Just Milk the Damn Goat

Last night was my first solo milking night.  I was really only nervous about finishing one of the goats.  She is generally milked first, so my hands were fresh.  In reading about milking technique I saw someone write, “Just milk the damn goat!”  In other words, don’t get hung up on all the specifics, just milk.  I tried to let that be my mantra.  I’m proud to say I milked her all the way through and only had to give her a couple extra handfuls of food to keep her entertained.  It was quite nerve wracking as she came to the end of her food, knowing that she can get “kicky” when her food runs out.  I squirted myself quite often in my haste to finish her off.  In fact, one leg was almost drenched in milk.  I might have gotten another half a cup of milk if I hadn’t missed the bucket so much.  But I milked the damn goat!  Her milk is now a nice batch of chevre in the fridge.

We got a gallon of milk last night from the 4 goats.  Three are still nursing kids, so the majority came from one goat.  Once the others have weaned their kids will be getting something in the range of 2-3 gallons per milking!  Not sure what we’ll do with all the milk, but I look forward to finding out.

Milking

For the past month or so we have been learning to milk goats.  Who knew it could be so hard!  The actual milking is not hard so much as gaining the speed needed to finish milking before the goat gets finished eating.  With the four goats we milk, only one of our goats is a leisurely eater.  I can almost always beat her to the end.  The other three, however, plow through their meal like it might be their last.  Two of them are nursing kids, thus give less milk on the stand, so I am usually able to finish close to when they finish eating.  The oldest milker in the bunch, and the one with the most milk (no kids nursing), is a super fast eater and tends to be testy once she runs out of food.  I have yet to be able to milk her all the way through; one of the experienced milkers has to finish her for me.

Thursday will be my first time milking on my own – no experienced milker as back up.  I’m not worried about handling the goats; I think I’ve got that down.  I know the routine for milking and feeding.  I can certainly get 3 of the goats milked with no problem.  It’s just the one fast eating goat I’m nervous about.  Right now she’s giving 10-12 cups of milk at a time and with my slowness that’s a lot of repetitive squeezing.  Here’s hoping she eats slowly and my hands have enough endurance!

If you’re interested in how to milk a goat, here’s a great page with step-by-step instructions.  I’ll be studying up before tomorrow!

Goat kids

We have been getting to know some goats, learning to milk and how to care for the animals.  Each of the goats has a unique personality.  The does are all quite friendly, enjoy the human interaction and are generally cooperative with the milking.  I am enjoying getting to know each of the four milkers.  I’ll write more on them and learning to milk another time.

Today I want to write about their kids and one kid in particular.  As we think about having our own goats someday our goal is to be able to get enough milk to provide for all our own dairy needs.  I always knew the goat had to have a kid in order to start lactating, but I guess I never really thought about how that played out in reality.  Each of the four goats we milk has kids.  One had her kids a year ago, was milked through the winter and will be dried off before next winter.  Her kids are not with her.  She will not be milked in the winter, but will be bred and hopefully have kids next spring and  move back into the milking rotation.  The other 3 have given birth in the last few months.  Two of the goats had twins and one had triplets.  So in addition to the 4 milkers, 7 other goats live in this place.  The person who owns the goats started with one goat not too long ago, but you can see how quickly that number can grow.  Theoretically the goats will stay in milk as long as they are being milked, but it is better to “freshen” them every year or two – which means more kids.

Here comes the harsh reality of farm life – something has to be done with the kids.  One option is to keep them and add to your herd, but at some point you reach a limit of how much milk you really need and the financial cost of providing food,  space, and care for goats that may not be producing something for you in return.  A second potion is to try and sell the kids.  American Dairy Goat Association registered doelings can fetch a fairly good price, a doe in milk gets an even better price and each have a fairly good likelihood of finding a new home.  Bucklings, however, are a harder sell.

The third option, then, for animals who can’t be kept or sold is to raise them for meat.  This is what recently happened to one of the bucklings we have been getting to know.  He was never named and we knew from the beginning that would be his fate.  By all accounts he was treated very well.  He stayed with his mother, nursing from her his entire life.  He was not subjected to being disbuded  or otherwise altered like some of his counterparts.  He was quite wild and lived a fairly natural, happy goat life.  He was with his mother until only moments before he met a swift and painless end.  The farmer who “harvested” him approaches the job with a great deal of reverence and gratefulness for the life being taken.  When we saw the farmer later that night, a tenderness and vulnerability permeated the work; it is not an easy thing to take a life.

This weekend we ate some of that goat.  It is the first time I have eaten an animal that I have known.  HB harvested our turkey for Thanksgiving a couple years ago, but I didn’t meet or know that turkey.  It was certainly sobering to be served goat and then to recognize where that goat came from or, rather, who that goat was.  I did feel more grateful; I was more conscious of not wasting.  And yet, it did not feel wrong.  This is the way it ought to be.  If we are to eat meat (and I think we are), then we ought to be more in touch with how that meat comes to us.  Eating meat always means a taking a life.  We don’t like to think about it, but our squeamishness only leads to less humaneness in the process.  Embracing the reality of  killing and processing an animal for meat can lead to a greater respect for the animal and a greater sense of responsibility.

Rabbits and Worms

I had two pet rabbits growing up – a white dwarf named Speedy and a black dwarf named Harley.  Bones’ family kept rabbits that occasionally “disappeared.”  One night she asked why their fried chicken looked different, after that the family stopped keeping rabbits.  I am not opposed to raising rabbits for meat.  For a small homestead trying to be self-sustaining, raising meat rabbits actually makes a lot of sense.  Rabbits are relatively inexpensive to raise and they reproduce like, well… rabbits.  I suspect that our family will raise rabbits for meat one day.  Just not yet.

