Sustainable Goat

If you invest in a goatherd, your money won’t be wasted. Your goats will provide for your family and pay for themselves. So what can you do with a goat? A few answers are quite obvious: meat and dairy. But there are other uses for goats that you might not have thought about.

         First of all, goats really are great for dairy. Not only can they provide high protein, milk for drinking, but there are also an abundance of other uses for their milk. In Goats Produce Too! The Udder Real Thing Volume II, Mary Jane Toth offers goat owners step-by-step suggestions for processing goat milk: To start with, does it smell okay? Is the flavor sweet, or can you detect a rankness that might suggest it came into contact with rusty equipment.  Often the flavor can indicate which grasses or grains the goats have been feeding on. Toth then explains how to pasteurize goat milk, freeze or can it, etc. She also includes a wealth of detailed recipes for cheeses, desserts, dressings, fudge, ice cream, yogurt, soap, and… even paint! Lastly, there are goat meat recipes. This is truly a how-to-live-sustainably-with-goats handbook for families. If money is tight, but you have grass growing wildly, goat milk alone can provide so many daily needs.

Goat Cheese!
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          Almost any type of goat can be milked. However, some breeds are more productive than others. One of the more popular breeds in the U.S. is the Alpine goat. Eric and Jean had a few Alpines on their small farm. These goats are medium sized and are good producers. Other popular dairy breeds are LaMancha, Miniature Dairy Goats, Nigerian Dwarf, Nubian, Toggenburg, Oberhasli, and Saanen. For a small family, any of these goats would do nicely. Some are significantly smaller than others, which could work better for some families. And some dairy goats have a higher butterfat content in their milk. The more butterfat in a goat’s milk, the better it will be for making things like butter or ice cream. However, if you only intend to drink the milk, lower butterfat might be desirable.

Boer Goat
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         Meat is also an obvious product of goat breeding. Any goat raised by a family can become sausage in the freezer regardless of breed. However, there are certain goats that are specifically better for meat production. On of the most popular meat goats are Boers: a funny squat breed. They have a very specific look; most have white bodies with red heads and stand squarely like a dog. Their muscular stature makes them excellent for meat.

        While goat meat is not particularly popular in the U.S., it is the most commonly eaten red meat in the world. As a culture, American’s haven’t yet broken into that market.

         Of course, goats have other famous talents. Angora and Cashmere goats are great at growing luscious coats for fiber production. Many breeds also make good pack animals. They can carry loads up a mountain with a hiker, pull a small plow, or pull a human in a cart. Goats are also great for bush whacking, manure (fertilizer) production, and lawn mowing. While certain breeds might be known for eating unwanted plants or are particularly strong for pulling, almost any goat can be used for these purposes.

         As you can see, a small number of goats not only make great pets, but they can support your family at many levels. Not only will they help you reduce your carbon footprint by replacing your plow and lawn mower, but your rollicking four-leggeds will provide all the meat, dairy, and fiber your family could wish for. 

Goat Plow
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Bibliography:

Coleby, Pat. Natural Goat Care. Austin, Tex: Acres U.S.A, 2001. Print.

Schwartz, Lisa, Judith Hausman, and Karen Sabath. Over the Rainbeau: Living the

Dream of Sustainable Farming. Bedford Hills, N.Y: Rainbeau Ridge Publishing, 2009. Print.

Toth, Mary J. Goats Produce Too!: The Udder Real Thing. Coleman, Mich: The Author,

1998. Print.

Weaver, Sue. Goats: Small-scale Herding for Pleasure and Profit. Irvine, Calif: Hobby

Farm Press/BowTie Press, 2006. Print.

Weaver, Sue. The Backyard Goat: An Introductory Guide to Keeping Productive Pet

Goats. North Adams, MA: Storey Pub, 2011. Print.

