Tale of Three Bellies

So as of this morning there were still not kids - here are the aerial belly shots (L to R: Nimbus, Tatum & Katie).  Of course it was pretty much a guarantee that someone would kid today during the day since I was off at a cheese chemistry class at UVM all day!

And the winner is.....

Katie! 

She had 1 doeling and 1 buckling, both were nice weights and are active and healthy!



With that, kidding season has officially begun!

Nope, no kids yet!

While we expect kids any day now there aren't any yet!  All three moms-to-be have been moved inside the barn into the kidding area for the night, and there is definitely some serious nesting behavior going on, but nope - no kids yet.

Kids won't be coming soon enough from a cheese perspective.  The does we milked through this winter and dwindling and milk production is pretty darn low.  The last of our feta cheese was made up into packages of marinated feta and most of them sold at market today in Montpelier, as did most of our newer aged raw milk cheese, Tweed River.  

Tweed River Tomme started out as an experiment in cheesemaking to produce an "old school" hand made cheese from our farms milk in a French tradition that would be unique to our farm and we couldn't be more pleased with the result - other than the fact that we are almost out of stock! 

To Blog, Or Not?

I guess I'm just not cut out for daily blogging.  Or maybe it's my lifestyle?  Well we'll see.  Kidding season is about to get underway and I'm hoping to post information here about all the new kids as they arrive. 

To start with I'll be posting a link to guess which doe will kid first on the farm this season.  Last year was a little anticlimatic due to the unexpected arrival of Kim-Oh-No, our first kid of the season who arrived in December - on my birthday as a matter of fact!  She was not expected so her early, pre-new year arrival was a surprise.  Thus her name - Kim, oh no!  Her parents names had Japanese roots so naming her after a traditional Japanese dress seemed only fitting.

As we start to get into kidding season a little I'll post a couple contests where subscribers can win free cheese!  So stay tuned.

Artisan or Farmstead??

As January whizzes by, kidding season is fast approaching. While I am primarily a cheesemaker, being a "farmstead" cheesemaker adds a lot more to the definition than just cheese.  Being "farmstead" implies that we make our cheese with milk from our own animals raised and milked on the farm where the animals are raised.  Our cheese is also "artisan" cheese - produced in small batches, with attention to the tradition of the cheesemaker's art, and using as little mechanization as possible.  Cheese made by hand.

With the farmstead chapter comes milking and goat care.  In order to get milk - you need them to get pregnant and have kids.  Seems simple enough.  Well maybe simple isn't the right word.  Life during kidding season is definitely not simple.  My mom handles most of the kidding watch, but at least one night a week I take that duty.  Sometimes it's quiet, othertimes just sleepless, and then here are the busy nights.  We are always glad when kidding season is over, but somehow as it rolls around again we still get excited to see the new kids arrive and ramp up the milk production once again.

Dropping the Ball

It has been a few days since I posted, not intentionally.  Yesterday was my birthday so I had the day off from the barn - well from the animal care portion at least.  Thanks Mom!  However, cheese waits for no one so there were cheese things to do, such as brining the feta I made the day before and hanging the chevre I set last night to drain.  Of course there is always a little affinage to do.

Even at the height of our production we are considered a micro-dairy.  Our large vat insert maxes out at 35 gallons and generally during the higher yield milk months I'm making cheese 3-4 times a weeek.  However, currently we are a micro, micro-dairy.  My recent batches of feta and also my last two of chevre were just under 5 gallons each.  And it took me all of my legal holding time to gather that much milk.  At this rate we may be done with active cheesemaking within the next 2 weeks. 

Done of course until the 50 or so does that are pregnant start kidding in mid to late February.  Enter the time of no sleep...  Last year our farm produced around 148 kids between February and July 4th weekend, most of them born between mid/late February and April.   We're often asked what we do with all those kids.  Well, last year some when back to Old Mountain Farm, friends we were leasing goats from (or in some cases had bought does from with kids back conditions) and a couple groups of young wethers went to a friend who raises them and sells them as pets - goats make great pets or companions animals.  All the others we have sold, except for 28 or so that we still have here, some still for sale but others bred this year to kid in the spring or the younger ones who we'll grow out this year and make a decision on them for next year.

I'm please to say that this year we had kids travel to Alabama, Oregon, Washington, Arkansas, Maine, and other points around the new england area.  Some even went to show homes which we are very excited about.  We are quite busy with the farm and cheese so while we have the milk testing part in hand, we haven't had any goats in the show ring.  This year we have goats on the show circuit in a couple places plus just this week 2 of our young does went to 4-H show homes!  I can't wait to see what this next season of kids brings.