winter on our farm

Winter has been interesting in our part of the world.  June saw the month's average rainfall come down over the course of only a few days, and then not a drop for the remainder of the month (good thing we DID get a months worth in one go!).  July was warm and mostly sunny, we had our hottest July day on record, which saw many shorts and t-shirts make their way out of the wardrobe a bit earlier than usual!!!  Two days later and almost snowed here!  I love snow, but I do feel for the animals who have to cope with a weather change of 20C in a day or two...  tough times when there is hardly any grass around.  I've seen many small farmers selling off livestock at the moment due to not having feed.  I'm thankful for those sunny days, at least the grass grew a little....

Makes us think about what animals are keepers and which ones we should get rid of.  At this point in time we have four goats, but two are wethers and we keep them because we don't have the heart to sell them (ok I'll rephrase that - I don't have the heart to sell them...), we still have last years roosters that we keep because we haven't the heart to do what needs doing. I think about the term 'hobby or lifestyle' farming - which to me is when you keep lots of pets and don't really farm your land for any food/money.  I sort of think of our place as a working farm, we are producing some of our food, and alot more is in the process of being produced, but how many 'pets' have a place on a real 'working' farm?  I don't know....  we have rescue dogs and I want to help as many animals as possible to have a happy life, but that said, where is the boundary between working to pay for 'rescues' and pet roosters etc and having a self sufficient smallholding....  Interesting questions anyway...  I've come to the conclusion that truly ethical living is not possible, we compromise one thing for another, and I don't think there is an actual right way....

So apart from pondering the details of an ethical life what else is going on here this winter on the farm?

I've bought 24 olive trees to produce our own oil in about 5-10 years time.  At the moment we buy our oil from a local grower - we buy about 30L for a year, and its nice to not have to think about how much oil one needs per week/fortnight.  I only have to write in my diary to ring the man at the right time of year.  Looking forward to another step in self sufficiency and one that doesn't require loads of work!!!  Olives are as tough as nails.

Our cow will calve soon - probably within the next month.  Hoping for a heifer calf, otherwise we are up against one of those difficult ethical living dilemmas....

The goats are having a rest this year and will have kids next year when we will dry off the cow (hahaha, 'best laid plans of mice and men'....).  One thing I've learnt is there are massive differences between cows and goats.  Aside from obvious things, cows are one tough beast, even on the most bitter days our Buttercup is out grazing (she has a nice shed to go in - and she does go in sometimes).  When it rains (even a drizzle), the goats are found like this:

Still here!

Its been about 6 months since I last updated this blog, my apologies to those who read it!  We have been very busy, but then again there isn't all that much to say!

We have been working hard on our house - you can read about that here.  Things are coming along, but as with most owner builder projects its slow.  

The farm has been keeping us busy.  All the spring babies are all grown up. The two baby goats, are now pretty much fully grown, and capable of major destruction to trees.  These will be the last goats to come here, NO MORE GOATS!  On the up side, we are now milking our two girls and have plenty of milk.  Milk production has slowed a bit now that the weather has cooled down, but will pick up with spring.  Goats (and suspect cows are the same but we are yet to try) can be milked continually, after one kidding.  Our older goat Dorka is now coming into her third year since she had her kids, and milk production only varies due to the weather and feed availability (mostly because when it rains the goats just stand under cover and don't eat!!!).

baby goats are not so little now...

 I've been working on my food forest, trying to get some ground covers and understory plants going, as well as planning out winter fruit tree planting.  I've read some very good books recently on this, which have provided me with much inspiration.  Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemmenway and The Wilderness Garden by Jackie French.  Both great books if you want to design a productive garden modelled on natural ecosystems. 

We finally updated our chook pen.  The original pen was supposed to be movable, to be moved weekly or so, but it was just too heavy for the two of us, and visitors are not so common to these parts!  The new pen is  a large paddock (between 1/8-1/4 acre in size) and has a 'raw' bale house in the middle.  Eventually the paddock will be divided up into 4 yards, and the chooks rotated between these yards.  Once the chooks are out, the yard will be planted in good things for them to eat, and will start to have some impact on our feed costs.  The chooks are happy and snug at night in their insulated house.

I'm planning lots of tree planting for our land this winter (and the next few after that).  We have lots of springs here, and with all the rain we have had, many places in our local area have suffered land slips.  Its something we don't want to happen here, and the only thing that can stop it is deep rooted trees to use up the water and to stabilise the soil.  Observation also helps, and I've noticed that blackberries grow on some of our most vulnerable spots. I reckon they are actually helping (but don't let the neighbours hear me say that, having blackberries on your land around here is worse than harboring a criminal....). 

