Baby Goats on the Way!

[Ben Framed]

That is awesome. A few years ago a Mexican restaurant opened here. They featured goat milk cheese dip! It was outstanding with chips and salsa. I think through the years they have converted to regular cow milk. It does not have that good rich flavor that it once had. Do you make cheese as well?

My sister is going to try making cheese, but she hasn't had the time yet.  Apparently mozzarella is an easy cheese to make, so she is thinking about trying that first.  Maybe we'll be having goat cheese pizza soon!   

I read in the cooking post where your sisters were successful in the cheese making! Congratulations. Have yall tried to make goat butter?

[The15thMember]

I read in the cooking post where your sisters were successful in the cheese making! Congratulations. Have yall tried to make goat butter?

Goats milk is naturally homogenized, so it's hard to separate out the cream from milk for butter.  My sister has been taking some milk and leaving it sit in a big flat dish in the fridge for several days so the cream will rise to the top, and then skimming off the cream and storing it in the freezer until we have enough to make butter.  We haven't actually tried it yet, but it's something we are working towards.  She has also tried yogurt, which she is having trouble getting to set up thick enough, but it tastes really good.  We are going to start experimenting with soap too.       

[Ben Framed]

What you all are doing is interesting. I love fresh real butter on a hot biscuit. Makes the whole breakfast so much better in my opinion. We use to make our own when I was living at home with my parents. (from a milk cow) What a treat! My parents liked the buttermilk! I do not. I can not get past the smell! lol 

[Michael Bush]

I wonder how a cream separator would work on goat's milk.  We had friends with goats and it was the same.  Only a little of the cream ever separates out naturall.

[Ben Framed]

I wonder how a cream separator would work on goat's milk.  We had friends with goats and it was the same.  Only a little of the cream ever separates out naturall.

Mr Bush my grandparents had and used one on cows milk. I did not think of that. I bet it would help Member and her family. 

[The15thMember]

I wonder how a cream separator would work on goat's milk.  We had friends with goats and it was the same.  Only a little of the cream ever separates out naturall.

Mr Bush my grandparents had and used one on cows milk. I did not think of that. I bet it would help Member and her family. 

We have looked into getting one but quality models are pretty expensive.  It's something we'll probably do in the future, but just don't have the money laying around for it right now.  Other things are taking priority at the moment. 

[The15thMember]

Here's this year's first batch of baby goats!  Bella had four kids last evening, 3 boys and 1 girl!  My sister went out to check on her around suppertime last night, and she was showing signs of pre-labor, so my sister came back into the house to get her kidding supplies, which only took a couple of minutes, and by the time she got back, two kids were already out!  Two more followed within a half hour. 

[Ben Framed]

Nice Reagan! Sorry I missed this one. I do not know a lot about goats but isn't 4 in one litter unusual? Congratulations by the way!

Phillip

PS I sent the latest Way Out West Video to you..

[The15thMember]

I do not know a lot about goats but isn't 4 in one litter unusual?

It's not overly common, but it's not that rare either.  Twins and triplets are most common in goats, with quads being about as common as humans having twins.  It is more common in miniature breeds though, which our goats are. 

Our other doe, Prim, had triplets two days ago, all girls!  You always want girls because they bring the most money when selling.  All our kids will be for sale or butchered this year, we don't have any plans to keep any. 
 

[The15thMember]

Here are our new babies!  We had Prim go first this year.  She had 1 boy and 2 girls.  The doelings are black and the buckling is the brown one.  My sister is going to be keeping the doe with white side patches.  She named her Halo, since she was born on 1/17 (video game people will get the joke).  The other doeling will be for sale, and the buckling will be wethered for the freezer. 




     
 

[Kathyp]

Didn't know you guys were Halo fans.  Happy belated Master Chief day!     BTW, tell your sister congrats.  They are very cute.

[The15thMember]

Didn't know you guys were Halo fans.  Happy belated Master Chief day!     BTW, tell your sister congrats.  They are very cute.

  We've been slowly working through the Master Chief collection on Xbox One for several years.  We always thought it was fun, but the Paramount+ show got us hooked into it for real.  We're doing Halo 5 right now.  It think the only other core game we haven't done is Reach.  We are super bummed out that they aren't making the new games local multiplayer anymore.  It drives me crazy how few local co-op console games there are, other than like party games. 

