Bucky Boy comes for his Christmas Visit

Diableau in one of his few moments of rest.

This post is PG13. :)

Each year we lease a buck for the month of December. Although this is the third buck to come stay with us, the excitement and peculiar nature of goat breeding is always freshly comedic. I figured I would try to take a few notes throughout his visit to share the fun with others who might be considering a similar arrangement.

Note, this year in addition to copper and hoof trimming, we gave all the does a shot of BoSe the week before the buck came. 

Day 1&2- We picked up goat boy-Diableau after a day of teaching. It was a cold, rainy night so my plan was to unload him from the dog crate, treat him to some grain, and introduce him to his December roommate, our wether Don Pedro. After being penned up with a load of randy bucks at his house, I imagined he would relish this break from mega testosterone. I had expected to wait to introduce the ladies to him until the next morning when it was less wet out after he had had some time to settle in. Sonnet, our sweet blue eyed doe, had other plans. She came outside in the rain (goats avoid the rain at all costs, so her bravery was a true testament to the power of hormones) and yelled at bucky through the fence. I brought her over with the boys and the attraction was instant. He ran around her in circles wagging his tongue. She stood still and flashed her baby blues at him and in minutes, she was bred. Although he will try lots of times to get it right, I look for the time when the goat mama scrunches up her body as confirmation that she is likely pregnant. Her lust satisfied, she was then willing to go back in the barn to sleep with the doelings and the other mamas for the night. Early the next morning, I awoke to her calling to me. She was ready for round two. I left her for a day long date when I went to work, and by the afternoon she was done with him. Like middle school students, the crush had come and gone like a rain storm, and by dinner grain was infinitely more important than any goat man. She is our first polled goat (no horns), so with any luck her kids will be polled too and we will not have to disbud them.

Day 3-6- The buck is a sweetheart. Smelly for sure, but gentle and kind. His face is the cutest face I've seen on a buck so I can't wait to see his kids. But, in the days following Sonnet's love affair, he seems so docile I begin to worry if he is man enough for the job of breeding our 6 lovely does. He was plenty interested in the doelings (men!), but largely ignored the goats we are hoping he will breed. In the past we just put the does out with him each day. This year we are more carefully watching for heat to save everyone unneeded stress and so that we will better be able to plan for their deliveries. Just when I was beginning to think he was a dud, Tiger started calling to him on Day 7.

Day 7-8-Goat in heat for sure. I sent her through the gate and although she was interested, they begin a wild running race back and forth through the field. I think Tiger needed a few more hours until she was ready for her date, and there was no way I was going to go to work and let goat guy chase my girl all day and run her ragged, so I put her back with her friends. After school, she was in standing heat. Perfect timing. I sent her over to buckville for a few hours of romance before dinner and voila, pregnant goat number 2. The funny thing about Tiger is she hums when being romanced. The next morning, I set her out again for a breakfast date and by 7:30 am, she was done with him and settled into her sweet quiet mama routine. I went to teach happy that the buck was perfectly able, just unwilling to push himself on goats unless they were interested...or in heat.

Day 9-No goat love, so to amuse myself, I made a huge batch of delicious cajeta (Mexican goat milk caramel) which my friend Judy is going to use in her Martha Moon chocolates she has started to sell. Can not wait to taste them. It takes a good 4 hours to boil down 2 gallons into 4 1/2 quarts, but the result is truly too good for words. You can put cajeta on all sorts of things or dip apples in it, but I am ashamed to say much of the time we end up just eating it with a spoon!

Day 10-Chianti's turn. She makes the cutest kids of any goat on the farm. And we love her, but she is a crooked lady and not the best milker. Great udder and milk, but tiny holes which means you have to have a weightlifter's strength to get much milk out. We milk her anyway mostly so she feels part of the Sunflower Farm team. Interestingly her daughter Luna was a first freshener last year and was great to milk! Chianti woke up ready for her turn. It was a nasty, muddy, rainy day. But, a woman with a plan can not be dissuaded, so I let her out before work and again in the afternoon, and 3 is a charm. Who will be next?

