Category: goats (Page 7 of 9)

Goat Shed Redesign

August 3, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 5 Comments

In my initial design for our goat sheds, I wanted to be able to enclose the goats in the shed if necessary for protection, especially for when a doe might have new kids; but I wanted to be able to have the door completely out of the way during the hot months to allow as much breeze in while offering shade. And so, I made the front door completely removable. Well, that became somewhat difficult in having to pick up the door and maneuver it into place. Also, strong winds would blow the sheds over backwards, so we strapped them to a ground hook. Over time though, I thought of a different way to accomplish the same thing while keeping the current general design of the sheds but making it easier to manipulate the doors.

So the idea would be to have the entire door on a hinge while having another smaller door cut out of the big door, allowing the main door to be closed while a portion of it remained open to allow for the goats to move in and out. This would allow for the shed to be more enclosed when it is cold, or completely when necessary, and would also allow the entire door to be completely open during the hotter days, as before.

Here are the shed and door originally designed:

I cut off a part of the big door:

Added the missing piece of the frame onto the smaller door:

And attached the hinges, joining it back to the main door:

I attached 8″ hinges to the shed, using 1 5/8″ deck screws through #8 washers, the hinges, the siding, and into 2×4 blocks behind the siding. I then did similarly to the door, making sure it was raised up 1/4″ so the door frame doesn’t sit completely on the shed frame, making it difficult to close:

Here are the 2×4 blocks:

I then installed a 2×4 the width of the shed just above the door frame on top, to keep the top of the door from pushing in:

And then I installed two bolt latches, top and bottom, to the door frame. The bottom one uses the latch receptacle provided with the hardware; the top latch latches straight into the 2×4 above it:

Finally, I added a small hook and eye latch to the little door to be able to keep it held open; and installed a larger one to the side of the shed to keep the larger door latched. I drilled appropriately sized pilot holes for each before attaching the latches; and also, for the main door, I had to put a 2×4 block behind the hook latch that was attached to the siding:

Here the shed is completely closed:

Here it is with the small door open only:

And here it is completely open:

This redesign has made things much easier to handle when dealing with the sheds in various types of weather. We’re thankful to the Lord for granting us the land, goats, sheds, and ideas to be able to husband animals, we pray, for His glory.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Bert” and “Ernie”

May 6, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

And again, God graciously granted two more kids to be born to one of our nannies. This time it’s Winnie, with Shatner being the sire; and they produced two little bucks.

Please say hello to Bert (on the left) and Ernie (on the right):

And here’s their moving picture (with not a lot of movement 🙂 ). This was about a week ago. Also, by this time, we had 17 goats total:

We thought we’d also include a video of all the goat kids being more active. I mention they sit around all day; actually, they sort of only do that for the first several days, but then are old enough to keep up eating with the herd throughout the day, although they are more active in the morning and at night. The video’s a little long, but there are some fun parts throughout it. And, you’ll get to see how Bert and Ernie’s faces look almost exactly alike:

As always, we are, and may we ever be, thankful to the Lord for all of His provisions; and we pray He grant us wisdom and guidance in the care and use of these animals, for His glory.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Rhett” and “Scarlett”

April 30, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Once again, the Lord graciously granted new kids to be born to one of our goats Betsy, who’s full Nubian; and with our full Nubian billy Shatner, the kids are full Nubian as well.

And here they are: please meet Rhett (on the right) and Scarlett (on the left):

Here is some live-action resting 🙂 . And actually, as of this video, we had 15 goats:

We are again very grateful to God for allowing us these provisions, and pray these kids become productive members of the herd.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kid “Woodrow”

April 23, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 1 Comment

A few months ago we did a blog post about our goat kids graduation, where we put all the does with the bucks we had planned for them, the first generation offspring does to be with a buck for the first time. Well, a couple of days ago, the Lord graciously granted our first second generation kid, a buck, to our Nubian doe Marie. His sire was Eastwood, who I recently mentioned had died during the winter. But, he apparently helped bring along Marie’s first kid; and in honor of him, we’re calling the new kid “Woodrow.”

He has his father’s colors; and he sure seemed large for a new-born; but I have a feeling we’re used to twins and triplets, who probably end up a little smaller than a single kid might, although I can’t be sure. It appears he’s doing pretty well:

Here he is in action. The whining goat in the background is Pammy, who recently gave birth as well:

We are thankful once again to God for His graces and mercies in granting this healthy new provision to us.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “George” and “Gracie”

March 13, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

For our breeding scheme this year, we previously discussed our separating out our older does to be with our main buck Shatner, and the younger does, his female offspring, to be with Eastwood, a goat we traded one of our triplet bucks for. Well, there have been a couple of updates: first, Eastwood died during the Winter; so we borrowed a buck from our neighbor. He’s apparently pure Spanish, and we call him John Buck (think what you might call an unknown female goat 🙂 ) :

We had put the bucks with our does in the beginning of November so they would give birth no earlier than April, where they should be mostly out of the cold. Well, Sue was out near the goats the other day, and she heard a very young sounding bleat. Umm…huh? She went to see what was going on, and lo and behold, our doe Pammy had given birth to twins! While quite surprising, we were both very thankful to find out God had granted us two new goats — a male and a female. We decided to call them George and Gracie, and here is your introduction to them:

And here is a video:

As I briefly mentioned in the video, last year, when Winnie had her triplet bucks, the middle one, Porthos, seemed to often have physical problems, from pink eye to swollen front knees. And he was smaller than his brothers, and so we kept him with Winnie much longer than we did the others, so he could continue to have her milk. Well, apparently we kept him in too long, as nearest we can figure, he is the father of the new kids. Porthos has grown up to be about as big has his younger brother now, and seems to have also matured normally. 🙂 Even though this is a possible situation of some in-breeding, which we were trying to avoid, since it’s Pammy it’s not too bad as the worst Porthos might be is Pammy’s nephew; with Betsy, she’s of a whole different line, so if Porthos got to her as well, it’s fine. However, he may have gotten to his mom, Winnie; we’re hoping not, but I guess we’ll have to see what happens. And now we know better for the future.