Winter is cold up here, so I'm catching up on spinning (and some of my overdue garden projects) and dreaming of the summer season to come.  Big plans for tomatoes this year (I know now we need about 100kg of tomatoes to cover our sauce etc requirements, so that is the goal...).  I also want to have a go growing maize for animal feed, as well as the usual summer stuff.  Lots to do, and never enough time to do it all! 

Happiness is ....

More raspberries than you can eat

Watching little chicks

 Kids

A thriving potatoe patch

New critters

Progress...

New life

Over the last few weeks there has been a flush of new life here on the farm.  Five chickens have hatched and doing really well.  I had planned to write about the amazing animal instincts, that a hen knows how long to sit on her eggs, to turn them (up to 100 times per day), and then how to care for her young.  Not bad for an animal regarded as stupid.  The ability of the mother hen never ceases to amaze me, its mother nature at her best.

Our daughter just loves the chicks

Mother hen teaching the chicks how to forage

Sadly, not all animals on the farm are quite so amazing!  Our goat Rosie had twin boys on friday evening.  All went well with the birth, however it became apparent that the following day she didn't particularly want them.  Or I think more correctly she doesn't know what to do with them. She likes them when we are there with her, but she abandons them to follow us, rather than stay with them.  She screams at our window for us, leaving her own kids in the paddock.  Luckily our other goat Dorka was more than happy to adopt the two.  A true 'nanny' goat!

The kids at about 2-3 days old

 We are now getting 3-4L of milk per day, which means we can make more cheese.  We haven't yet decided what to do with our two little boys, one has horn buds, while the other appears to be polled (we will have to have a better look though).  We had hoped for at least one girl, to keep as a milker... 

The kids!

 

Dairy dreaming!

We have been milking our goat Dorka for about 2 years now (on the single lactation).  She still produces on average 1L per day, which is not much for a dairy goat, but we don't feed her concentrates or anything to increase her milk supply.  We have made a bit of cheese but due to the quantity of milk, we haven't really had enough to make lots of cheese.  So far we have made feta, haloumi and cream cheese.  We haven't dabbled in any of the mould type cheeses yet, or hard cheeses for keeping. 

In a few weeks our other goat Rosie is due to have her first kid/s.  She is enormous, but she always has a bit of a belly, so its hard to say if its multiples or just her!  She certainly has slowed down in the last week or so, but still defiant in her escape from the paddock.  We have been trying very hard to keep the goats in their paddock (they free range on all our land - mostly just around us- so all the gardens have to be fenced off from them, rather than them being like normal livestock...  We added an electric wire about 30cm above ground level and the same out from the main fence to try and keep them in, plus poly droppers (2 between each set of posts) to hold the wires tight together so they can't just walk through the fence.  Its just a 6 strand plain wire fence, which is just not enough to keep goats in.  With the imminent arrival of at least one new goat (Rosie's baby/s) we really want them to stay in the paddock as while 2 goats hanging around isn't too bad, 3-4 is going to be a bit much, particularly as they tend to follow me when I go walking the dogs...


For the last few months we have been discussing getting a Jersey cow for milk, mostly for the cream content, so we can make butter.  We have come close to buying one, but we are going to wait a bit longer (for starters we HAVE to solve the goat fence troubles!), to set up a dairy shed and do more fencing.  My parents brought us some raw Jersey milk from a farm, so I just had to have a try at making butter.  We just poured off some of the cream (approximately 700mL) into a pyrex jug and then beat it with a handheld beater.  It took a while to turn (probably because the cream was fresh) but it did turn eventually, and I made about 150g of butter.  It was nice to have a go before we invest in a cow, just to be sure I can do it.  Before we buy a cow we will have to buy or make a churn, butter paddles and I'm hoping to get a butter mould so I can make 'pretty' butter. 

My first go at making butter, delicious!

My father just returned from a trip to Switzerland, and I asked him to pick up a few goat bells and cow bells.  So he brought home 2 new goat bells for our 2 goats and 2 second hand bells (one small and one big) for our cows when we eventually get them.  I can't wait to put the bells on the goats, but it'll have to wait till we get new collars, as they wont fit on the ones they wear now. 

