Itty Bitty Hooves

New Pics of Blanche, and Bertha - 5 days old

Since the only pics I had of these two were from right at birth, and even though I tried putting them out with the group in that barn yesterday it didn’t work. Alex is so protective she kept getting into fights with the ‘new’ herd queen Polly (who replaced Savy as boss biddy of the barn) and the others took advantage of Alex’s not paying attention to get pushy with the babies so I put them back in their kidding stall. Today I decided they just had to get out for a bit, so I put the other goats in a big stall for hte morning and let Alex and the kids have the run of the barn. Boy did they take advantage of their newfound freedom. The door on the stall the others was in is just a gate with wire over it, so they could see each other, and stick their heads out in one place and sniff each other. Hoping that in a day or two I can actually have peace in there between them all and the kids and Alex can stay out. But since they were out playing I took a moment to take a few pics of them all up and about now. They are so big, lol, I swear they looked like 2 week olds the day they were born.

This is the two of them with mom

This is Blanche

This is Bertha who decided she was just old enough to figure out ways to make a mess. Since the garbage cans themselves didn’t provide fun (yet), a lid was a perfect playtoy


I had a great shot of the two of the kids playing, but Alex decided I should take a picture of her instead… um, a bit too closely

Polly (in the stall) looking like she wanted to plead that she’d be good if I just let her out.

One final shot, of course they moved right when I snapped, it WAS a cute shot.

Savy Walked The Green Mile

I’ve begun to call the walk to the butcher area ‘the Green Mile’ after one of my favorite movies.

Not too long ago. I got some goat meat from a friend of mine, a leg and some ribs. I slow cooked the leg roast and my son and I had it for dinner one night. Some of it was good–gave a hint as to what goat meat should taste like, very tender, sweet meat–but some was REAL gamey tasting. I had just read the thread on the homestead forum about how different kill methods, stress, illness, etc can do that so I had already primed myself not to judge goat meat by that particular instance, and it was bad enough that if I had I wouldn’t have wanted any more. LOL But I know that lady and although she’s a friend, she really doesn’t have good handling practices or killing skills much less clean butchering skills. And I also know that buckling died of ’something’. So anyway, long story short…

Savvy–the doe who killed her triplets last weekend–entered our freezer this morning…boy that was a chore, she was a BIG goat. LOL However, it wasn’t all that bad either, the worst part was how heavy she was to lift up and hang. We shot her, and we put her legs through the tpost and still had a struggle to hoist her up. haha, but Emily’s post on how to do the job (posted on the http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/ forum) was excellent. I had done plenty of other animals, but never a goat, and never a full-sized adult like that, plus never an animal with an udder before, just like Emily said, it cut right off, I was shocked at how easy it was.

Now, for the final result… Savvy hambugers this afternoon were DELICIOUS. Even past the ’son’ test. (Bobby is really cool about eating our animals and such, but he’s very honest about the taste, and that last goat he said was like licking our big buck’s butt, lol, ewww) but he said this was really good.

The last leg of goat that I got from my friend I put in the slow cooker, and you could even smell the ‘goatiness’ while it was cooking. I have a leg roast in there now from Savvy and it smells delicious. We had it for dinner and it was wonderful. Sweet beef taste.

As of now I say…. anyone who hasn’t tried goat yet–you have got to try goat!

More New Babies!

Well kidding season is off to a really great start now. Our second doe to deliver gave us three—yeah triplets–beautiful girls. Savvy my LaMancha doe had her babies this morning at 6 am. They’re LaMancha/Boer cross. She was a real trooper, didn’t need my help at all (or want it LOL–she’s one of my friendliest does but definately had a ‘don’t touch me’ attitude) she never even laid down, not once. Just dropped each of them on their little heads as she squatted and dumped. Here are some pics taken right after their birth. I should probably wait to take pics until they’re all dry and all but I never can. LOL One thing’s for sure, Savvy has plenty of milk. She’s a great milker anyway, although I’m not doing that this year, but she was giving a gallon and a half last year. I took a cupful off of her this morning and syringed the kids because they were having a dickens of a time getting at those huge teats that were so low. Finally after giving them their little ‘boost’ they got in and figured out how to get low enough to grab onto those huge teats.

Here they are:

2 of the doelings, the other had walked over to mom and out of the shot just when I snapped

A close up to show the itty bitty elf ears. LOL

All three and mom.

Trying to get up close to show off their cute little heads.

Goaty Milk

With all of the commotion I almost forgot to take the morning’s milk out of the freezer. One of the problems with goat’s milk vs cow’s milk is that goat’s milk is much more delicate. It will last almost as long as cow’s milk will if it’s handled properly, but if not, it will go ‘goaty’ long before it goes ’sour’. To keep goat’s milk from tasting like you’re licking the behind of a big old buck, it must be cooled very quickly after milking. When it comes out of the goat it’s about 101 degrees. The best way I’ve found to easily cool it is to strain it into quart jars and put it in the freezer. Circulating cold air would be even better, but most of us don’t have such a contraption. You can make them. People who love wine have a machine that will chill a bottle of wine in just a few seconds using forced cold air. I’ve seen the plans to make the machine and if I had lots of milk to chill quickly I’d invest in the parts to make it, but for just a few quarts a day it is just as easy to pop it in the freezer. I just have to remember to take it out.