Fg1: http://paninihappy.com/open-face-grilled-goat-cheese-panini-with-sundried-tomatoes-herbs/

Fg2: www.ansi.okstate.edu 

Fg3: www.braysofourlives.com

Harry Potter and the History of Domesticated Goats

Bezoar Goats
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Goats are one of the oldest domesticated animals in the world. Their abundance of uses, size, and durability make them the ideal livestock to own. It’s unknown when the first goats were domesticated, though it seems clear that the ancient people of the Zagros Mountains in Western Iran were domesticating them as early as 8000 BC. Even earlier than the ancient tribes of the Zagros Mountains, dating all the way back to the Neanderthals, humans hunted wild goats. Sue Weaver wrote in The Backyard Goat; “for ancient races, goats were life-sustaining.” (pg. 3)  Weaver wrote this because for ancient people, goats could provide much and more for a family.

            As I read through Weaver’s history of goats, one thing in particular jumped out at me.  The first species of goats to be domesticated by man were the Bezoar goats. Bezoar goats are slender brown mountain goats that now face the perils of being endangered, but were once a prominent part of ancient life.Weaver said that the bezoar was not only the name of the first domesticated goats; it is also the name of an intestinal dysfunction those goats are prone to. This bezoar stone is the cementation of fibers and other foreign materials ingested that can’t be passed through the goat’s system. The stone ends up in the stomach of the goat.

Bezoar in and out of the stomach
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            The reason this rang a rather strong bell for me was because, since the age of ten, I’ve been falling asleep to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. While this may seem like an odd habit for a twenty-year-old, let me explain my actions. I can fall asleep without listening to the books on tape, and more often than not I do. However, in my turbulent middle school years, listening to Harry Potter was a way to forget about the stresses of my day. Instead of falling asleep with my head teaming with worries, insecurities, and general teen angst, I’d drift off dreaming of dragons, Quidditch, and life at Hogwarts. For years I just thought I enjoyed the stories, but once I turned seventeen and still found myself listening to them I realized there might be something more to it. I was drawn to my iPod when I felt an especially large amount of stress, when I had a fight with a friend, or when I just couldn’t sleep. For me the rhythmic voice of the narrator had become like a beating meditation drum. The minute I pressed play my mind felt clearer, the knots in my shoulders started to release, and my breathing steadied. So as a twenty-year-old almost-woman, I still listen.

Bezoar Goat
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            So what does this have to do with goats? Well, those who have read Harry Potter might have picked it up from the word Bezoar, but for those who haven’t, or those who haven’t in a while, the Bezoar stone is mentioned in three of the Harry Potter books. In the first and fourth books, a Bezoar was mentioned only once in passing. However, in the sixth book it played a bigger role. In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Harry got a potions book that w

as scribbled on; the writings were alternative instructions for the potion recipes. On the page of his book that introduced poison antidotes, it said, “Just shove a bezoar down their throats” (Rowling, pg. 377).

Then, later in the sixth Harry Potter book, (those who haven’t read it yet, spoiler alert!!) Ron was poisoned in the potions master’s office by a bottle of mead intended for someone a different victim. Harry saved his friends life by shoving the little bezoar stone into his mouth. As I listened to that book over and over for the last ten years I had always taken the bezoar as yet another clever invention of Rowling’s, but my readings about the history of goat domestication enlightened me to the truth.

Harry Potter Comic
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Not only does the stone from Harry Potter actually exist, but there is also a myth that goes along with this stone dating back to the first domestication of goats. The ancient people of the Middle East believed that the stone formed only in the stomachs of goats bitten by a poisonous snake, and that the stone was a universal antidote to poison. Rowling’s books are full of sneaky historical details such as this, and they never cease to amaze me. My new life goal is to someday listen to the bezoar tale as I sit in a field watching my goats, or perhaps I’ll have to get a speaker system for my goat barn so that I can always have Harry Potter playing as I do my chores.

Works Cited:

Rowling, J K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2005. Print.

Weaver, Sue. The Backyard Goat: An Introductory Guide to Keeping Productive Pet Goats. North Adams, MA: Storey Pub, 2011. Print.