One of the new goat bells

The bells were traditionally put on cows and goats when they were taken up to the high meadows of the Swiss alps, so that the cow/goatherd would know where the animals were, so none could run away.  The best milker wore the biggest bell, and there were often celebrations when the cows/goats went up to the alps in spring and then again on their return in autumn. 

selection of cow and goat bells from Switzerland

Spring eggs

The spring equinox just passed by a few days ago.  In the northern hemisphere this coincides with easter which takes much of its symbolism from spring - eggs, baby birds and bunnies.  For us in the south, now would be the time to celebrate the joy of eggs, as at easter time they are rare! 

Our girls are laying well, and from 12 standard sized hens, 2 bantam and 4 ducks we get about 15 eggs a day.  Its nice to have some to give away and sell, as well as plenty for baking yummy cakes and custardy desserts.  We also get to partake in the daily egg hunt, as our girls like to hide their eggs from us (I wonder where the chocolate egg hunt idea came from????).

We have one clucky hen sitting on 9 eggs, so fingers crossed it all goes well and we get a nice clutch of chicks.  Its important to keep new hens coming in each year, and at about $30 per hen it becomes costly to buy and replace your stock all the time.  We have a new rooster, a Speckled Sussex who is quite nice and should bring in some new qualities to our mixed breed flock.

The garden is really growing now (and the grass) the loganberries and raspberries are just starting to flower, as are the strawberries.  Lots of little seedlings are popping up (such as silverbeet, lettuce, mustards, kale), and my precious tomatoe seedlings and cucurbits (pumpkin, zuchinni, cucumber, melons etc) are just germinating.

I'm planning to grow a ' 3 sisters' style plot for our sweet corn and popcorn.  The 3 sisters are corn, beans and squash.  The native american indians grew gardens like this before white settlement, so its a very early example of companion planting.  The corn provides poles for the climbing beans, the beans provide nitrogen to the soil and the squash provides a living mulch to keep the soil moist (which is really important for the corn).  They planted them in mounds with the plants fairly closely planted.  It will be a bit of an experiment anyhow. 

One of our goats Rosie is 'in kid' and due in November.  This means that after having her for over a year we will finally be able to start milking her!  She is looking enormous, so I'm anticipating twins (hopefully NOT triplets) so there wont be much milk to start with.  We are also investigating buying a house cow, most likely a Jersey, so that we can make bigger quantities of cheese and importantly BUTTER!  We use a bit of butter in cooking and baking so it makes sense to produce our own, and we are all pretty keen on making all our own dairy products.  Excess milk and whey will be fed to the chooks and eventually to some pigs which I'd like to get for garden tillage. 

An early spring

I had heard at our local plant nursery that we were in for an early spring, and after the last week of record August warmth for our region, I have to say I agree!  Although it was lovely, its a bit disconcerting to be out and about in a t-shirt in August!!! 

Again, I have to apologise for the lack of updates on the blog.  Due to the lovely weather, I have been spending very little time inside, and even less time on the computer! 

I've been slowly working away at all the jobs that need doing around the farm.  I've planted about 12 fruit trees, plus about 30-40 raspberry plants, and a dozen rhubarb crowns.  I've fenced off what will be developed into a food forest, with 4 strands of electric fencing to keep out our 2 free range goats (my next fencing project will be upgrading the paddock fencing, so that our 2 free range goats will be restricted to being 'paddock goats' instead!!).  I've spent a bit of time fencing off another garden plot to plant our potatoes in this year (its about 8m x 8m).  Now I just have to dig all that area over to plant the potatoes!!!

happy free range ducks with my simple goat proof fence in the background

 We did some burning off of cypress prunings. I'm not a big fan of burning off, I don't like wasting even sticks for an 'unproductive' fire, but we have alot prunings around the place and dry cypress burns a little too good to have it lying around all summer (especially since its predicted to be a much drier summer than the last....).

I'm getting excited about our spring/summer garden.  We are planning on planting some new crops - popcorn and luffa (to use as a more eco friendly alternative to dishwashing sponges -yes we are the only people on the planet who still wash up by hand, haha).  Plus a few different varieties of tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, beans and zuchinni.  I'm really going to push myself a bit with the garden this year and aim to produce some good crops that will cover us for the whole years consumption. 

the vegie garden, getting ready for spring

Next year we plan on starting to grow our own grains.  Probably just wheat, oats and maize (a better alternative to growing ordinary sweet corn as you can pick it 'green' for sweet corn and leave some to mature as maize for cornmeal and animal feed).  We will look at buying some pigs to employ as ploughs to help with preparing bigger plots for planting. 

