The Shape of Goats To Come

The irony of being a farmer is that when you breed any animals, you automatically raise yourself up to the level of "breeder." You are now asked to make assumptions about the genetic fitness of the two parents and then it's time to play the "Breeding Game"


Breeding is always exciting - you have to think simultaneously about the past, the present and the future, Christmas Carol-style

• The Past - What have offspring of each animal looked like in the past? Never bred before... oh, now you have to look at that animal's parents.
• The Present - What are they like now? Good characteristics vs bad. Which characteristics seem likely to persist for this breeding? What good traits will be swamped?
  
• The Future - What will we do if the offspring don't look good at first? Or after 1 year? Or 2? How long can we wait?

In other words, you need to keep in mind the heritability of the traits, your breeding strategy, and which animals to keep and which to sell. We have written some long explanations of how we have made our decisions - none of them easy and, given the nature of genetics, none of them truly able to provide predictable results. Click here to find out what strategies we use.

It really almost always comes down to hope. The probabilities are always just that - and since our understanding of the dominance/recessive setup for dairy goats is very low... well, we really don't know what will happen with any individual breeding. The best hopes then go to the "best of the best" breeding at the top farms (or small farms that are lucky to start with outstanding genetics) - those outcomes should be better on average which makes those offspring pricier. Are they better tho? The breeder lists a $600 doe kid for sale - is she twice as good as my $300 one? Or is she 10% better? 25%? Were the outstanding genetics in that breeding heritable, were the traits influenced by the environment, did chance produce an offspring that ends up with recessive, undesirable phenotypes?

It is not just the breeder that sets the price, so do the buyers by putting more value on certain breedings and trusting the assessment of the breeder. Experience helps here, but probability should confuse the issue as well. Art, not science. It is always a great idea to start with the best genetics - it is figuring out which animals have the best genetics that is the challenge.

Here are two daughters from the same kidding - Moonlight and Starlight. Which one do you keep? Why? We can't keep both... and they change as they mature, just like humans. Perhaps they will look better (or worse) when they freshen and have an udder to examine. How many times have breeders sold kids only to buy them back a couple of years later! Click here to learn more about our strategies (imperfect as they are).

Confessions of the crazy goat lady

So it took an extra year and a half but I started selling goats. Now, keep in mind that I did absolutely nothing to try to sell the goats in that year and a half (still sold a couple somehow). Anyway, now that I am actually trying to make a decent living off our goats and farm products, I have realized it is going to be incredibly easy. So then, of course, my mind starts thinking about selling the best goats and creating the best genetics, etc. so we can sell each goat for more and make more money and more money and more….

A little aside…

It really reminds me of the first couple months of my first daughter’s life. I remember wanting her to smile and wanting her to walk and wanting her to talk and there was this sort of edge to other parents that I decided to take within myself. Will mine be the first? Will they be the best? Will we SUCCEED?

OK, I was completely psycho and I like to think it was the hormones. After a couple months of watching this happen in my mind and becoming more and more disgusted with the way I was looking at the world, I decided to become a normal decent human again (thank goodness – maybe it was just the hormones).

Now my mantra is just… learn to be happy, learn to be confident, follow your dreams – even if you want to just live on the streets (don’t laugh, had a friend who gave up everything (he had A LOT) to live on the streets in San Francisco). He did this for a year, found himself, and decided to make a change in the world. Found his dreams, found his happiness, and learned confidence. I don’t want to make light of living on the streets – there is a MAJOR difference between deciding to live on the streets and being forced to live on the streets by your circumstances.

OK, so back to the goats…

I have been watching the same ridiculous pattern creep up in my brain – I must SUCCEED. It has been a week now and I have watched my brain change from this decent human to this other thing that thinks about more land, more goats, more animals, more money. Last night I realized why I was getting disgusted with myself again. I was literally going from feeling good and successful to completely horrid and depressed within a couple of minutes.

I DON’T want more. As a matter of fact, all year I have been pushing to see how little I can live with (still, admittedly, I have a lot) to make sure quitting my job won’t influence our everyday life. I can easily live with less and it really is liberating – less junk to take care of, less traveling to the store, less money spent. I plan on reducing our consumption more and more until we are closer to zero (haven’t worked out gasoline yet, though).

So if I know I can live with less, then why should I try to sell each goat for more money? It feels like I materialism at it’s extreme. Here I have awesome animals perfect for sustainable survival, yet if I sold them for more money I would be excluding a large number of people that would use these animals for the most decent purpose (not just to make money and show that they are the best so they can sell them for more), but people that would raise the animals with love and respect to survive on their wonderful milk, cheese, etc.

