[Lesley Silvester]

Naturally enough I say go for goats.  They aren't that expensive to feed.  I reckon it costs about £13 a week to feed my three but they are yarded so have root veg and extra hay.  If I was milking all three (difficult as one is a boy) I would get more than enough milk to make cheese, yoghurt, butter as well as milk. Probably two would be enough as there'sonly two of us. I did have a go at hard cheese but it wasn't a success because I didn't have anywhere cool to leave it while it was maturing.  Soft cheesemaking is a doddle as it yoghurt.

Oops make that £13 a month plus hay at £4 a bale using about bale and a half a week.  Really shouldn't do calculations at gone 2 in the morning.

[SallyintNorth]

LOL I think so. I always call them 'little farmers bales' because that's what they look like to me but someone passing the other day mentioned they were hestons which I'd never even heard of!

Apparently 'Hesston' is the make of the balers that made the bigger (8' long and bigger) bales, and the name just transferred to the bales.  Now, clearly, people just use it to mean 'oblong' rather than 'round'.

[plumseverywhere]

ahhhh that makes sense then.

[little blue]

I think of them as "square bales"  ... knowing full well they are oblong!!

[Anke]

I have been mulling over a reply for most of the day...

If you have a full(?)time job and run a veg/fruit/eggs/meat producing smallholding already I would think you just haven't got enough hours in the day to a)look after goats (milking, feeding etc) twice a day, and b) make good use of the milk produced.

A good quality goat gives about 6 ltrs per day at peak lactation (2ltrs go to each kid for about 4 months), even in midwinter you will still get about 3ltrs of milk per goat. To get a good allyear round milk supply it would be advisable to have two females and kid them alternate years. That means you have a lot of milk for about 10 months, and then one of them is dry for the last two months of her pregnany. A good goat can milk for more than two years, but it could be more difficult to get them back into kid if they have been empty for a long time.

So even in midwinter you will have to get "rid" of about 5 ltrs of milk per day from two goats. Making one lot of hard cheese takes most of the day, and you have to be around to check on it, do the next stage etc - I have found it difficult to do other jobs in parallel, but maybe I am too much of a scatterbrain.... Soft cheeses are easier, can be done overnight, then dried during the day, also easy is yoghurt (quite runny, but very tasty). In order to make butter from goats milk you will need a cream separator, they are about 100pounds from the Ukraine. Washing up all the bits and bobs for it takes quite a while. If your milk is about, say 4.5% butter fat and butter is about 80% fat then you get about 55g of butter per litre of milk. You will need a disposal strategy for the remaining skimmed milk... pigs come to mind.

I milk (at the moment) 3 goats (1 GG, and two BT) and have about 6.5ltrs of milk per day. We buzz the separator into action every three to four milkings, and I also make quite a bit of cheese (about one hardcheese from 4.5ltrs per week, also haloumi, garlic soft cheese, quark etc). I also feed a couple of weaners. I make butter and icecream from the cream (and being continental have cream in my decadent coffee...) - and yes we are self-sufficient in dairy. (except a wee pot of Yeo to kickstart the yoghurt every so often and some cheap cheddar to melt on maccaroneí cheese )

However I spend about 45 minutes in the goatshed in the morning, same again in the evening, mine also get a lunchtime snack. As I am at home during the day I can let them out (and quickly back again in the rain) when I am around. I also go and cut branches for them from about late May until the leaves are off, usually once a day. Due to hay shortage last summer ours had freshly scythed grass (my OH's first job every other evening when he came home from his office job/1.5 hours commute) from about May until October.

You will need a relief milker - or a milking machine. (My OH doesn't do hand-milking and neither are my wrists anymore, so we went and bought a milking machine - 1500 pounds, but IMO money well spent).

There are quite a few start-up costs - goathouse, fencing, feeding equipment, goats (it does pay to buy BGS registered goats, so you can make an educated guess at their milk production capabilities and sell quality offspring). A livestock trailer is not essential, but being able to borrow one is. Goats come into season quite visibly/audibly and will need to be mated within the next 36hours, so flexibility in just being able to drive them to the (previously planned and informed) billy is also necessary.

Ongoing costs are: feed (hay, dairy nuts etc), vets (not often but if yes than it gets quickly expensive), annual CAE tests, vaccination every six months, worming and (in my case) annual de-lousing. Hay is a worry most years, our bales this year are 4 pounds for the normal small ones, and my 7 goats go through a bale every two days. If they are not lactating they will be ok on mainly hay and only a handful of concentrates, if in milk you have to feed according to milk yield, in late pregnancy feeding up to make sure kid(s) is growing... so it pays to have them in milk as long as possible.

I am curently writing up all my costs and hope to be able to claclulate how much our milk is per litre - or maybe I don't want to do that...

Quality wise it's a no-brainer, we do not pasteurise our milk, and the ice cream alone is worth it! But my vegetable garden has suffered quite alot in the last two years (I also have sheep, hens, a couple of weaners most years, meat poultry on one kind or another... and two children that need to be driven to/from school).

So, food for thought for 2012 - but I wouldn't do without my goats anymore (I have started to show and now pedigree breed....they are very addictive!)