Day 11-13-All is quiet on the goat front. No big chemistry. Don Pedro is having a good time with his new buck friend. No head butting really. At night they sleep in the little goat house in the field together.  I think Don P. misses his favorite goat Bonnie, but otherwise is OK with our December arrangement.

Day 14-Bucky is interested in Luna. Before I brought her over, there was lots of peeing on his face and making insane noises to her through the fence, so I knew he was flirting. The girl goats lift their upper lip in a flirting smile (no teeth on top so it looks a little crazy) when they like the way the buck smells. I sent Luna (our first doe born on the farm!) over and buck spent the day making crazy noises to her. Almost singing. I could hear him inside with all the doors and windows shut! Saw him mount her a number of times. She seemed OK hanging out with him, so I left her on the boy side when I went to work.

Later that day after school, Go Go was acting ready. She likes to lick the bucks face and rub up beside him, very sweet. She is our most affectionate goat, so I guess it's no surprise she would love up the buck. Last year she kidded on the same day, in the same minute as another doe, so perhaps she is planning on another double header. My 13 year old Tess was the only one home when GoGo and Chianti kidded last year. She ran back and forth between the stalls and helped deliver 6 kids! By the time we got home it had ended minutes before and all their umbilical cords we dipped and everyone had nursed! I was so impressed with Tess! I'll leave GoGo out after dinner and put her back out in the morning. She and Bonnie are our best milkers, so I am not taking any chances with whether they get bred.

As a side note, today Tiger was eager to go see the buck and wagging her tail. I wondered if maybe the first time she was in false heat. Don Pedro our wether was interested in her, but the buck was not, so I was not sure what is up with her. Her last heat was 5-6 days ago when I thought she was bred. I went  out tonight in the pitch dark to see if the buck was interested in her and he was. I fell over a goat pail in the dark onto the icy ground, recovered, then sat out under the winter stars so I wouldn't miss what was going on with Tiger. I was interested because it has not been my experience that a goat will go back into heat so quickly and I was certain she had been bred. There was lots of running in circles until she stood and hummed to him again. I think last week was false heat and that this is her real date, but we will see in May. I'll put her out again in the morning with GoGo and Luna. Big day for Bucky!


Just read...
5 day heat

Pgymy Goats Management and Veterinary Care By Lorrie Boldrick.
A doe will come into season [heat] and stand for the buck normally.  We carefully enter the dates on the  calendar and start planning for our babies in 5 months.  But 5 days later, the doe is back in season and standing once again for the buck.  He's happy, and so is she, but what does this do to our 5 month plans?  Apparently the follicle produced with the first heat did not rupture (ovulate).  But since it was ripe, it took only a few days for the hormones to build back up and prepare for ovulation once again.  The majority of does will ovulate on this five-day heat and you should adjust your calendar accordingly.  There is almost no chance that she would have ovulated at the first heat.
So, I think I will calculate her due date from today as was my initial instinct.

Only one left to go into heat is Bonnie. Unless she is just sneaky and we missed the whole love session! I can never tell when she is in heat, so I have putting her with the boys each day.

Day 16-Bonnie's turn. The buck was very romantic with her. Lots of flirting.

Day 22-Hmmmm, our second 5 day heat. Bonnie was ready for another visit today, waiting by the fence door to be let out to the outer field where our wether and the buck are this month. I am interested to see when Tiger and Bonnie have their kids! I'll be looking on both dates for sure...and lets be honest, I sit by the baby monitor all month! (Whenever I'm not at work that is!)

This year the buck has stayed in the pen we put him in! Last year our buck jumped out of one stall and into Luna's to breed her (she was only 7 months). It all worked out for her, she was a great mom and her 2 kids very healthy! Most of our kids are going to wait until next year, but there are two who are 7-8 months old who I am thinking about since they are so big. The NDGA says 7 months is OK if they are big enough, but most seem to wait a year or older.  If the two I am considering go into heat at the end of his stay, I may let them visit the buck, but I am working hard to keep the rest way away from him!


