I’ve written quite a lot about how much I love having dairy goats. They’re such a great addition to a small homestead. Ornery sure, but small, and easy to deal with on the whole, and they produce more than enough milk for one family. Perfect for me as a mom with small children whom I don’t want to Keep Reading
Dairy
Raising dairy goats has been one of my favorite things about our lives on the farm. When I started out on my quest for a business I could run from home, I turned to the idea of milking goats because a) I’ve always loved goats and b) I love their milk!
I started my search for a milking goat online because the two goats we had were dried up (not producing milk.) It was a difficult search but eventually I found Sage who was the perfect dairy goat. Over the time of my goat milking business I learned a lot of important lessons.
When you have dairy animals you end up with a lot of milk! For me, that has meant one thing: value added products! I have learned how to make goat cheese, goat yogurt and even goat butter. I think my goat cheese recipe, featured here, is one of the best. And I’ve perfected the art of yogurt, so read on for the best yogurt recipe!
What Do You Need To Get Started With Dairy Goats?
I’m a strong advocate of the family dairy animal. Milk cows are great, of course, but let’s be honest, cows are a huge undertaking. A goat isn’t as big of a leap because they’re not any bigger than a large dog. Or you could get a Nigerian dwarf, and they’re not any bigger than a small Keep Reading
My Dairy Goat Adventures: Part 5 Business Lessons
Welcome to our last installment of My Dairy Goat Adventures! If you’re new to the series, click here to get up to speed! In our first year of “commercial” dairying, I wasn’t really sure how to handle things, and was glad that a few of our customers were also friends who could give us feedback Keep Reading
My Dairy Goat Adventures: part 4 Finally Home
Welcome back to My Dairy Goat Adventures! If this is your first time around, click here, and here, and here to get up to speed on the series. When we got Sage home, I immediately tied her to a picket line in the yard. The farmette she had come from didn’t have any grass, so she was absolutely Keep Reading
My Dairy Goat Adventures: part 3 Finding “The One”
Welcome to part 3 of My Dairy Goat Adventures! If you missed them, click the links to catch up on part one, and part two. Once again I was stalled. I finally had an appointment to go see a goat who just seemed so perfect, and the truck broke down. That’s it, I said. No goat for me. It’s Keep Reading
My Dairy Goat Adventures
Hey all! I’m excited to be sharing a series of article detailing my endeavors into the dairy goat business starting today! Let’s get with it, shall we? Just shy of a year ago, I had a few hundred dollars I wanted to invest into our farm business. There I was, pregnant, and not feeling Keep Reading
Homemade Yogurt Troubleshooting Guide
If you've ever had a problem with this yogurt, this homemade yogurt troubleshooting guide is for you! Once you learn what can cause problems, it's so much easier to avoid them in the future! I love yogurt! Our goats were dry for a few months during the winter, but guess what?! All but one of them Keep Reading
Mozzarella Making, A Cheesy Tutorial
Yes, I know it’s a cheesy title, but I couldn’t help myself. When I was a kid, and we got our first milk cow, I was so excited to try my hand at cheese making! But, like I said, I was a kid, and not a very experienced cook. My first attempts were something of a disaster, but I finally found a Keep Reading
Goat Butter; Good Things Come In Small Quantities
You’ve probably heard that it’s difficutl to make butter with goat milk. Well, I don’t know if dificult is the right word, but goats sure don’t produce a lot of cream, so there’s no way we could make enough to cover our family’s needs. Still, as long as we’ve got the milk, we might as well make Keep Reading
Farm Life: Goat Weaning
Weaning is never pleasant for anyone involved. For the kid, well, he thinks it’s the end of the world at first. After all, he’s never been more than a few feet away from his mother during his short lifetime. A fact that is very handy for me. If he wasn’t in the habit of following Cinnamon around Keep Reading