[Bright Raven]

Wow! I am amazed and overwhelmed by the quality, depth and passion in the replies given. You are all  inspiring me to go ahead with this project. BUT it is clear that I need to do a lot of groundwork and planning first. Most of my animals are fairly low maintenance (in a rolling maintenance sort of way) and as a teacher I do have good long holidays to work in. My hubby tinkers at home (in a building arks, digging, doing fencing, fetching and carrying and sawing up wood sort of way ) and does the smallholding jobs that do not involve poo .  He loves the animals so. I am sure he would take to goats very easily. At the moment we have 7 Suffolk sheep (one has just gone in the freezer  ) I have one Ram (Rodney the Suffolk) and I hope the four ewes will all lamb in February half term. I did give Rodney a calendar and some very clear instructions.
So far it had not occured to me to try and milk my girls, I am sure that Dai - who is a five year old welsh x who is astute and sagacious won't let me anywhere near her. She is a brilliant mum and very protective. I have never tried to milk them but I will this year. So step I will be to find my old crash helmet and have a go. Even if I could make a little soft sheep's cheese I would be happy, perhaps Milly and Fluff will be compliant for me - they will be first time mums.  Step 2 needs to be to find a supplier of goats milk in Shropshire and have a go at making some goat butter and cheese to see if we like it and if I can make it. I am lactose intolerant and have been a bit reluctant to try super store goat milk. It would be daft to go ahead if it re-awakens my IBS. I have only used soya milk on my cereal and in my tea for over ten years now. No problems with cheese and butter  (including farm store goats cheese and butter which has been really yummy  )
Perhaps this year I should experiment with some cheese making with goat milk sourced locally to see if I can learn some skills ahead of taking on the goats. 6 liters at peak lactation is a lot of milk! You must be very well organised and canny to cope with it all I love the idea of making soaps - the less I buy from Tesco the happier I am. Giving milk back to the pigs is a winner. Pigs are fantastic converters  brilliant I love pigs, but the feed bills have been a bit scary over the last year, we will have to grow more of our own pig food next year, milk would be a great supplement.


My small farmers bails are at £3 this year from a local old boy who cuts very good quality hay and I store them in the trailer as there is no where else for them to go. My seven sheep are getting through one every three days.  The feeding costs look similar to my sheep so at least I can calculate for that. As for finding a compliant billy when the girls are in heat...... my goodness I had no idea! 36 hours to get organised is not long at all, I know a lady in North Shropshire (Sandcroft Goatherd) who could advise me and help me to find stock and a billy as required. I went to visit her two years ago and was really impressed with her set up. I did however come away feeling that goats are the animals with Emotional Behavioral Issues in the farmyard. I loved her Anglo Nubian's they were real beauties and they looked very naughty.

Oooh you have all really spured me on to find out more. I will have a look on the processing forum to check out butter and cheese making. Thanks everyone 

[Black Raven]

Anglo Nubians are brilliant goats and yes they are naughty. I used to handmilk 16 of them when a friend was on hol.

[plumseverywhere]

A friend has AN's - they really keep her on her toes!! I think my saanenX has a bit of AN in her because she is full of mischief    The Togg's I have are very well behaved in contrast!

[Lesley Silvester]

I'll admit I could be a bit biased but you can't beat Sanaans for placid, affectionate animals.  Togs come a close second.  Having had some experience of Alpines I would steer well clear.  Houdini has nothing on them and they are very boisterous.  Curry is half BA and boy don't I know it.  As you are in Shropshire, you are welcome to come and meet my girls some time.

[Bright Raven]

Thanks, that would be perfect, I would love to visit with hubby and Freddie (age 6) sometime in the new year. It is always a good idea to work out what you are getting in to before you strike out into a new venture. 

[Black Raven]

I'm going to go all romantic-ish now  I can say hand on heart there is nothing like spending a winters morning  sitting on the milking stool with your head resting on the flank of a Saanen while you milk away. My old Lurcher girl used to come with me when I milked Betty and she would stand ready for when I fired the milk out for her to catch  It's enough to make you forget about all the mud 

[Bright Raven]

If the smell of warm goat is that good perhaps there is a marketing opportunity for a new perfume? Eau du Caprica for romantics or Goatcci for the fashion conscious.

[SallyintNorth]

If the smell of warm goat is that good perhaps there is a marketing opportunity for a new perfume? Eau du Caprica for romantics or Goatcci for the fashion conscious.

Ahh, there's a scent about a Jersey in milk, nothing else is exactly like it.  It sends relaxation all down my spine.



I just noticed that this is my 2000th post.  Nice one.

[robert waddell]

the smell of a jersey in milk gives me the boak  hate the smell of  milk that is why i don't touch the god awful stuff  stinking rotten putrid stuff
happy 2000 posting you must be on more than me

[Lesley Silvester]

Thanks, that would be perfect, I would love to visit with hubby and Freddie (age 6) sometime in the new year. It is always a good idea to work out what you are getting in to before you strike out into a new venture. 

Just PM me when you are ready.  I only work a few hours a week ATM and that's as a home tutor so am around a lot and I'm on here at least once a day to pick up messages.