvious reasons.
DeleteBut, I have not found a way to eat Grape Nuts without milk, and I am a milk drinker. I drink milk everyday, so pretty soon, it will be off to the store. If it gets to the point where I have no milk, and there is none at the store, then I will cut out milk for a while. Thank you for your thoughts.
Frank
Your goat management is so 'sensible'. Not an exciting description but so suitable to what we all need to be. More sensible plans and management. It makes sense to follow the seasons. Our butchering plans revolve around having animals ready to butcher in the fall or early winter when it is colder. Canning and preserving garden produce when it is in season for later use. I am sure your friends who bought Ivory will love her milk!
ReplyDeleteI freeze milk for baking...it seems fine for that but I am not fond of drinking frozen milk either.
God Bless you both.
Hi Fiona, thank you for the thoughtful comment. Our plan is like your plan, we try to do it as the seasons dictate. Butchering is no fun in hot weather, trying to fight a million flies. We try to follow the birthing cycle of Mother Nature. As a general rule, animals don't have babies in the middle of winter. But it doesn't always work out for us. Sometimes the animals have other ideas. Thanks for the comment.
DeleteFrank
I'm so sorry that someone else has gone through a barn fire. It's a terrible terrible thing.
ReplyDeleteI really hate store milk, but we will be buying it soon as well. I use as little as possible during the winter; foods that require lots of milk and eggs are on hold until spring.
Kathi, I can only imagine what a barn fire would be like, and I pray to God that we never have to find out. We don't have electricity to our barn, but it is in our long term plan. Maybe it's a good thing we don't have electricity, I can see multiple possibilities for things not going right.
DeleteIt looks like real soon we will be drinking store bought milk, like it or not. Thanks for sharing.
Frank
When my children were young I stayed home with them and raised goats, chickens, ducks, pigs, and rabbits, all of which the children (age 1-9) and I managed by ourselves. After a divorce I had to go back to an "outside" job and gave up the livestock to keep time for the children. Since the kids are grown and now re-married, I started a few years ago adding livestock to see how working an 8hr/day job and homesteading at the same time would work. I am proud to say I have managed to raise rabbits, chickens, and I added a dairy heifer calf this summer. I garden, can/dehydrate produce and hunt squirrel and deer in season. In my case, adding gradually to the work load helped me adjust and manage,(my hubby does help some). Back to the "milk" part of the topic... I like goat milk but I found those mischievous critters difficult to keep in and being away from the homestead for 9-10 hrs/day I was afraid goats would end up down the road at the neighbor's... so I opted for one large critter (less to keep track of). Oh and a little info about lactose intolerance... there is a protein in milk; this particular protein is either A1 or A2, Goats and a few breeds of cows have A2, Holstein’s (where most of the US milk comes from) is A1. Guess which one is really hard to digest?
ReplyDelete.....A little more food for thought,....
Indiana Jo
Hello Jo. Happy to hear you are back in the animal business. It's interesting though, that you mentioned A1 or A2. A while back I did a post about the different types of animals with A1 or A2 milk. I thought you might find it to be an interesting read. Here is the link.
Deletehttp://thoughtsfromfrankandfern.blogspot.com/2014/05/quality-homegrown-milk.html
We have never had issues with our goats getting out. By the way what kind of dairy cow do you have? Thank you for reading and thank you for the information.
Fern
She is a Brown Swiss mix named "Sugar"...I have only named her, the dog and the cat; the rest are livestock. I'm not sure if she's A2 but she was really cheap at 4 days old. I will probably get her milk tested once she calves in a year or so and hope for the best.
DeleteIndiana Jo
We name all of our animals, quite a few of them have the same name, though. Many are named Frier, some are named Drumstick and the rest are named Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. It will be interesting to find out about your cow. I've mentioned before about a neighbor that bottle fed a Black Angus. Being extremely gentle, when time came, they milked her, and it was excellent milk with a high butter fat content. Good luck.
DeleteFrank