Frozen milk is okay to still use, it just tastes less creamy. Something about freezing the milk dilutes the cream. Some say that if the milk goes ‘goaty’ you can put it in the freezer and freeze it then thaw and the ‘taste’ will go away. I haven’t tried that yet, but it’s a good tip to try.

Cheese without the problems

Well, I made cottage cheese today and it turned out perfectly just like before. I had begun to fear making cheese after the last several ruined attempts (although they were mozzerella). I was wondering if it was the milk itself. Apparently not. I fought to believe it wasn’t because the milk tasted just fine before making the cheese with it, but it had to be something. I have yet to figure out what is going on with my mozzerella technique. It used to be my favorite cheese to make, and I’d always called it the easiest ‘hard’ cheese to make. I am very grateful my cottage cheese turned out so well, and so creamy, sweet, and rich tasting. I’ll figure out the other problem sooner or later,.. but at least I know the soft cheeses should be fine.

Playing With Cheese

Well wish me luck, I have a pot of mozzerella sitting again right now. I’m HOPING I figured out what I’ve been doing wrong. I think I killed the rennet by not using cold enough water to disolve it, and the ‘goaty’ taste could have been from using too much citric acid. I do know I threw in a ‘little extra’ citric acid because I wanted to be SURE the cheese would be stretchy. I guess I’ll have to quit that ‘adjusting’ things as I go — at least for a while. It’s hard though because I always cook like that. I tend to follow the directions as long as it suits me, and then change things to my liking. I forgot the first rule of ‘adjustment’ cooking though–always be completely comfortable, and sure of the recipe itself before you go playing with it.

First Timer Milker

Well it’s official, milking is just killing my hands. It’s to the point that even four naprosen can’t keep me from waking up in the middle of the night with hands on fire, swollen, and numb all at the same time. I think it’s the milking the first freshener. Polly’s teats are so small. Most anyone who’s had dairy goats for any length of time knows about the ‘two-finger’ teats that most first-fresheners have. They’re a pain to say the least. Usually the does are a pain-in-the-rear too because they don’t understand the rules. They don’t know their job yet. Their job is to stand quietly and eat their grain while they’re being milked.

Well Polly has her job down pat. She does it like a pro. I’m very proud of her and the way she acts as a first timer. I’ll even give myself a little pat on the back for teaching her well in the last few months prior to freshening by feeding her twice a day on the stand and touching her all over as she ate, although for the way she acted at those times I thought for sure it was going to be rodeo time when it actually came to milking. Nope. As soon as she kidded she decided I was one of the kids. Probably since I was right there behind her pulling the little doeling out. LOL She even let me milk her right in her stall for the first day and licked my cheek as I did.

Now if only her teats would grow to normal length so it didn’t destroy my hands.

Well… I did it.

Yes I bought another goat.

After the really hard delivery by Polly my Alpine last Sunday and talking to some people, I’d decided I really wanted to breed her to a dairy buck once more and see how it went delivery wise before taking a chance on breeding her to my big Boer. I know from his previous owner, and having seen one of the little does who had delivered a couple of his kids that it probably would be okay to breed him to her, but why take a chance? Maybe she is just gonig to give me those types of problems. I also have two really small dairy kids that I’d like to breed one time before breeding them to Mickey. So I talked to Bob and he agreed. I was going to just look for a little dairy buckling that I could breed this fall to the girls and then put in the freezer… Bob said why do that? I get such a kick out of him. He said why not find one you like and we’ll keep him. We have enough does to give him a couple each year. Maybe let him do all the first fresheners just in case.

So without any trouble at all, a beautiful little Nubian buckling just popped up. He’s in Ohio so I have to travel a bit to get him but he’s gorgeous. I can’t wait. They call him ‘Inky’ but I think I’ll call him Apollo.

Here are a couple of pics of him that the breeder sent me.

Changes, changes… always changes.

Well, I’m down to milking one doe a day right now. Well one and a half if you count that I’m milking a little of the colustrum off of my newly freshened Alpine because just the one kid isn’t drinking all she’s making, but I’m not putting her on the stand just yet. Just taking the pressure off. I dried off my LaMancha though and put her in with our Boer buck. I think I’m going to keep her on the meat production side. She gave good tasting milk, just not enough of it to justify keeping her in the dairy herd. She’s a real sweetheart though. She seems to be adjusting well to the change over to the new pen and her new pen mates. She’s a real bossy girl and I didn’t expect her to have much problem. I think my other dairy girls are kind of relieved to have the old bossy biddy in a different area. haha.

Cheese Problems again

Okay, I am seriously wondering what is going on with my cheese this last week. The batch of Mozzerella didn’t work yesterday either. I know I did all the steps right this time, so I’m wondering if it’s the liquid rennet I’m using, perhaps it’s too old. It shouldn’t be though, or the milk itself. Something is definately up with that though. If anyone reading this has had similar problems–the milk tastes fine, when I try to make the cheese it seperates whey from solid BUT the solid doesn’t firm up at all. It’s like a milkshake consistancy inside the whey.