I will break even and hopefully make enough money to buy the food I can’t grow (I am not ready to live without chocolate or tea – especially chocolate), the heat I need in the winter, and the clothes on my back (almost always from thrift stores). However, I will NOT

• Sell $800 animals that may or may not have the same outstanding genetics of their parents (meiosis is a chaotic and random event). It could even have worse genetics than both parents because of the level of inbreeding. In this throw-away society, I think we forget that we should always get the most for our money. Animals should be bred to have the best genetics, the best conformation, and the best production no matter what. So why do we charge more money for this? Materialism is a sick state of mind!!!
• Create a “brand” name that people will pay more for, just because of the name. The fact that this level of branding has shown up in the agricultural community really makes me wonder about the “intelligence” of humans. Food is food is food is food and as long as it is raised in a sustainable way and shows respect to the creatures that we rely on for survival, then all is well. I am willing to pay more money for fair trade, organic tea raised in sustainable ways, but I am NOT willing to pay more money for the tea just because it has a specific name associated with it. It reminds me of the way people shell out money for clothing or cars.
• Sell goats that are not dairy level goats for lots of money just so I can make up my costs. Someone did this to me once – when we first got into goats – and I have learned my lesson. If I find that my goats are not dairy-level, I will be completely up front and sell them as pet quality. Why should I pass my mistake on to others, it is dishonest and will only hurt everyone in the end. I would rather take the loss so that I can live with myself and others will know that I am trustworthy.

-Carol

Happy Birthday Jamey

Another year – they really need to start slowing down. The girls made their own birthdays cards (without any help) and were incredibly proud of themselves :D All in all, a great day and didn’t involve any gifts that couldn’t be eaten or drank – a requirement for all gifts around here. Actually, Jamey ended up with some wonderful tea, some tequila from a very small distillery in Mexico, and a gift certificate to brew his own beer. Ahh, nothing that we can’t get rid of without a trace (even the tequila bottle makes an awesome vase).

I am hoping we can keep this trend going – I haven’t told the grandparents yet, but it would be great if we all pitched in and got the kids Great Escape season passes for their birthday – no new toys, nothing to throw away, and still lots of fun and excitement for those little monsters.

Halfway There (and so it gets confusing)

It was a "happy/sad" day - Carol posted an online ad on Craigslist for Phoebe and her two boys and got a couple of nibbles (ironic term given that Phoeb and her sons are notorious nibblers). The first prospective buyer came today and she bought all three. I mean, woohoo, the three go as a family (Phoebe is the lowest dominant adult doe and her boys are pretty constant companions) and the buyer seems very nice. Phoebe did not really fit in with the other goats. But she and her boys had the sweetest personalities in the barn.

Phoebe

Sad side - so far, we really haven't found anyone (OK, Eric and Sharon are the only ones) who are interested in goats for any real "home dairy" or sustainable living reasons. Hell, we have found two people interested in eating any goats we butcher. There have been several interested in pet goats, yes, there have been several folks there. But not really on the dairy side. That is a bummer because that is why we started doing it. Carol thinks this may be our lot in the "dairy goat hierarchy" since we are

1. not a top tier breeder,
   
2. not in a region with established Nigerians,
   
3. and not breeding a full-size goat (that people expect to milk).
   

Still, we have more web presence than any other Nigie breeder in the Capital District, so maybe we can elevate the breed and bring out some backyard dairy folks.

- jamey

This Week's "Top Reasons" List: Why I Love Our Meat Chickens

We had chicken tonight and as I sit downstairs, I smell... broth? Oh yeah, I am simmering the carcass plus some onion, celery, and salt upstairs. Completely forgot about it. But that smell reminded me of how grateful I am to have chickens. Egg layers are cute, maternal, year-round... but the "boys" are only here for 12 weeks. Why do I love them so?

1. Making up their nickname - .We raised Delawares last summer - all boys - nicknamed the "Del-eats". The year before that, the Black Australorps were all "Kenny" since they died at the end (Southpark joke). No word yet on this year's nicknames. Suggestions?
   
2. Chicken Tractors - Those industrious lads mowed all the lawn in the orchard and around the playground for 8 of their 12 weeks. And probably nailed a bunch of the caterpillars under the apples. Free landscape services!
   
