Jump to content
BC Boards

"The Year of the Goat" pictorial


kelpiegirl
 Share

Recommended Posts

I liked it!...but I did grow up showing goats. I remember attending national conventions and national shows. Where else would you see a livestock auction being held in the ballroom of an expensive hotel. My grandma also had a goat head hanging on her basement wall. Toby was a beloved pet who lived with her for 13 years. He rode a convertible in the local parade each year and when he died, my grandma had him mounted. I guess I had a strange childhood.

 

Emily

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Omnivore's Dilemma is a good book. So is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm all for people realizing that their food isn't really produced in neat little packages at the grocery store. (Not that I think Bill has that problem.)

 

Laura

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The fellow with the stuffed goats must be a piece of work! We had dairy goats growing up, but I'm with Bill now--you couldn't pay me to keep one (and I hope I don't ever have to eat those words!).

 

I am currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and when I turned in a gift book (you can just imagine who wrote the book I took back to the bookstore) after Christmas, I picked up The Omnivore's Dilemma. Both should be must-reads.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The fellow with the stuffed goats must be a piece of work!

 

This one?

goats_10.jpg

I'm really wondering what it looks like in the next room.

 

I'm grateful to goats, since they saved my grandfather's life, and probably put him through college as well. But then, I don't have to live with them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you have to be a goat person to like goats. I like goats. I raised them for many years. I wanted them for milk (for my children) and I sold the kids and milk to help pay for their upkeep. I miss having goatmilk. A few of my goats have even been in movies. Unlike Julie, I would like to have goats again one day. Maybe I'm just odd.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I weren't so down on "year of doing something" books, I'd like to read Kingsolver's. I heard an interview with her on American Public Radio's Speaking of Faith a while back, and found it interesting. Maybe I'll get over it after the fad passes and reconsider.

 

Eating locally is challenging wherever you do it, but before Kingsolver did it in Virginia, there was a group of folks in Burlington, Vt., who did it for a whole year. I'm not sure I could give up citrus, and bread products would be difficult. But I think that otherwise I could be pretty happy.

 

Oh, and Scotch. Does liquor count?

 

Fie on goats.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you have to be a goat person to like goats. I like goats. I raised them for many years. I wanted them for milk (for my children) and I sold the kids and milk to help pay for their upkeep. I miss having goatmilk. A few of my goats have even been in movies. Unlike Julie, I would like to have goats again one day. Maybe I'm just odd.

Hi Joan,

I actually still like goats and many wonderful memories of raising them when we were children (I'm sure my mom loved us letting goat kids run through the house). We, too, had them for milk, since a family of six drank A LOT of milk (soda, Kool-Aid, etc. was unheard of in our house). We used to get a kick out of how other folks would shy away from goat's milk if they knew what it was, but if you just gave it to them, they never knew the difference! We had Nubians, and to this day I still prefer that breed over all others.

 

More recently my neighbor had a dairy goat that she was milking. But they also liked to go on vacation a lot ( I kept telling them farmers don't go on vacation, LOL!), so I was asked to milk whenever they were gone. Not so awful, except one of the reasons I don't have a dairy animal is because I don't want to be tied to the barn like that. I finally told them that while I didn't mind milking occasionally, I didn't want to be head milker whenever they took off anywhere because it really required me to be there every day, and I didn't want that. I talked to her the other day, and in addition to the two milk goats they've also bred one of their milking devons and a Jersey, so it should be interesting over there! (She does have a neighbor now--a young man with children--who shares milking duty and milk with her and apparently doesn't go on vacation himself....)

 

My biggest problem with goats is their ability to get out. We used to have Fort Knox for our goats (6 foot high fence, with hot wire top and bottom). I don't have the wherewithal to goat proof my fences. Also it seems most of the goats I've known as an adult have been very much pets, and they are worse than bottle lambs! Hence my dislike. If I had a goat or two that had been raised as proper herd animals and would stay out with the sheep and not scream for people all day long, I could probably stand it. But I just have this feeling that the goat would want to be in the yard hanging around with the humans, and I can't take that!