[Kathyp]

I am not a fan of co-op only because I don't have the time to do it justice.  Halo is the one series that I have played through more than once.  There are others I like but I can always go back to Halo.  Grab Reach when you can.  I enjoyed it more than ODST or one of the others that ticked me off trying to finish it.  3 maybe.
I do like multiplayer games.  played WOW for years.  Played Destiny 2 for a while.  A few others.  Again, time...

 Anway, sorry to take this OT.  I'll quit now 

[The15thMember]

I am not a fan of co-op only because I don't have the time to do it justice.  Halo is the one series that I have played through more than once.  There are others I like but I can always go back to Halo.  Grab Reach when you can.  I enjoyed it more than ODST or one of the others that ticked me off trying to finish it.  3 maybe.
I do like multiplayer games.  played WOW for years.  Played Destiny 2 for a while.  A few others.  Again, time...

 Anway, sorry to take this OT.  I'll quit now 

No, it's fine.  This thread never gets a lot of action anyway.  I'm pretty sure Reach is included in our collection, we just haven't played it yet.  I agree, ODST was frustrating, so much retreading the same ground to try and find stuff.  And almost impossible to follow the story from the multiplayer menu.  I feel like the whole concept of that game was interesting on paper, but just didn't come together in a way that worked well.  In our household, with so many people, it's just more fun to be able to play something together.  The only game I do regularly that is single player is Forza Horizon 4, which I'm like addicted to.  I play that game constantly.  It's great because you can easily play it for like only 15 min. or like 2 hours, and it's equally fun.       

[The15thMember]

We have Halo and the buckling, who we are calling Issachar, in the house this afternoon.  My sister wants to supplementally bottle feed them, since Prim is shy and tends to teach her kids to be afraid of us, and feeding can really help to tame a kid.  They are too little to really know anything yet, so they are just chilling in the play pen.  We left the other doeling, who we named Nicola, with Prim so she wouldn't be upset that all her babies are gone.  She can't count very well, so if one is in the warming barrel, she just thinks they are all in there. 

[The15thMember]

Here's our next round of goat babies!  Bella had a girl and two boys last night.  It was a rough birth, since the first two kids were positioned strangely, and my sister had to help, but everyone is doing great.  We have a waiting list of people looking for kids, so the spotted girl is already sold to a lady who purchased a doe and a wether from us last year.  She has an Elvis theme with all her goats, so she named the baby Ann-Margaret after one of Elvis's mistresses.  My sister named the spotted boy Mr. Moon after the Asheville Tourists mascot and because colored spots in goats are called "moonspots", and he couldn't possibly have any more!  We have someone looking for a buck, so he will probably go to them.  She named the black baby Blu, mostly just because she felt it fit him, but she took the spelling from the movie Rio.   




   

     

[The15thMember]

My sister made a disappointing discovery today.  Mr. Moon has a third teat.  Extra teats (the technical term is supernumerary teats) occasionally occur in goats, and it is a heritable trait, which means Mr. Moon is ineligible to be a breeding buck.  It's also concerning that the trait showed up at all.  My sister contacted the breeders of the dam, Bella, and the sire, Phantom, and unfortunately, Bella's breeder has seen the trait twice this year, with both babies coming from the line of Bella's father.  My sister isn't sure what she's going to do yet, since this throws a wrench in her breeding plans.  Although she was glad to find out which parent was the culprit, she's still very disappointed.     

[Ben Framed]

What are the problems with goats which have this trait?

Phillip

[Michael Bush]

>What are the problems with goats which have this trait?

Breed rules are all about conformation, and those are often not practical other than they won't let you in the registry...

[The15thMember]

>What are the problems with goats which have this trait?

Breed rules are all about conformation, and those are often not practical other than they won't let you in the registry...

This isn't a practical problem for bucks or wethers obviously, but it can be a practical problem for a doe, which is why you don't want to potentially pass the gene.  Extra functional teats can lead to improper udder development, and extra non-functional teats can harbor bacteria which can lead to mastitis.