Notes: Nigerian Dwarf Goats go into heat every 18-25 days. They are in heat for 1-3 days but in standing heat, (when they will allow the buck to mount them without running) for only part of this heat period. If they are bred and they do not go back into heat, they will likely deliver 145 days later (about 5 months). It looks like our first will be due on Tuesday May 1st and we'll be busy through the end of May!

Good Mold

My first soft, mold-ripened goat cheese is underway! The recipe is a mix of the one in Home Cheese making by Ricki Carroll and a recipe on the Fiasco Farm site. Like Fias Farm, I left mine out longer to drain. To begin the process, I spent a morning cleaning black mold out of an old fridge to use as a cheese cave. BAD MOLD. Somewhat ironic perhaps that my first cheese to find its way into the sparkling clean cave were 4 lovely little white mold covered Saint Maure cheeses (in a Crottin shape)! GOOD MOLD. I plan to try one at 2 weeks and then one at 4 and one at 5. For now they are fuzzing up nicely and I am watching them too much. My friend came by the other day as I sat staring at them on the counter in their mini tent and said, "Is this kinda like the watched pot thing?" Likely true, but my watched cheeses are molding!

1/2 gallon milk set up with whey on top

Instruments ready to begin draining in molds

Molds full. I used Chevre molds because that is what I had, but their tapered shape meant that when I flipped them they had to come out and this meant they did not keep their shape as well. 

Under their tent on the counter draining whey

They are half the size after 2 days out.

EZ Liner roll makes a nice mark and drains them well

Back under tent to get a bit more fuzzed up. I used reusable produce bag from Natural Home to protect them.

Flipped

A little more time on counter in a Ziplock 

Starting to see white mold on outside. Smells a little like yeast. I may have used too much mold...we'll see!

Into the cheese fridge. Still a little cool, so I ordered a fridge thermostat adjuster and keep opening the door for now to warm it up! 5 days old. Very covered in mold. I should have been flipping them more. Did today.

I will post the recipe...IF they are delicious.

So here is the finished cheese after 3 weeks. It was delicious and goatie and fancy tasting. But as you can see there is an issue with skin slip. (There is space between the cheese and skin and it is milky and drippy in the space when you cut it). Next time to fix this fairly common problem (especially with first timers) I will use even less Goetrichum, a bit more salt, more drying time at lower temps and be sure there is no condensation in the tupperware container during the aging period. I think I'll try again next weekend. For now I am making feta and chevre like crazy. I'll post the recipe for this cheese as soon as it comes out perfect!

Betta' Feta

So last time I made Feta I was impatient. (Recipe from Last Time) I was eager to taste it at every stage and ended up eating it all before it was done becoming good and fettaish. My impetuous nature however worked to my advantage, because I can mentally compare the current batch to my first try at each stage. I worked with the same recipe but took my time and the results are (so far) way better. The cheese is far softer because I was more gentle with my curds, stirring just three times as I heated them. I also added a bit more culture (1/2 tsp) and let it sit a little longer at each stage which is resulting in more flavor. This time I also created a brine (1/2 cup salt dissolved in 1/2 gallon boiling water-then chilled) and have the feta aging in the fridge in brine and whey for 2 weeks at least!

After aging for two days in Tupperware on the counter, I cut it into cubes and put the cheese and the whey in quart ball jars. This is how much cheese I got from 2 gallons of milk. 

Looks good enough to eat already, but I am showing great patience.

Cheese in my fridge soaking in brine.

2 weeks later: So delicious. It is salty, has a good texture and is a big hit with family and friends. Will have to make more soon! For now onto a soft, mold ripened cheese this week. Can't wait for my white mold to arrive in the mail so I can get started!