3. They bake into such nice dinners - 3-4 lbs after slaughter and when I bake him at 350 for an hour, he doesn't drip enough fat for gravy! Lean boys that are super-moist. Yummy!
4. They taste of something alive - not some marinade or brine they were injected with. No seasoning needed here and the broth stands on its own.
5. Chicken mobs! - There is something to be said for watching one of the boys find a worm/root/leaf, get all "cluck-a-cluck-a-cluck" and half the rest coming storming over to see if there is more.
   
6. They have legs to stand on - Nice blogpost over at ScienceBlogs about a UK study of broilers and how many had trouble walking (about 25%) or standing(about 3%)! Our boys seem to walk pretty well when I brought the feed, even the "hopper" who got his leg caught under the chicken tractor one morning when I moved it.
   
7. Breaking Even Isn't Hard to Do - Raising 25 boys to 12 weeks came in around $175 (bought chicks, bought feed, no straw, paid $3 per for slaughter). And at $7 per 4 lb roaster, we are cheaper than supermarket's "Nature's Place" chicken and ours are healthier/tastier/lower carbon. And actually live on grass, unlike those poor "free-range" chickens with a pop-door onto a concrete yard at the factory farm.
   
8. Lack of Weird Feelings About Their Past - We don't get our chickens from a factory like this one - I am so scared by this image, that I am completely overlooking the pink uniforms.
   

Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, 2005
(Photo: Edward Burtynsky)

- jamey

Change, glorious change

So many changes, so much time. I finally got the website for the goats up and running (Nigerian Dwarf Goats at Weathertop Farm) – phew!! I thought it would never happen, but perseverance pays off. Part of the motivation was my decision to quit my job this June. This will be the final year I work as an online teacher, while trying to run a farm and homeschool the kids. I was getting completely worn down and it just isn’t worth it, so I now I get to focus more and more on what I am going to do on the farm and with the girls. Ahh, and there will be so many changes. The short list:

• Create paddocks with hedgerows around the wetlands - which means we need more animals to keep up with the rotational grazing…
• Get pigs, turkeys, and ducks
• Increase the number of broilers to 50
• Create path in the forest
• Put new gardens in the front into full rotation
• Figure out mushroom harvest, which should begin this year
• Start digging the pond in the backyard
• And hopefully dam the wetland

Not nearly as many things as we have done in the past, but with the marketing needed to sell the products we are making I am sure I will stay busy.

Even more changes...

Well, since the lawn won’t be suicidal any time in the future… grazing power

The time has come to dump that stupid, gas guzzling beast of burden that causes me no end of frustration! Most people think that lawn tractors are one of the marvels of technology, but I truly think it is just another dumb contraption that makes us work harder to get nothing done. I mean two days later the grass is grown again and, though I agree it looks nice mown, there must be something else to our shallow lives than a putting green. Therefore, I have finally made the decision to get rid of our lawn tractor. We have two acres of grass directly around the house, but it has slowly been converted to orchards, gardens, paddocks, etc. I am going to take the remaining lawn that we have and use it as part of our rotational grazing with our pigs and poultry. I would let the goats on the lawn, but there are way too many shrubs and trees that they would devour – love them, but don’t trust them.

When we get the pigs, we will also be getting rid of our dishwasher. Why let all that wonderful leftover scrapings go down the drain when the pigs would LOVE to eat it. This has got me thinking about what other appliances I can do without. I know I can’t get rid of my refrigerator - I need to dig a root cellar before that will be possible. I am not willing to give up my washing machine yet, especially with kids! However, that silly energy consuming contraption next to the washing machine has found its last days in my home. Why on Earth do I need a dryer? All summer I use the outside lines, but if I got rid of the drier I could set up inside clothes lines in the same place. DUH! Why didn’t I think of that in the first place. And think of all the noise I won’t have to listen to anymore.

So no job, no lawn tractor, no dishwasher, no dryer, more animals and more gardens… It sounds like an awesome summer.

- Carol

When the Groundhog Doesn't Like the Sky's Look

So that poor Groundhog (version 12.0?) saw another stretch of winter. And this on the day that we had rain and melting ice here. Gray gray gray and no vision of the Sun at all. Guess we have to agree with him, no shadows possible here.

According to this article at CNN from 1998 (they had the Internet in 1998!?!), the National Climate Data Center has Phil's accuracy rate at about 59%. Could be a little higher or lower, but that is darn close to 50/50 in my book.

How about for us? Including last year, which was a decidedly late spring (our snows began in March and several feet later, we slumped into April), Phil is 50/50 for 6 years (2002-2007).

Farm Weather - Overcast, 40 F, no precip