What do we do with all the goat milk?

I work full time as a realtor on Whidbey Island, part time as a self-employed landscaper/arborist (I am an ISA certified arborist) and part-time as a farmer. So what do I do with all of the milk our girls produce? I don’t have the time to make complicated aged cheeses but we do several things.

Currently I am milking the goats once per day – mornings – and allow the kids free choice of milk from their mothers and grain/alfalfa. I am getting about one gallon of milk a day from them, and this adds up quickly.

The easiest product to make is kefir. Kefir is a probiotic drink made by adding fresh milk to live kefir grains, letting it stand on the kitchen counter at room temperature for 24 hours. I then strain out the kefir grains saving them in the refrigerator until needed again. I usually make three quarts at a time. Kefir is known as the champagne of milk as in the process alcohol is made and gives the drink a sparkle. Add a little sugar and fruit and you have something wonderful. My wife and I use it like milk in our morning cereal. Good for you and it tastes wonderful.

Yogurt is easy to make and I love it, again added to my morning cereal. I don’t like to add powdered milk, so my yogurt comes out thin. After 24 hours or so in the two-quart yogurt maker, I pour it through a cheese cloth and hang it for eight hours, the end product a very thick yogurt. I LOVE it!

Our next staple food from goat milk is Panir. This is by far the easiest cheese to make. I heat up one gallon of milk to 195 degrees F. on the stove and keep it between 190 and 195 for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. I then add a couple of “gulps” of vinegar. The milk solids separate from the whey and I run this through a cheese cloth and hang it for two or three hours. The result is a solid ball of cheese. Panir does not melt when you heat it. I cut it into cubes and use it in stir fries. Panir will pick up the flavors of what you cook it in. Any recipe that calls for tofu you can use Panir in. Panir will also freeze very well and can be used during the winter when we don’t have any fresh goat milk. I usually prepare it by cutting it into cubes of about 1-inch by 1/2-inch, coating it with olive oil, pepper oil, soy sauce and Worchester sauce and broiling it on a mid-rack in the oven.

I make a Chevre cheese that I add to my lunch every day. Chevre is made by heating a gallon of milk to 86 degrees F., adding a culture and letting it set in a warm place for 24 hours, and then draining it in cheese cloth for 12 hours.

I’ve been working on making feta cheese; it’s a little more work but when it comes out good it’s wonderful. My last batch came out a little moist so next time I’ll drain it for a couple of hours more.

This morning I made custard for the first time. Four duck eggs, one quart of fresh goat milk, ½ cup raw sugar and a little salt and vanilla – bake for an hour.

USDA and the Family Farm

In late December 2009 I discovered that the USDA was giving grants to farms for a high tunnel. What is a high tunnel? This is from my application:

“Farming in a high tunnel will increase our yield of warm weather crops allowing us to bring to the local market organic produce that is normally not available from local farmers. The High Tunnel will also extend the growing season by about 2 weeks in the spring and 2 weeks in the fall. The High Tunnel is an unheated greenhouse that uses the sun for heat and natural breezes for cooling. In the process of producing fresh vegetables and fruit to take to market, our goals are to (1) reduce water usage, (2) reduce nutrient loading to ground and/or surface water, and (3) improve soil tilth and soil quality related to improved productivity.”

Yesterday I talked to a person at the Mt. Vernon office of the USDA. They have finally come up with a price per square foot of $2.97 for new farmers (farming less than 10 years which includes us). Our proposal is for a high tunnel of 20’ wide and 96’ feet long. This would cover about 90% of our costs to construct one. The USDA uses a ranking system of points to determine who gets a grant. What I discovered yesterday was farms with additional “critical” needs get more points. I think they are using the “gift” of a high tunnel as the carrot to get farmers to correct other problems.

We have three USDA critical needs (problems): (1) water runoff problems from the 60 acres above us that has been clear-cut to build view homes; (2) lack of pollinators; and (3) noxious weed problems, specifically Canada thistle.