The bees survived the winter and were out and about enjoying the sunshine!  That was a relief as I was unsure how much honey they had and how much they need to keep them going.  We will harvest some in late spring, just enough for our own needs and see how that goes. 

We are still reading the 'little house on the praire' series of books as a family and loving them.  We are now up to the 5th book and now have a popcorn and reading ritual going (inspired by Almanzo's family popcorn and reading nights in Farmer Boy).  We can't recommend these books highly enough - not just for kids.

Our little girl turns 5 this week!  She got an early birthday present of a trio of Rhode Island Red bantams, which she adores, and goes out to visit MANY times a day.  Hopefully the hens will be good broodies and hatch some chickens for us this year.  Speaking of chickens, summers little chicks are now all grown up and some are laying!  We are getting a few more eggs each day.  Another sign that spring is around the corner.

happy free-range kids!

Ducks

Yesterday we added a new species to the farm.  Four Welsh Harlequin ducks, about 6 months old and just started laying.  I had planned on getting Indian Runner ducks (primarly because they are good layers and the come in the 'typical' white with orange bill colouring - our daughter is a mad Jemimah Puddleduck fan...).  As it is the Welsh Harlequin is a rare duck breed, which was derived from the Kahki Campbell duck - which is a very good layer.

The ducks are very beautiful (I would love to get a drake of the same breed they are stunning!), and fairly calm for ducks, although they don't really like the kids running around them too much.  At the moment they are confined to a small pen and yard.  I have 2 side by side, so I'll rotate the ducks between the yards once it gets too muddy.  We will eventually fence off an orchard and let them run around there.  I'd love to set up a 'duckaponics' system to grow rice, but that will probably be a few years down the track.

Our reasoning for getting ducks is to complement the egg laying of our hens - ducks are happy in the winter and lay well when the hens mope an moult their feathers and don't lay much.  The ducks will slow down when the hens will pick up the pace in summer.  We do lots of baking and cooking and use lots of eggs, so diversifying our egg production is important to keep us in good fresh eggs. 

The kids are rapped in the latest additions, and the paler duck is of course Jemimah Puddleduck. 

Chicks

Then end of last year was a pretty dismal time around here, regarding our flock of chooks.  We lost some to the fox, some to unknown causes, chicks either failed to hatch, or died soon after (the fox took my 2 good mother hens...).  The last attempt at hatching chickens was going well, till about 2 days before hatching, the hen abandoned the eggs (it was very hot, and her broody cage was probably not situated in the best position, she was also bothered by lice).  Out of her 4 eggs one chick hatched.  Since its as much work to care for one chick (and keep it warm) as it is for a few more, I few 'day old' chicks to keep it company.

Raising chicks in a brooder is not really my ideal scenario.  Although they are all doing great, after having watched our mother hens care for and teach the young chicks how to behave, I think its the best way to do it.  I've been feeding them as natural diet as I can manage.  Lots of egg (with crushed garlic and dried nettles), millet, seasame seed, a little wheat and rolled oats.  I also collect some wood lice (slaters) for them. 

What I find amazing is that even these chicks who haven't really seen adult chooks, know how to scratch and have a real appetite for bugs.  Its quite incredible that an animal regarded as unitelligent as the chook can have so many inbuilt instincts.

The kids are enjoying these chicks, they actually get to pick them up (probably more than I would like) and watch them, which is harder with a protective mother hen about!!!  I'm thinking that we have 2 roosters and 4 hens, but only time will tell!

We have bees!

Last weekend we got our first hive of bees.  I've been keen to get bees for a number of years, both for honey and pollination of fruit and vegetables.  For some reason there aren't alot of bees around in our area - certainly not on our place, and I can't really see any reason why that would be the case.

The hive we bought came with bees, and is just the ordinary Langstroth hive, very common in Australia.  My ultimate goal is to have several hives, mostly top-bar hives (so the bees build natural comb attached to bars that you can individually move).  We will build these hives, but with all the work that is needed here on the farm and building the house - building bee hives never became a priority. 

At this stage we don't have plans to sell excess honey, we generally prefer to give away our excess produce, but it will all depend on how productive the bees are.  We plan on leaving them enough honey so that we aren't feeding them white sugar as a (poor) substitute for the food they have worked so hard to produce.  Many commercial beekeepers take most of the honey and feed them on sugar (or worse corn syrup from genetically modified corn), so it will be nice to have our own source of 'real' honey made from flowers!

Plus the bees are facinating to watch, I go and sit and watch them fly in and out, you could just sit there all day (obviously I don't have time to do that!).  The kids like them, and our 4 year old already knows so much about bees and how they live - she loves the queen...