Note: The next time I tried the same recipe with 2 gallons of milk, my yield was higher and the cheese was softer. I did everything the same except I also added a touch of lipase. (I like the way this one tastes even better.) 61 oz. of cheese before adding brine.  This cheese has been a huge hit so feta will have to be a regular creation. The later in the milking season we get, the longer it seems to take for whey to drain.

A Big Week of Blueberries, Building and Bigger Milk Supply!

Big Time Blueberries
Each summer there is a small window for each type of delicious berry, miss the blueberry week or the advent of blackberries and you will likely be kicking yourself all through the long cold winter as you are faced with the sad versions shipped from a million miles away. This year we hit the blueberries dead on!

Chevre with Blueberry Chutney-THANKS for the great new idea Travis! 

Classic Summer Pie

Our first goat milk custard with berries-YUM.

Big day in the barn results in Big day in Kitchen...We milked our 5 goats this morning (they are separate from their kids at night) and got 12 cups of lovely milk.  Each goat is averaging over 1/2 a quart -although in truth a couple pull more than their weight and give a quart of milk at each milking- unless they get bored with the process and begin to dance! We will begin miking twice a day once the kids are gone. With more milk we are able to make more treats. This week we made cajeta (Mexican caramel-see Sunflower Farm website for pictures and recipe), yogurt, ice cream and chevre.

Big day in the new cheese kitchen...Meanwhile, the cheese kitchen is looking great. The framing is complete, skylights are in and 3 windows go in today.

3 windows and 3 skylights in cheese kitchen

Big day for the kids...This week we also sent off our 9 goat boys to their new homes. It is crazy how attached we got to them and the farm seems quiet now. To fill a bit of the void we are bringing home a new milking goat and kid early in August! Then we will have 5 doelings, 6 milking does and 1 wether. Stay tuned for new pictures.

Leo, Moe and Zion all went home with a sweet couple from Mass. 

Virtual Visitors & 5 things I have learned from our growing dairy herd this year.

GoGo snuggled up with her pile of kids!

Over the past year, virtual visitors have popped in to the Sunflower Farm Dairy Blog from all over the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Cambodia, United Kingdom, Ghana, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Korea, Russia and Thailand. In total 1000+ folks have stumbled in for a moment of small farm life in Cumberland, Maine. 

I love this for so many reasons. Unless you grew up farming (and I imagine even if you did) there are always a million curious questions which pop up on any given day. Knowing that there are people out there with a million different answers makes the journey less lonely. Farming allows us to disconnect in many ways from the insanity of modern life, but virtual and real live visitors to the farm remind me of how much the simple act of planting a garden, tending goats, collecting eggs and making cheese connects me to people, traditions and history which have persevered throughout all time, all around the globe. I am hoping to add a forum soon where we all can share our hard earned wisdom with each other on topics related to goat herding and cheese making! Also coming in August to the blog, hard cheeses and more on the creation of our dairy! For now my small gift to those in their first year or two of goats...

5 things I have learned this year.  

Note: these are simply my observations based on experience with my goat herd. I am interested in what others have experienced! PLEASE leave a note about something you learned this year!

Giving Shots is worth doing yourself...for sure there are things we call the vet for, but to have them make a farm call to give shots was getting pricey and unnecessary. This year we saved about $900. giving our own antibiotics, BoSe and CDT when they were called for. It's easiest with kids if one person can hold the goat while the other gives the shot. Set adults up on the milk stand with some food and they will not even notice a shot. To be prepared buy: alcohol, wipes needles- it is worth having a variety (Banamine calls for a tiny dose, CDT always a whopping 2 cc.), and a scale. Side note: The bottle of CDT says to dispose of the bottle after opening and using once. I asked my vet and he said it was fine to keep it between the first round of shots and the second round of shots 3 weeks later. Be sure to wipe bottle with alcohol wipes, use a new needle for each shot and to keep the bottle in the fridge when not in use.