When we have a heavy rainfall of ½ inch or more within a 24 hour period the water that appears becomes extreme. We end up with a pond by our garden and a fast moving stream through our garden into the blueberry area. Their idea is to help (design and fund?) us create a swell that is planted in native grasses and shrubs that will slow down this water movement and allow the water to enter the water table without moving through our property.
Our second problem, as is a concern throughout the world, is a declining population of pollinators. We normally rely on the native bumblebee for most of our pollinating. Some years we have millions of them swarming through our property. To a lesser extent is the honeybee. I don’t know of any beekeepers within two miles of our farm but this spring we have been visited by them early, covering our plum and apricot trees. I have not noticed many bumblebees this spring and that concerns us. The USDA wants us to create a native bee habitat, probably as part of the plantings for water control.

The third major problem we have is a noxious weed known as Canada thistle, Cirsium arvense. The root system in this plant is extensive, going down to 3.5 feet. In our garden it comes up out of the hard pan and I have had no luck digging it out. Being an organic farmer does not allow me to use the strong chemicals that could be used to kill it so we have to come up with another solution. I explained to the USDA person how we are controlling Tansy ragwort by introducing a moth that lays eggs on the plants, with a caterpillar hatching that eats the plant. We have controlled over 90% of the Tansy on our property. Is there a bug that can kill the thistle? I have heard there is one.

The New Goat Herd

What a whirlwind the past two weeks have been!  It started with Nettle giving birth to two boys along with all of the problems of holding her feet down so the little ones could eat, latter her killing one of her kids, Zoe having two boys and a girl, Surely giving birth to three kids (two girls and one boy) and Alure having two girls.

Surely’s delivery was very difficult.  She was in labor for five hours, less than one is normal.  We called a friend and neighbor who has raised goats for years and she came over to help.  Reaching inside, Stacy tried to arrange the kids who were all tangled up but couldn’t do it.  At 2 am we called in the vet, expecting the kids to be dead but hoping to save the mother.  Surely is our prized goat, the leader of our herd, a wonderful mother and a great milker (five quarts a day when four is considered excellent for a Nubian).  When the vet pulled the first one out and she was alive we were stunned and thrilled.

Last fall we rented a buck and not having a separate buck area let him run with the herd.  What a mistake!  We now have a separate area and will keep our bucks separate from the herd.  This fall we would like to breed one goat per month, spacing them out will give us a longer milk flow and make it so much easier on me as to kidding.

Our future goat herd will consist on Surely, Alure and one each of their new girl kids.  We named Alure’s girl Chocolate – or Choc-ie for short.  Surely’s little girl is not named yet.  We will also keep Surely’s little boy as one of our future bucks  – Snow Shoe (he has white feet), aka Snowy.  We are trading Surely and Alure’s other two doelings for a Boer buckling.  With our future goat herd established we will be breeding for meat.

Nettle is doing better

Nettle kidded Monday evening, so it has now been three nights I have been getting up at 11 pm and 4 am to feed the kids. Nettle now allows the kids to nurse if I give her a bucket of grain, so other than getting up and going to the barn, it has become easy.

My daughter Eleni is a bank examiner for the State of Washington and travels a lot for her work. This week she was working with a team at a bank near the Clinton – Mukilteo ferry terminal so she and her daughter stayed with us Sunday through Tuesday. My granddaughter Olive is 20 months old and I took two days off from my real estate practice to care for her. She came to the barn with me several times to feed the goats – standing there and pointing at Nettle and saying “goat!” We had sunny weather with highs about 50 so we also spent some time with the chickens. We have 12 laying hens and one rooster (Rocky), 11 ducks and two geese in the yard. Rocky would crow and Olive’s eyes would get huge. Oh how fun it is!

New Kid Goats

Yesterday I checked on the goats about every three hours – after dinner I went to the barn and looked over the gate – three goats and the dog.  I found Nettle inside the barn with two newborn little boys.  Nettle is one that doesn’t like to be touched.  Once when trimming her hoofs she kicked me in the lip.  Most goats will let you do anything you want to them if you put them on the milking stand and give them some grain – grain whores.  Nettle is the exception.

I took the kids and Nettle into one of the birthing rooms and gave her some grain.  My next job is to put the kids up to the teat and get them nursing.  Some people bottle feed but who wants to go up to the barn every two hours?  Not I!  But Nettle would not let the kids nurse, kicking her hind legs and jumping all around.  I then put her in the milk stand and it took all of my strength to hold her lets down while Pam got some of her milk into a bottle. 

It was about 34 degrees outside; the kids were hungry and cold.  We wrapped them in towels and bottle fed them under a heat lamb.  I went back out about 11 pm and put Nettle on the milk stand again, held down her legs and let the babies nurse.  She still didn’t like it but that was better than using a bottle.  3 am I made another trip to the barn and went through the process once again.  By 3 am the new kids were dry and warm.