Fg. 1: http://www.armenianow.com/news/10522/eco_alarm_armenian_endangered_wild

Fg. 2: http://www.zoochat.com/1237/mashhad-zoo-bezoar-goat-294873/

Fg. 3: http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/stomachbezoar.html

Fg. 4: http://www.alec-longstreth.com/blog/419/

A Goat Morning in the North Country

The Two Alpines

            On Saturday morning, when I stepped outside and felt the warmth of the sun, I knew spring had finally reached the North Country. The return of the sun is a wakeup call for many of the region’s critters; the peepers are suddenly deafening in the wetlands behind our farmhouse, the geese are soaring over our heads in V’s, and the farmers are back in their fields.

The Alpine Wether

Through the long winter, the goat owners in this area have been tricky to find, but I’ve finally managed to track them down, and am on my way to visit two of them. Eric and Jean live 15 minutes from our Sustainability house, and as I drive the winding back roads of Northern NY, I notice families tooling around in their gardens, playing catch on their front lawns, and throwing sticks for their dogs. As a college student, it’s easy to forget that there is a different world just outside your campus bubble where people have work to do beyond desks, and weekend days start well before noon. This is a world I’ve been able to return to this semester.

            There’s something serene about morning air, and I roll down my windows as I guide my car up the pebble driveway, coffee cup  perched precariously between my knees. Eric and Jean are standing together in a fenced-in garden beside the driveway, Eric’s hand resting lightly on Jean’s arm. They face away from me, pointing at different parts of the garden, Jean leaning on a hoe, but as my car crunches further up the driveway they turn and wave.

            Jean is tall and thin with a long silver braid coming out from under a knitted hat, Eric has a bushy beard. They are smiling and friendly as they greet me, with their horse-sized dog trotting at their side. We head straight into the barn, where we lean against the beams of the goat pens and talk goat care.

Two Pregnant Toggenburg Alpine Does

            They have six goats. Two (and possibly a third) are pregnant, and so aren’t milking at the moment. Two of them are full Alpine breed and actually belong to a friend, though Eric and Jean are able to keep them for personal use. The Alpine female is pregnant; the other is a wether (a castrated male). The rest of the goats are either full Toggenburg or Toggenburg and Alpine. Jean calls three of her goats “freeloaders,” meaning that they aren’t giving much back to the farm. One, of course, is the wether, another is a twelve-year old goat that isn’t long for this world, and the last freeloader (according to Jean) has “mental problems” and won’t milk anymore.

            Jean says that very little goes into the upkeep of her small herd. She buys hay inexpensively from a neighbor, and finds that the goats are able to graze outside for most of the winter. During the summer months they require only a little supplemental hay. Health maintenance costs are minimal; her goats receive herbal de-worming and she says she hasn’t had to call a vet in years.

The Twelve Year-Old Toggenburg Doe

            All-in-all, Jean says that besides her “freeloaders,” the goats easily pay for themselves. She usually has two of them milking at a time (about a gallon a day each); the younger ones can milk for a season or two after giving birth, the older ones can milk for up to four seasons. The milk produced is usually only for the family’s use; in addition to drinking it, they make products such as cheese and yogurt. When goat kids are born on their farm they may join the herd as dairy goats, or are given away or sold. They may also become meat in the family’s freezer. Any products the family doesn’t need can be traded to farmer friends for other items such as fruit, veggies, and meats.

            As we visit, Eric and Jean’s two young daughters climb around on the wooden fences and beams in the barn. They can’t help supplementing their mom’s narrative with their own goat stories. They tell me they like it when the baby goats are born and they can play with them, and they think it’s funny when the wether nibbles their clothes and hands. I notice that they don’t flinch when their parents mention the animals being rendered into meat. This is clearly a family project; even the little girls have their chores to do and seem to enjoy helping their mom with hers. While the goats may not literally add to the family income, it’s clear that they contribute generously to the family’s well-being; all of their dairy, meat, and lawn mowing needs are taken care of.