Disbudding will hurt you more than it hurts them. In my opinion it is best to get someone with a lot of experience to do it. They will do it once, right, and be quick about it. We tried it the first year on our own and had to have the ones we sold redone by the vet. He used lots of painkiller and took a long time which in my opinion added a lot of stress to the goat kids. We were keeping Luna, so we let her one horn grow calling her our One Horned Wonder. When done correctly the whole process takes about 1-2 minutes and they will yell most of it, but when they hop down, they run to nurse and act as if nothing has happened. It does not appear to cause them lasting pain. Side note: Luna broke her little horn off the other day wrestling over food with another doe. It was a bloody mess and an excellent argument for disbudding. When I called the vet in a tizzy, he sensibly suggested that if I stopped chasing her and trying to DO SOMETHING, her blood pressure would drop a bit and the blood would likely stop on its own. If your goat ever breaks off their horn apply some blood stop and iodine or blue cote and let them be. Keep an eye on it and step in if needed, otherwise let nature heal her up. Her little horn nub healed up great without any real help from us.

Elastration is easy on the owner but clearly is not fun for the goat. In addition to shots, we elastrated 8 of our little bucklings this year. We waited until 7 weeks to give them time for their systems to develop as much as possible to help prevent urinary calcifications later. They are fertile at that age, so waiting longer than that was not possible with our setup. You might imagine burning the hornbud would be far more painful than placing a band at the top of their testicles, but this is not from my observations true. We gave our goat babies Banamine this year, an antinflamatory painkiller prescribed by the vet which did seem to shorten their discomfort. The procedure is cheap and easy to do yourself or with a partner. No vet needed for this either, save the $300 for an emergency! Weigh them and give the correct amount of Banamine. Then wash them up with an alcohol wipe, put the band on and then cover the area with Iodine. Quick and easy. At first, they are fine, they run and nurse and seem unaffected. Then it hits them and for 2-4 hours the poor kids are miserable. They all draped themselves on their moms and took turns crying piteously. Chris left the farm that evening! He could feel their pain. That night life was back to normal and after a week or two the nuts were shriveled up and ready to fall.  If you think about the surgery we do on cats and dogs...or humans for that matter, I suppose the 2-4 hours of discomfort is not any worse and perhaps better. I am looking into other methods though. Many folks seem to use the Burdizzo which I am curious to hear more about. 

Goats will Waste Hay-No matter what hay feeder you buy or build, goats will waste hay. It used to make me a little crazy (second cut costs about $3-5 a bale in Maine and our goats each eat about 25 bales a year.) Then I read someone's blog who said that you need to see it as food and then bedding and you will not go so crazy. They are able to spread the hay feet from a feeder and it does provide them with a constant fresh source of bedding! This is a good reminder to fix what you can and to let the rest go until you find a better way! HAY, if you're not having fun what is the point?

Goat Families Love Each Other-We can't keep all the goat kids born on our farm, but boy do we wish we could. This year as our herd grew we were able to see how sweet the goat families are together. Pick any summer day to observe and you will find piles of goats laying on top of or following around their mom.  Luna our doe born last year still follows around her mom (now with her 2 kids in tow.)Watching this touches my heart and is why we have chosen to let the mothers nurse their kids naturally. Many bottle feed the babies to increase the amount of milk they get and to avoid spread of CAE, but I hope we will always be able to balance the farm profit with the daily gold of seeing goats being goats together. Our herd tested negative for CAE, so we are not worried about spreading something we do not have on our farm and for now we have plenty of milk. We separate the kids and moms at night and milk in the morning in the first 8 weeks, then once the majority of the kids go to new homes this weekend, we will begin twice a day milking. Even with all the kids still here, we get a range of 2 cups to 2 quarts a day from each doe. Our goal in the next few years will be to add more 2 quart a day goats! Since we started with goats as pets, milk production was not our original concern. Side Note: We want does to expand our dairy herd but only 4 out of 13 kids were girls this year. We leased a buck who ran with our does for the month of December. I recently heard that many farmers believe that a buck who is allowed to see the does and build up his interest and is then given one shot to mount a doe in heat, will be more likely to produce does! Very interesting! I'm sure there are great number of humans who have tried crazier things to improve their odds of creating offspring of a certain gender! I'm guessing each time, you've got a 50% chance of the trick working! Hopefully the coin flips more in our direction next year, but I wouldn't trade this batch of sweet kids for anything this year.