Grass, grass and more grass!

We have been having excellent growing weather this spring.  Lots of rain, followed by warm weather, then rain again and so on.  This means that the grass is really growing (far too quickly for our small herd of grazers).  At this rate you wont see the animals (let alone the kids) as the grass will be taller!

In time our herd will grow, and diversify, but for now we have to manage the overabundance of grass.  The scythes have been getting a good workout, and my technique is improving so much.  Its amazing how easy it can be to cut grass with a scythe, its almost effortless (although I wouldn't try and mow a few acres at a time!).  Its more like fun than work.

This year we will try and dry and store some of the cut grass as loose leaf hay.  We don't have a huge need for hay in the winter - our weather is mild enough that we don't have to keep animals housed, and the grass still grows a bit during the winter.  This year its all about experimenting with technique and dryness of the grass, I think next year we will be more serious about it.

The vegetable seedlings in the garden have been growing strongly.  We have fenced off another part of the garden to keep out the goats and chooks.  Much better now.

On a sad note, we have been having some trouble with foxes lately.  A few of our 'friends' have now been lost.  Disappointing and frustrating, as the attacks have happened during the day, and while we have been home.  Broad daylight, with a dog and active children running around....  The fox is bold. 

Cheese

With all the lovely spring grass that is growing madly, we are getting more milk from our milking goat Dorka.  About 1.5L per day.  We don't drink that much milk, so every week or so there is enough milk to make a small batch of cheese.  We started off just making a soft ricotta type cheese, just with vinegar to curdle the milk, which worked fine, and made a soft cheese that was nice on crackers, or in a cheese and spinach pie.  We then decided to buy some rennet to experiment further. 

Its amazing the difference in the curdling between vinegar cheese and rennet cheese.  Vinegar is instant but the curds are small and the cheese soft.  Rennet needs to sit a bit to set, but the curds are so solid you cut them!  Its almost magical. 

The first batch of rennet curdled cheese became this fetta!  Which was great, and had a slight resemblance to halumi cheese. 

We have since made a batch of mozzarella type cheese which was nice too.

Lots of 'playing' to do, experimenting with the technique to get the types of cheese we like.  Really happy that we are able to skip yet another thing at the shops, and reduce the amount of packaging that we use.

Since I haven't posted a photo of the kids for a while, here they are growing fast (and eating enough to show for it!!!!  Next winter I will be planting LOTS of apple trees, as these 2 clean us out of apples!!!!)

a labour of love

I finally finished my very first homegrown, hand shorn (by Brad, using the old fashioned hand shears), handspun and handknitted jumper. I get a real buzz from being a part of every step of the process, knowing exactly what was done to produce something. So much of what we buy these days undergoes much processing, and we don't know about it. Its just one jumper, but its another step towards self reliance and reducing 'clothing miles'.

Brad with Pedro the alpaca who 'donated' his fleece for this jumper.

Regardless, I am pretty proud of our joint effort!

You know when you are a little obsessive about making stuff, when your daughter asks first 'who made it?' rather than 'where did they buy it?', and she is always disappointed to hear when something was made 'in a factory in china'.

Real Eggs

Our hens are laying well at the moment - spring is definately in the air! We have been enjoying an abundance of fresh eggs, real eggs, laid by hens who actually spend their day roaming around our land, doing what they like (and laying eggs wherever they please too!).


Recently in America eggs have been recalled due to Salmonella contamination - likely due the crowded and unatural way most hens spend their short (18months) life to provide 'cheap' eggs to keep the consumer happy. I recently took notice of the price of cheap eggs at our local supermarket, and they were less than $2 per dozen. A shock to me, as when we have bought eggs in the past we have always bought from a farm we know is truly free range and have usually paid around $8 per dozen. What do these factory farmed hens get fed - to be able to make money off selling eggs so cheaply? I don't think my hens who are outside all day and get a hand full of grain each a day would produce eggs for us so cheaply!!!!! And I don't pay for farm hands, electricity, transport and sorting for our eggs..... I have always belived factory farmed eggs to be rubbish, and now its clear that the hens must be fed 'rubbish'!!!! Which reminds me of the old saying 'you are what you eat'....