In January we got two rabbits.  I was very clear that these two are pets.  They came to us already spayed and neutered – one male and one female – Cinnamon and Nutmeg.  I love having them around.  Ella Grace and the kids I nanny very much enjoy feeding them and playing with them during the day.  Nutmeg is especially bonded to me and we both enjoy sitting quietly together while I stroke him.  They live on our back deck in a mansion of an enclosure that also came with them.  Having them has confirmed for me that any animal we intend to raise to be eaten one day cannot live that closely to our house.  I will surely bond with the animal.  We will need a bigger property where livestock can be raised apart from the household giving me some physical and emotional distance.

Their pet status, however, does not mean they do not contribute to the working life of our small homestead.  Cinnamon and Nutmeg produce, prolifically, valuable inputs for our garden and help us reduce our overall waste production.  I give them many of our kitchen scraps – carrot tops, stalks from greens and lettuce, turnip and beet tops, extra herbs and bits of fruit.   Our garden is currently producing far more lettuce and greens than we can eat and the bunnies get all the extra.  When I weed the garden, I keep the weeds I know the bunnies can eat as food for them – grasses, chickweed, henbit, wild strawberries, dandelions and plantain.  The rabbits are happy to consume everything I bring to them, and I am gratified not to waste those scraps.  The rabbits came to us on a strictly pelleted diet and I gradually converted them to a mostly fresh diet.  They still get a small portion of pellets but they primarily eat our scraps and weeds/grasses I gather on our twice daily dog walks.

My system for managing their waste has evolved.  It started with keeping a litter box in their cage that I emptied a couple times a week into a compost bucket.  The rabbits were accustomed to the litter from their previous home.  This was okay at first and not too offensive smelling in the winter, but as the temperature has begun to rise so has the smell.  I tried using more straw for bedding to keep down the odor, but the rabbits scattered it and began pooping everywhere which made a huge mess and smell.  Finally it occurred to me to figure out a way to put worm bins under their cage.  Their cage is 3 levels so I decided to take away the bottom level from their use and stick two bins in for worm composting.  I filled the bins 1/3 full with some wormy dirt and straw.  The rabbits and worms have done the rest of the work for me!  I feed the rabbits on the level directly above the worm bins, since the rabbits seem to do most of their bathrooming while they eat.  Everything falls into the worm bin and the worms graciously turn it into beautiful compost.  Periodically the bins fill up so I partially empty them, take the compost to the garden, and add a few more worms, if needed.  The smell is drastically reduced, I only have to do minimal sweeping of rabbit mess around the cage, and I get a wonderful byproduct in the compost.

Turkey or Tofu

Raised an American omnivore, I grew up eating meat and fish without a thought as to the process by which the animals became my dinner.  At one point, thinking philosophically about my food supply, I had the idea that if I choose to eat animals, I should myself, at least on occasion, kill and prepare an animal. 

When we missed the opportunity to order a heritage breed free range turkey for Thanksgiving, I signed up for a class in turkey butchering.  The cost of the class included a 12 – 15 pound turkey.  The plan for our Heart and Bones Hollow includes raising fowl for eggs and meat.  Would I be able to kill and prepare these birds?  With the class, my philosophy would be put to the test.  If I was not willing to kill a turkey myself, would I continue to be a meat eater?  Would I be having turkey or tofu for Thanksgiving?

We arrived at the farm and, on the gravel lane leading to the farmhouse, got Baby Grace from her car seat so that she could see the piglets in the field along the road.  We met the young farmers and their helpers.  Baby Grace and Karen began their roaming around to see all kinds of animals while I joined the class group for the introductory knife sharpening demo and instruction on how to kill a turkey. 

The farmer emphasized the importance of cutting the arteries on either side of the neck, stopping the blood flow to the brain and causing the turkey to slowly lose consciousness, rather than cutting the windpipe and causing distress.  The farmer spoke in gentle, respectful language about the birds he had seen hatched out on his farm.

When my turn came, I went into the enclosure and, after herding the group back and forth several times, finally pounced on a small turkey hen.  I brought her out and placed her head-down in a cone mounted on the “kill station”.  Tears came to my eyes as I thanked the turkey for her life and drew the knife along the side of her neck.  She died quickly and quietly.  I performed every step in preparing the turkey for cooking.

I can not say that I enjoyed the event, I found it engaging and sacred.  I am still processing all of this.  It will be interesting to feel the emotions next week, when we sit down to the thanks giving meal.

Goat Dreams

Someday we would like to have goats.  We’ve been doing some research on Nigerian Dwarf Goats and debating whether we would be able to get away with having a goat where we currently live.  Unfortunately, the zoning codes where we live do not allow any livestock type animals.  One of our neighbors got in trouble for having chickens and had to get rid of them.  So, I’m not sure we could get away with a goat!  But someday.

In the meantimes, a new community learning garden is opening up down the road from us.  This weekend they brough in a herd of goats to clear the kudzu from the property.  In two days time, the goats have already made a significant dent in the ivy.  To celebrate, the East Lake Communtiy Learning Graden through a fall festival.  Baby Grace got to pet a goat and we took the opportunity to talk to the goat keepers about raising goats.  Just one more step in our dreaming and learning!