Smells Good to Me!

Like many modern women, somedays it seems I am almost entirely consumed by a losing battle with "bad" smells. The real breeze filled with a mixed perfume of goat manure, herbs growing in the garden by the kitchen, the lawn just mowed, dog hair and pig musk is fought with Febreze. I'm sure air freshener is far more dangerous to my senses than any "bad" smell, and to be honest I can't even say I enjoy the Linen & Sky or Meadows & Rain fragrances although I am a big fan of how fresh linen, meadows, and a rainy sky smell in their natural form.
Somehow in the the last 50 years, we have been brainwashed to believe that no smell equals status; a sanitized home is a sign that we have made it, that we have conquered nature and all its unmanagable assaults on our senses. But recently it has occurred to me that it is not just our sense of smell that we are providing with a clean (BLANK) slate, but our other senses as well. I have begun to think that maybe by banishing the real world of smells from our daily landscape, we also arrest our happiness which depends on all senses to craft the memories which anchor us. We are constantly barraged with temptations to adopt a goal of "living well" with all the elegance of Martha but none of the gritty and memorable fun of a real experience. We have been tricked into thinking we can control our environment and too often give up the deliciously dangerous world of bee stings and mud and manure.
This summer spend a day in the mall, then another on a farm. I can bet which one your brain is more likely to store away and revisit on a cold winter day. I can't remember a single day I've spent at the mall, although I often comment that I wish my house smelled like Origins and always inhale deeply while passing Abercrombie. These shops smell great, but these manufactured scents are not connected to my life or memory bank and 50 years from now it will be the smell of manure and hay that take me back to hours spent waiting for the birth of a new goat kid or piglet. Those "bad smells" will work their magic like no other can.
In an August 2011 editorial in Cook's Magazine, Christopher Kimball wrote, "One experiment asked participants to sniff 10 common household odors and then to identify them; most correctly matched up fewer than half. Perhaps that's because our brains are given such lousy material to work with; laundry detergent doesn't make much of an impression...As a kid in Vermont, however, I collected unforgettable memories: the aching cold of a swimming pond, the sweet smell of fern dappled wetland, a good snort of wood smoke drifting through the first cold October evening, the wet vanilla and caramel steam from a sugarhouse, the scent of a workhorse-all dried sweat, heat and manure-and afternoon light filtered though spider-webbed, fly-specked windows of the dairy barn. There was nothing between sensation and memory: the senses smashed headlong into the mind, burying deep, leaving immutable patterns of smells, sights, sights, tastes and sounds.
The modern world, however, filters the pleasure of living through infinite layers...Unhappiness steps through the door when we find ourselves removed from the world, from the shock and pleasure of the five senses. Thats' why we cook, to remind ourselves that we are alive...Living with zero degrees of separation entails risk-yes, that glass of raw milk may contain pathogens-but nothing worth doing is entirely risk-free."
So the next time company swings by I will not rush around with a bottle of Febreze but instead will welcome them into the kitchen (which will likely smell like cheese curds) and the barn (which will smell like manure) and perhaps this will be my gift to the visitor and myself...a good stiff wiff of a simpler time, not too far out of our reach if we are willing to step into the wonderfully messy world.

Yogurt Maker Has Arrived!

We bought a Euro Cuisine YM260 2 Quart yogurt maker and took it for its first ride this week! Tess (my 13 year old chef and daughter) has been waiting for the UPS truck to pull up our driveway every day and when it finally came, you would have thought it was Christmas for how excited she was to get it unwrapped. The idea is that it keeps the yogurt at the perfect temperature (110-115 degrees) for it to turn yogurt like. There all lots of ways to do this, but most of them take more attention. (Ex. Putting jars of hot water in a cooler with the jars of milk and culture.) The great thing about the yogurt maker is that it hod the temperature for 8 hours and we can be sleeping!

