Old Fashioned On Purpose

37. Why We Have Dairy Goats Again After an 8 Year Hiatus

October 30, 2019 Jill Winger
Old Fashioned On Purpose
37. Why We Have Dairy Goats Again After an 8 Year Hiatus
Show Notes Transcript

No, the title isn’t a mistake.  After gaining a reputation online as “the milk cow” girl, once again we have milk goats.  Why do we have milk goats again after all these years?  Our daughter Mesa decided to use some of her fair money to buy two Paper Nigerian Dwarfs.  Listen today to find out why I’m excited to once again have goats on the homestead and what we could be doing with them in the future.  

Some highlights from the episode: 

  • Uses for raw goat milk 
  • How these goats could become a 4-H project 

If homesteading is definitely in your future, head to http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/homedairyrecipes to access my Home Dairy Handbook.  This handbook will allow you to Skip the farm store and make safe, natural products for your milk cows & goats at home.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast. I cannot believe I am saying this, but we have dairy goats again. Now I have developed quite the reputation online as the milk cow girl. So in case you're scratching your head as to why we did this, keep on listening. I'm your host Jill winger. And for the last 10 years I've been helping people who feel a little uninspired by modern life. I'll show you how to leave the rat race and create the life you really want by learning how to grow your own food and master old fashioned skills. So back in the day, let's say about 2010, 2011, we developed quite the herd of dairy goats. In fact, I was so into goats that I wrote all sorts of blog posts about it and ended up having this kind of weird reputation as the goat blogger online. We had Nubians at that point and some of you know the story of how we brought home our first pair of pregnant Nubians when I was pregnant with Mesa, our firstborn, and it kinda kicked off this really important part of our homestead journey and our foray into home dairy. And then in 2011 we brought home our first milk cow, who we still have the famous Oakley and that really marked the end of the goat years. So since then we have kept a few pet goats. They were just kind of remnants that we didn't end up selling that we kept just cause the kids would play with them. But that's pretty much it. And I've written plenty of posts and even recorded podcasts talking about why we chose milk cows over dairy goats. So I've been pretty vocal that I am definitely on the milk cow team, right? Therefore I feel like, Hm, might be eating my words just a little bit and have people wondering what the heck we're doing. Because we brought home some Nigerian dwarf dairy goats a few weeks ago, which I still am a little bit in shock every time I go into the barn and there they are. And we're pulling out our old goat feeders and I'm kind of wishing I hadn't sold the goat milking stand. And here we are, we are officially full circle now. Things are a little different this time around because technically the goats aren't mine. We actually got them as a project for Mesa, our nine year old, she decided to use some of her fair money that she got from selling her market goat and she bought this pair of Nigerians from a local friend. So it was her baby. And I have told her very clearly that it's her responsibility. I've been there, done that. She gets to milk them and take care of them and hopefully I'm picturing in the next couple of years it becoming a little bit of a business for her as she can sell the babies. She'll be bringing in milk for the house and all that good stuff. So their names, I think their names are really cute, but their names are Poppy and that's the mom and the baby is Ingrid. And they are papered Nigerian dwarfs. I still can't get over how small they are, I'm used to the larger Nubians and they are definitely miniature. But they're very cute, very sweet, came from a great herd. Not too far away from us, so I'm really, really excited. Poppy is currently in milk and we ended up actually wanting to get Ingrid her baby with her so Ingrid can help us with the milking responsibilities. We have a couple of trips planned in September and October. Didn't want to have to go find someone to milk for us. So as I've highlighted on the blog, you've heard me talk about it before, we're going to do our 12 hours on 12 hours off when we want to milk and then when we're gone, Ingrid can just stay with Poppy the whole time and keep the milk flowing. So I thought I'd go through a few of the reasons that we made this decision. Um, we're definitely still cow people. We still have our Brown Swiss dairy cows and they aren't going to go anywhere. Will we be milking both at the same time? That I am not sure. So we actually haven't milked Oakley in a while, believe it or not, we um, well this past spring was pretty crazy with the cookbook launching. We had a lot of business products so we did not milk her then and then we kind of missed our sweet spot of the window for breeding her back. So she's bred back now, but that means she won't calve until next May. So we have a pretty decent gap where we will not have cow milk available to us. So I'm really excited to have Poppy's milk fill in those gaps. Okay. So a few of the other reasons that we decided to dive back into dairy goats. So the first one, I think this was the biggest one. They're a great size for Mesa to be able to handle on her own. And that's not to say she can't milk the cows and I think she will be milking the cows sooner versus later, but they're still pretty big and even though Oakley and her offspring are sweet and gentle, they still will whack you with her foot every once in awhile or accidentally step on you or hit you with their tail when you're milking. So I feel like the Nigerian dwarfs are the perfect size. They're not intimidating and they don't have three gallons of milk a day that Mesa has to handle. It's going to be a smaller quantity. So she should feasibly be able to go down to the barn, get them on the stand on her own and go from there. Our second reason, which I think this is more of a side benefit, not necessarily a reason that we got the goats, but Nigerians have really amazing milk. It's very creamy. It's fantastic for making yogurt or Chevre, which is that soft creamy goat cheese. So I'm really excited to incorporate it in our cooking and it's been quite awhile since I've had access to raw goat milk. So I'm excited to see kind of with my more updated culinary skills, what I can do with it because when we had it, you know, eight years ago, I was still really figuring out my way around the kitchen and didn't have a lot of these home dairy recipes figured out yet. Now another big reason, and I don't have definitive proof that this is going to work out, but this is more of a guess on my part. But we recently found out that Christian, my husband is allergic to cow milk, which was a huge disappointment because obviously milk cows a, we love dairy. I cook with cheese and cream all the time. So we did a lot of testing and a lot of eliminations and very begrudgingly came to the conclusion that he cannot tolerate cow milk at this point. The question remains as to whether or not goat milk will be a fit because I've heard of more than a few people who can't do cow milk, but they can do goat milk. So I am hopeful that it could be a good alternative for Christian to have in different baked goods or just to drink plain since cow milk is out of the picture at this point. And then lastly, I'm really excited to explore the possibilities of Mesa doing a dairy goat project. Uh, she's really excited about that possibility. She likes the fact that you don't have to sell the dairy goats at the end of the project. She had a little bit of a hard time this year taking her market goat through the sell ring. I think mostly it was because she doesn't associate goats with meat just because we personally don't eat goats and she's been really, really accepting of us processing her own beef and pork and chicken. But goats are just kind of a new world. So she likes the idea of having goats but not having to sell the goats for meat, so dairy goes fit the bill. Um, and then it's a great 4H project. There's a lot of local dairy goat 4-H club kids and I think it'll be a good learning experience for her. So I'm excited to see where this takes us. I'm also excited this is Mesa's project and not mine cause I feel like I've been there, done that with the goats, but rest assured that I will definitely be taking you along on our new goat journey as it progresses. Now, if home dairy is something that is definitely in your home setting future, grab a copy of my complimentary home dairy handbook. It'll help you skip the farm store and make safe natural products for your cow or goat at home. Go to theprairiehomestead.com/homedairyrecipes to grab it. We'll also drop that link in the show notes and that is it. Thank you so much for listening. If you have a minute, I would be so honored if you'd pop over to iTunes, subscribe and leave a quick review so more people can find this podcast and bring homesteading into their lives. I'll catch up with you next time on the old fashioned on purpose podcast.