Meet the 2 newest members of our little farm, Dorka and her baby girl Gypsy. Dorka is our milking goat, and will supply us with all our milk requirements - between 1 and 3 Litres a day. Her baby is only about 3 weeks old, and just so cute!!! They are supposed to be British Alpine, but I suspect that Dorka isn't - British Alpine goats should be black - like her baby.
Their arrival to our farm was 'interesting'!!! Dorka, athough reasonably tame at her old home, rediscovered her 'wild side', when she came here, and a stupid error on my part (ie. letting her go in the paddock), resulted in much running around, and some serious worrying.... We got them back, had another 'minor incident' which left us with Dorka stuck in the swamp.... Now she is chained up in her shed, till she becomes friendly enough with us that she wont run away!!!! That said, she is quite happy to be milked (we have milked her twice now, and she doesn't kick or make a fuss about it), as long as she is confined!!!
We are quite surprised at her temperment, so different to our previous goat experiences, our old goats where TOO friendly!!!! So now begins a new era of our adventure, milk (and hopefully some cheese) self sufficiency. Despite Dorka's wild nature, it still beats going to the shops to buy it. And in case you are curious, her milk is no different to cow's milk, well I couldn't tell the difference... Very different to what you buy in the supermarket as goats milk!
l can remeber when we got a goat to help eat down the wild blackberries, we had to teather him, l gave the rope to my son to hold and the goat(lucky) took off down the hill with my son(12) grass sking behind him, it was sooo funny. Strange thing he was as quite as anything when we first saw him, must be the excitement of a new tree change. All the best with your new adventure in home production milk and cheese, l did this with a house cow and really enjoyed it.
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