The "mentally challanged" Toggenbrug Alpine Doe

            As I drive away two hours later, the morning air has lifted and the sun is higher in the sky. The route home takes me past the same houses I’d seen before. Fewer people are outside, and this time I notice the buildings themselves. Some of them are small, and a few of them have rusted roofs and chipping paint. I am reminded that this is one of the poorer counties in New York State, and I’m also aware that there are areas in the county worse off than this one. Some of these families are struggling to find jobs, pay their bills, and feed their kids. Isn’t it possible that a few hardy ruminants could help them support their families, just as they’d helped Jean and Eric? Perhaps they wouldn’t have the luxury of keeping “freeloaders”, but a small herd could provide them with much of their food, and maybe even provide them with products to sell. Goats are one of the oldest domesticated animals in the world; they have so much to offer people, and their funny personalities can enrich the lives of their owners. Perhaps keeping them is not for everyone, but they’ve certainly proven that they can pay for themselves, and they may even provide a bit of income for those people inspired enough to make room for them.

Foundations

I would like to start by saying that I am new to the world of goats. If I were asked to take care of a goat, I’d be completely at a loss, but I’m determined to learn about them. When I was ten years old, I started a campaign within my household to get a goat. I wanted a gray female, and I wanted to name her Lucy. I drew picture after picture of goats on the chalkboard in our kitchen and spent hours forcing my parents to sit and listen while I explained exactly how wonderfully I would care for the animal. The reality of goat care may have been missed by my excited young imagination. I envisioned a dog-like goat that would follow me around town; I could picture tethering her outside my friends’ houses, or to lampposts in front of shops. My parents, somewhat unreasonably, responded by saying that a goat would need more than our quarter of an acre backyard to graze on, and that, if she escaped her fencing, she could decimate our neighbor’s prize flower garden in a matter of minutes.

Feeding baby lambs

            My goat wish was only put on hold. When I turned fifteen my parents bought a house in the-middle-of-nowhere, Vermont; suddenly my backyard grew by 99.75 acres: goat paradise! And the campaign began again, I considered purchasing blown up pie charts to emphasize my persuasive points, but my dreams were once again squashed too soon by my parents reality check: in just two short years I’d be leaving for college. They said I could have a goat as long as I was ok with it living in my dorm room while I was at school. While I saw no problem with this, I realized my future roommate and the school janitors could feel differently.

Sheep Walking!

            Last summer my parents bought two lambs. Six months later they slaughtered those two and adopted two more (this time not for meat). These not-so-little girls are extremely wooly, cuddly, and cute. And while I adored them from the start, I also realized that adding a goat to their happy family in the field would be ever so simple. Since then my imagination has run wild. I’ve revised my life plan to include not just one goat, but a herd. I’ve gone from wanting to own a goat cheese bakery, to wanting to have possibly the world’s first goats milk ice cream truck

            The truth of the matter is that I’m still stuck in college for another two years; so all goat plans must wait. However this scheming has brought up some interesting questions for me. As I’ve imagined the different roles goats might play in my future life, I’ve also wondered if goats can financially and environmentally sustain themselves. This question took on new life this January when I moved onto the university’s new farm to take part in SLU’s first Sustainability Semester. Currently I am one of eight college students living on an off-campus farm devoting these four months to learning how to live without negatively impacting our planet.

Sustainability Semester

            Each of us are designing our own semester-long project wherein we explore an area of sustainable living that interests us. Shockingly, I’ve chosen to explore the sustainability of goat farming. I’m going to spend the rest of this semester visiting North Country goat farmers and reading goat books to figure out how a small number of goats can be a sustainable choice for a family. I’ll explore the different ways they can financially help a family as well as reduce their ecological footprint and support themselves financially.

            With all this new knowledge I hope to gain, I can begin to make a plan for my first grand goat adventure, effective immediately upon graduating from college. (if not sooner.)