Our eggs come in all shapes, colours and sizes. Its my 'thing' to try and breed a flock of hens that will lay eggs of all different colours, I particularly proud of one of my 'babies' who lays a very nice and shiny chocolate coloured egg. But all the eggs have one thing in common, the yolks are truly orange, a deep orange. The colour comes from the green feed in the diet - grass. True free range (its now getting the label 'pastured') egg yolks are nothing like some of the eggs sold as 'free range' in supermarkets, which is basically just hens in sheds but not in small cages. There is nothing 'free' about this. Its worth paying a little extra for the 'real deal' than to buy cheap eggs that encourage farmers to treat these lovely animals in such a disgraceful way.


I love my eggs!

Goats

We have 2 goats at present, both strong personalities, and equally strong willed. I have read much about goats over the years on goat keeping, but I don't think anything prepares you for how unique they are. Goats are the supreme optimist, they don't let anything defeat them (eg. fences) and never ever give up! Good qualities in a person, but maybe not so helpful in our livestock! None the less they have many good points.

Its hard to not love the happy go lucky attitude to life, even when they do get into the garden and eat your broccoli plants.... The also love blackberries. A useful thing around here, as there is no shortage of blackberries (oddly - and maybe a little scary- the blackberries have not lost their leaves this year...). They relish the leaves and small stalks, and devour loads of them. Unfortunately they also love loganberries, raspberries and pretty much any cane fruit....

Dorka enjoying her blackberries.

Goats also seem to love people. Well ours do. And since there is not keeping them in their own paddock, this is not an uncommon sight around here!

How much is that goat-ee at the window???

I think they are the sort of animal you either love or hate. We enjoy having them around for a few reasons;

1. they give us milk!
2. they don't eat much - and enjoy a variety of food including weeds. And their feed to milk conversion rate is much better than cows.
3. they are small enough that they are easy to handle - for doing things like hoof trimming.
4. moving paddocks is easy as they are always following us - keeping them in their new paddock is harder though!

Enjoying the last of autumn

I think autumn is my favourite of all the seasons.






Although I enjoy the bounty of summer, I don't enjoy the extreme heat and the threat of drought and fire. Winter although cold and wet is a nice time to relax a little. Work still needs to be done, but the pace is not so hectic. I am enjoying these last days of sunshine before we decend into the 'dark' - the winter solistice is now only a bit over 3 weeks away.

We have managed so well on our stand alone solar power system (which is a pretty modest 1kWh set up). We are in a really bad site for solar power generation as we are surrounded by tall trees and as the days shorten so does our little 'window' of sunshine - currently we get about 2 hours of sun on the panels!!! However we haven't had to resort to the generator or hand washing (yet!).

I think one of the best thing about this time of year is that its a great time for planning and dreaming. And there is LOTS of that happening here, with new projects and big projects in the early stages. But I will write about those as things progress a little!

I'll leave you with a funny photo - our new goat Rosie - ontop of the pizza oven shelter! Goats...

Meet Rosie

Yesterday we picked up the newest memeber of our family - Rosie (our daughter named her). We bought her to replace Gypsy who left us suddenly last week. Like Gypsy, Rosie is a British Alpine dairy goat, about 9 months old. She is from good milking lines, but a more stocky version of the British Alpine. Dorka our other goat (Gypsy's mum) is a British Alpine (or probably a cross with Toggenburg).


Rosie has settled in ok. She is more vocal than Dorka, and despite not actually letting us near her, she bleats and follows us along the fence when we leave! She seems to have bonded well with the alpacas, less keen on Dorka (as she has given her the butting treatment). Like Gypsy, Rosie has small horns, and will remain horned, as from all available information, dehorning at this age is cruel and painful. We plan on glueing rubber balls to the ends of her horns once they grow to reduce the likelyhood of her hurting the others. Most dairy farmers remove the horns for safety reasons, but when you see so many goats with very badly removed horns you have to wonder if its really worth it. The standard method is to burn off the horn bud when the goat kid is only a day or 2 old, but if its not done properly part of the horn will re-grow and this will either be mishapen and potentially grow inwards, or be weak and be knocked off and become infected. Many people don't realise that the horn actually has blood vessels running up the length of it, and its only the outer shell that is 'horn', to cut this off is probably equivalent to cutting off one's finger!!!

Our plan is to have eventually 3-4 milkers, and alternating which does have kids each year, so they all have a rest. British Alpines are well known for their extended lactation, producing milk for several years after the birth of their kid/s, so we will probably stick with them. We might even look at getting a buck at some stage down the track.

I will leave you with some photos of Dorka and the milking process. We are so lucky to have ample supply of healthy raw, un-tampered milk. Very special.

Frothy, fresh milk!