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I grew up with French Alpine goats at my grandparent's place. They had the life of Riley I tell you. My gp's had HUGE rocks brought in so that they could play king of the mountain, and they were all very well, ah, routine oriented. I don't have many memories of them getting out- but I do remember seeing my brother getting squished into the fence when he was stupid enough to go in with the billy. Anyway, we always had kids, and helped with them. I remember at milking time, we would bring them all into the barn, into a holding area, and just like clockwork, each would know when it was their time to come out and be milked. The leader was named "Pride" and she always led the flock well. We drank only goat's milk. Just milk, refrigerate, then down the hatch. It was great- my gp's had 4 kids to feed. Oh, but we also did get kool-aid Julie- when we were haying. NO soda though. Those memories on the farm are very dear to me. One channel on tv- not that we ever watched it. Playing in the quarry, running around exploring, and of course all the work. That work ethic that those of us gained while working on farms- I think you can tell those of us who had it to the wall- we're the ones who can't sit around when there's work to be done, and we really enjoy the simple things. I will have to scan some of the old photos of us and the goats...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure that's what my problem is. I didn't grow up a goat person, but when my dad remarried he married a goat person. My parents had a goat dairy, mostly Alpines, Saanens & LaManchas. Back in the day, they were milking over 100 goats. The goats very rarely ever got out & if they did, they wanted to get back in with the rest of the rest of the group. The fences were mostly regular woven wire with hog panels by the gates.

 

I could never go back to having to do chores twice a day like milking. There's no vacations or even just being able to just get away for a night without having to find someone to do the milking plus all the other chores for you. But that's how my kids started out their lives, sitting in a car seat or play pen in the milking parlor while I milked. They toddled up & down the aisles when we were feeding hay. We all drank milk out of the bulk tank.

 

Laura

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually still like goats and many wonderful memories of raising them when we were children (I'm sure my mom loved us letting goat kids run through the house). We, too, had them for milk, since a family of six drank A LOT of milk (soda, Kool-Aid, etc. was unheard of in our house). We used to get a kick out of how other folks would shy away from goat's milk if they knew what it was, but if you just gave it to them, they never knew the difference! We had Nubians, and to this day I still prefer that breed over all others.

 

Except for that we had our goats when I was the mother to four children, we had exactly the same situation as you, Julie. Never did we have a guest that regretted trying (or just being uniformed about what they were drinking) the goat milk. I have a warm spot in my heart for goats but especially for Nubians (we started with half-Nubian and bred up).

 

I miss the goats some days and the milk, but not being tied down to the milking schedule. With young children, it was very doable. I still think there is no cuter animal in the world than a baby goat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So yesterday I was at the Vermont grazing conference, and snuck in late to one of the workshop sessions. The sign outside said the topic was "A Vision for Pastured Pork," but I guess there must have been a last minute room change. The actual session was "Vegetation Management with" you guessed it "Goats." Because of the way the room was set up, I couldn't leave without disturbing the whole workshop for the second time, so I just rode it out.

 

The damn goats are out to get me. But I still say fie on them! Fie!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My goats would occasionally get out, but it was actually a sheep I had that was the worst for escaping. He would literally lift up the chain link fence and go under it..he taught my goats how to do it so that made it really hard to reinforce. The previous tenant in that house had a good friend that rigged the fencing with heavy metal posts which he had wired to the bottom of the fence. It worked until the poles got unattached. I just reattached them and it worked ok. But after I took that sheep to auction I kept my goats in the large field that was only fenced with a four foot high badly dilapidated 4" farm fencing. Why they didn't get out of that I'll never know. I do miss goat milk, I don't miss milking every 12 hours. I was younger and married then and my children were young. Now I'm old and my kids are mostly grown. I'm planning a move to TN next summer though and I thought I might get a goat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...