If your family enjoys Veggie Tales as much as mine, the heading should sound familiar. If not, well it's what we need to do with our dairy goats anyway. With spring births we are up to a total of 13 goats. One is our buck and 6 are the new kids born this year. There are 5 in milk and one "dating" the buck right now. We hadn't intended to sell any but this year's kids, but with the cost of a bale of hay around $15 we're planning to sell all but 2. We have Alpines and Nubian/Boer crosses and planned to keep one of each, waiting for freshening to see who was the best producer. We knew the top of the herd is Annie, our Alpine. Not only does she consistently produce more, but her teats are actually big enough to handle. All 4 of the others are tiny and it's a challenge to get them milked.
After making the decision to sell, I've also come to the conclusion that I don't particularly care for any of the Nubians we have, but enjoy their richer milk, with cream that rises to the top. I was going to keep the best producer just because, but realized I can sell all but Annie and buy a purebred Nubian and look for teat size FIRST. I've never done that, just bought thru Craigslist and taken what we get.
I'm kind of a geek and have counted how many squirts it takes to milk out a goat. The other day, Annie was roughly 10 squirts to an ounce, whereas the others were about triple that! Three times the work for the same amount of milk! So now the task of finding or taking good pictures of each and listing them for sale. Two are going to be traded for butcher pigs, we just don't know which two yet. Neighbors have the pigs and want goats, we have the goats and want pigs. Sounds like a good trade to me!
This week I'm also focusing on courses from GNOWFGLINS. Goober Gus is at VBS every morning, so I have some uninterrupted time to learn some new kitchen skills. I'm focusing on sourdough this week and am very intrigued by the notion that the souring process and wild yeasts may actually make the grains used healthier. Anyone else familiar with this concept?
This blog is part of the Homestead Barn Hop. Take a look!
It makes sense to go for big teats ... and to select what YOU want, not what's available ... keep looking and don't go for second best ... the one you want is out there waiting for you. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteOk, so i raise dairy goats too and i so know what you mean about ending up with to many, sort of. We eat our "extras". Anyway I was going to point out that for cheese making I have found that the Nubians are great. Because of their high butterfat content you can get twice as much cheese from their gal of milk as you can from say the Saanen. We now have Nubians, Nubian-Saanens (for more milk but higher butter fat) and one goat from fiasco farm who is a LaMancha. Were hoping that by mixing we can get great producers with high butter fat and the wonderful taste of the fiasco farm goats. (our other goats milk is great but I like that slightly sweet taste the fiasco farm goats have.) Oh and are all these ones with small teats first time fresheners? The teats do get bigger with more freshenings. Our goats give between 3/4 gal and 1.5 gal a day and don't take long to milk. About 5-10 per goat depending on how frisky they are that day. We milk them in the house so they like to visit.
ReplyDeleteAlso do you make sure you get CL and CAE free goats? We had a bout with a CL goat we got from craigslist, from people that were well known. We loved that goat dearly and had to put her down. It broke our hearts. So please be careful who you buy from. Having to cull your heard and what not to make sure they are all clean is not fun. We now maintain a closed herd. In case you dunno who fiasco farm is here's their link http://fiascofarm.com/goats/index.htm there's lots of good info there and recipes too! She also sells all natrual stuff for the goats. We love her herbs and is the only person we buy from. Well good luck! I'll be praying God brings you the goat that's just right for you.
All of our goats except 1 are 2nd time fresheners. Teats haven't yet grown. Thanks for sharing the info, been using fiasco's site since we first got goats, very helpful!
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