We are grateful for the Lord, in His graces and mercies, granting us these new provisions; and we pray that He might grant they be productive members of the herd, according to His will.

— David

Farmer’s (Goat) Cheese aka Neufchatel

February 9, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 11 Comments

I just finished eating a few crackers topped with my first (successful) attempt at Farmer’s Cheese, a soft “cream” type cheese.

A neighbor said she had made some Farmer’s cheese with the inexpensive Junket rennet tablets found in the local grocery store, so I thought I would try that first. An online cheese making blog said not to use Junket rennet because it is not the same as cheese rennet. But it was here and within my budget, so it was cheese rennet to me! 🙂

My “first” first attempt was a bust, using the original recipe from the Junket instructions. Not to say it doesn’t work, but that my attempt didn’t work. The recipe calls for buttermilk, which I didn’t have; so I looked online and found you can substitute with milk and lemon juice. So I did that, along with adding 1/4 tablet of rennet dissolved in a little water. In hindsight, I don’t think the combination of those was enough to coagulate the milk. I heated the milk to 65 degrees F according to the recipe, added the “buttermilk” and rennet, and left the covered pot out overnight per the instructions. It was supposed to solidify overnight; but it just never did, even after I left it another 12+ hours. So that went to the chickens.

My next attempt was a conglomeration of a couple of recipes. This time I heated two quarts of our raw goat milk to just below boiling, and added two generous tablespoons of white vinegar (one per quart) and 1/2 tablet of the Junket rennet dissolved in a little water. Since this was previously frozen milk, it was a bit watery; so I decided to err on the side of caution and add too much vinegar and rennet rather than too little. The last thing I wanted was to ruin another batch:

I whisked it all together, covered the pot, and hoped for the best. Well, this time it started to coagulate much more quickly, which gave me hope. By the next day, it was not as solid as I imagine a really good cheese probably would be; but it was close enough!

According to the recipe, the cheese is ready when you can poke your finger in and lift the top, gelled layer cleanly from the lower, liquid layer:

Then, you are supposed to cut it into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes in order to assist with the “draining of the whey” (sounds like a ceremony). The instructions call for the first cut starting down the middle, holding the knife at a 90 degree angle, and then each subsequent cut tilting the knife a little until you get to 45 degrees by the time you reach the side of the pot. You turn the pot 1/4 turn, and repeat the process, which eventually makes a grid of curd cubes. I forgot to tilt the knife as I cut — oh, well. But, it came out okay anyway:

Then, I spooned out the cubes of curds into a handkerchief-lined strainer with a bowl underneath to catch the whey drippings. They say to use cheesecloth, but it just seemed too loose of a mesh, and the handkerchief worked very well for this type of cheese:

Here it is all spooned into the strainer. You can’t tell here, but it’s draining like crazy underneath:

Quite a bit of whey drained quickly, but it takes 2-3 hours to fully drain:

Here are the curds with the majority of the whey drained. Pretty cool, huh?!

After the main draining, I hung up the handkerchief to draw out the rest of the whey with the help of a bit longer exposure to gravity:

Well, this looked like it might resemble Farmer’s, or some kind of cheese, and not too much like a train wreck:

So I seasoned it with a little salt, garlic and onion powder, spooned it into a container and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Using two quarts of milk is supposed to make approximately 3/4 lbs. of cheese, and this looked about right:

I’m very pleased with the mild, seasoned taste. It has been too easy to eat a lot of crackers topped with the cheese at one sitting! But I’d rather have to combat will power than have to hold my nose closed and gag it down 🙂

All of our does have dried up in preparation to deliver more kids in the Spring, if the Lord wills; so this was my last opportunity to attempt making goat cheese until then; and I’m very thankful it turned out. I’m excited (and not as scared) at the future possibilities! What a great way to preserve milk; and we are, as always, very thankful for God’s direct provisions. Believe me, I know I probably could have done this much better and more “properly;” but, hey, it worked for me; and it’s food! I hope to continue to improve with more practice and maybe somebody out there can learn from my mistakes. Bon appetit!

Susan

Kids’ Graduation 2009

November 9, 2009 / David & Susan Sifford / 4 Comments

So that they don’t have any kids until after most of Winter has past, we waited to put our bucks Shatner and Eastwood with their respective does until now, as the gestation period of goats is around five months.

And so, this past Lord’s Day was the time!

We put Shatner with Winnie, Betsy and Pammy (shown back to front):

And we put Eastwood with their daughters Minnie, Tapioca and Marie (shown left to right, with Eastwood between Minnie and Tappi). Any kids God graciously grants will be their first ones. They’ve now graduated into being a part of breeding process! (They grow up so fast! 🙂 :

And here are Aramis and Porthos (left and right), and Donny (center), which, with Shatner being gone, are now kings of their castle:

We pray the Lord perpetuates the herd, in accordance with His will and divine wisdom; and we thank Him for the opportunity and resources to be able to set apart the goats for breeding.

— David

Category: goats (Page 7 of 9)

Goat Shed Redesign

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Bert” and “Ernie”

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Rhett” and “Scarlett”

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kid “Woodrow”

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “George” and “Gracie”

Farmer’s (Goat) Cheese aka Neufchatel

Kids’ Graduation 2009

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