What to do now?  I have my 18 month old granddaughter, Olive, today, so it will be interesting.  I’m thinking of moving a lawn chair in the barn and bottle feed the kids.  Oh my, I’m tired and my head hurts!

Life in the Barn at the Hidden Egg Farm

We have four goats ready to give birth – who will be first? The ideal way to breed your goat is to have the buck on site behind a common fence. When the girl goes into heat they will be at the common fence and will know. You bring in the buck you want to breed the girl and log the date. Surely always gives birth exactly five months from breeding. Last year we didn’t have a buck area fenced off so our buck ran with the girls. I witnessed Surely’s breeding and her due date is Thursday, February 11th. This morning (Monday, February 8th) she was discharging mucus and her utter is huge, so I know she is close. I didn’t witness Zoe’s breeding, and her utter is also huge, but no discharge this morning. Nettle and Alure are both first timers so they have smaller utters, but both are “bagging up”.

Saturday I completed a new electrical fence cutting the pasture in half. We have an old structure in that area and it will become our buck house in the new buck yard. We want to keep two of our buck kids this year and will move them into the new yard at three months. The plan is to keep one of Surely’s and one from Alure. If they don’t throw any bucks this year we have been offered one from a friend's herd. In that case we will keep on of Nettle’s or Zoe’s buck kids but wether them.

We received four new barn cats two weeks ago from a rescue organization and they have been living in two large cages in our barn loft. We released them yesterday – organic rodent control. Three years ago we place five in our barn, one ran off as soon as we opened the cages, two disappeared within six months and two stayed in the barn until they died a couple of months ago. We think they were quite old. This morning all four we still in the loft. We’ll see how it goes this time.

Our ducks have begun to lay eggs – I found six Saturday under the goose house. Unlike chickens, ducks like to find hidden areas to lay eggs. If we find the spot before they get too many eggs laid (usually 10 to 15) they will keep laying, always looking for a new spot. If we don’t find the nest they will become broody and hatch them. Last year we hatched out about 70 ducklings. Sold most of them for $4 to $5 each. We kept four of the girls to replace some losses we had and have five of the males (drakes) that we will butcher in another week. Muscovy ducks are good layers and the boys grow huge and are good meat ducks.

Our Goat Herd

Our goat herd consists of four pure bred Nubian dairy goats. We started three years ago with Zoe and Lilly purchased from a farmer in Oak Harbor. We asked if they were CAE free, and she said yes. We failed to ask if she had them tested. Toward the end of that year we had some concerns about the quality of care this farmer was giving her animals and had the local vet test for CAE. Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE) is a virus that affects goats in multiple ways. Most often characterized by big knees, the virus also does irreparable damage to the lungs as well and affects the immune system leaving the goat defenseless against most common ailments. CAE is the bane of many goat producers and much emphasis is placed on raising "CAE free" goats.

The tests came back positive for Lilly and negative on Zoe. None of the local breeders will allow their bucks to visit CAE positive goats so we made the decision to put Lilly down. We then purchased Surely, a CAE free and CAE tested goat from a well known breeder. Surely is currently three years old just completing her second year of being milked. We purchased her from Kim Puzio of My-Enchanted-Acres Dairy Goats in Snohomish Washington in the spring of 2008.

Their goal in breading is to "create a combination that produces a style of strong, powerful, elegant animals who pulls it all together in the milk parlor and show arena."

We don't show our goats but understand how important it is to start with the highest quality stock. Surely produced 5 quarts of milk each day at her peak this last year - that being once we weaned her kid this last spring. She is long legged and the current leader of the herd. Very intelligent and affectionate, she is truly our favorite. Surely was bred to Monty My-Enchanted-Acres last fall and we expect her to kid on the 11th of February.

Zoe is still with us.  She is pure bred but not registered.  The first year we had her, her milk production was about ½ gallon per day.  We bred her that fall and kept her doe kid, Nettle.  Zoe is an ok milk producer, giving us 3 quarts per day.  Her teats are huge and she is so easy to milk, but Pam and I are planning on selling her and Nettle this fall if we get a girl kid from Surely and Alure.  Nettle was bred for the first time this last fall and will birth this spring.