•Heat 2 quarts fresh goat milk to almost boiling. Cool to 110. 

Separate 2 cups of milk in bowl and add yogurt with live cultures. (We used 1 cup of yummy Plain Stonyfield organic.) Stir. Add to rest of milk and stir well again.

Pour mixture into 2 Qt container and plug in. Let sit for 8 hours.

gather what you would like to put in your yogurt for flavor and wash your storing jars

Put container in the fridge for about 8 hours. When it comes out it will look like yogurt!  Now comes the fun part of adding flavor.

Maine maple syrup

jam

add vanilla

strawberry jam thickens the yogurt a bit

Add a tiny scraping of the delicious caviar type seeds inside of a vanilla bean, some vanilla extract and a touch of Maine maple syrup or some homemade strawberry jam to the plain yogurt and ENJOY.

Many folks complain that they find homemade goat yogurt too thin. You can add all sorts of things to thicken your yogurt-gelatin, powdered milk and tapioca. European style yogurt is traditionally less thick, so if you prefer you can enjoy it as is and feel cool and European! I think I'd rather have a thinner yogurt than one full of additives (something cooking at home enables us to avoid!) In our case, using a whole milk yogurt as the starter and fresh Nigerian Goat milk made a yogurt that is a good consistency, so we will not be adding a thing!

The Creamery...First Steps!

Big Week! Dreams are becoming a reality!

We are starting work on our own cheese making room. Lucky for us, there is an empty building next to our house with a concrete floor and working drain. Lucky me that I have a husband who loves building projects and has the summer off as teacher! When we moved in a year ago the property and this space was filled to the brim with trash. Wish I had taken pictures of it then. Just this week, we removed the last of the junk and now have a clean slate to work with. Chris can already see it finished and spent yesterday excitedly ripping out the insulation and wall board in 90+ degree heat! In the next few months we will turn the space into a small farm store and creamery! The creamery will be 18 x 17, a nice big space to grow into over the next 20 years! The farm store will be up front and about 18 x10. The dairy inspector has been by to take a look at our plans so now the fun begins. We will share pics of the process in case others who are considering taking cheese making out of the kitchen are interested. If any folks stumble across this blog who have built a creamery, PLEASE feel free to add comments sharing your wisdom!

creamery on left, house on right

Farm store/creamery entrance 

Junk from previous owner almost clear

first day of work gutting the space

opening the doors for new possibilities!

The farm store will be in front until just after door, then creamery will go to the back wall.

lumber arrives for front wall!

front wall of cheese kitchen with observation window and door are framed on Day 1

The roof will peak over creamery space with north facing sky lights, door at back leads to big storage room, maybe someday it will be classroom space for a farm school?!

framing complete for roof and wall where sinks will be

Framing done for wall between shop and creamery

3 windows and 3 skylights go in for natural light

Exciting!

Our goats passed their first state required test for dairy animals. When the report came back from the Maine Department of Agriculture we were very excited. Our herd tested negative to Brucellosis and CAE. The vet drew the blood this spring. CAE cost $15.50 and Brucellosis cost $20.00 per goat. We will need to test any new animals we add to our herd. I need to find out if this applies to kids born on our farm that we want to keep and milk. They will also need to be tested for Tuberculosis every 3 years.

Once we are in action, our heat treated milk, single service containers of value added products, and any multi-use containers will each need to be tested by the Department 4 times in each consecutive six months. There is an exception that states: Milk and milk products not produced continuously throughout the year are exempt from being sampled 4 times in any consecutive months which may very well apply to us since we will be seasonal until we are making a good enough profit to retire from teaching!

And getting into Dairy means many hours spent like this!