Author: cookherefords@gmail.com

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: kidding season! While our does aren’t due until mid-April, we’ve noticed a lot of babies being posted for sale by farms throughout NY, VT, and PA. As breeders, we believe that we have a duty to educate other goat owners about the best practices for raising happy, healthy kids. For this reason, I spent the winter creating a comprehensive kid care guide (PDF download) that I’d like to share with you, covering the following topics:

• Housing (Fencing, Shelter, Toys)
• Feeding (Bottle-Feeding, Grain, Forages, Minerals)
• Health (Vaccination, Hoof Trimming, Disbudding, Castration, Detecting Illness)
• Socialization & Companionship

I referenced a few helpful resources at the end of the guide, but I’d like to take this opportunity to list several more that I consult regularly.

Books:

The Dairy Goat Handbook: For Backyard, Homestead, and Small Farm by Ann Starbard

Small-Scale Livestock Farming: A Grass-Based Approach for Health, Sustainability, and Profit by Carol Ekarius

Websites:

Maryland Small Ruminant Page http://sheepandgoat.com/

ADGA Knowledgebase http://adga.org/knowledgebase/

The Goat Spot http://thegoatspot.net/

Dairy Practices Council http://dairypc.org/

Other:

Cornell Cooperative Extension http://cce.cornell.edu/

I wanted to keep this guide short and simple, while still touching on all of the critical aspects of kid care. I am by no means a goat expert; our family began raising goats in 2018, prior to then I worked with dairy cattle, and I studied animal health while completing my Agribusiness degree. If any more seasoned herdsmen have any changes to suggest, I would welcome them to share their insight and I will certainly take it into consideration as I revise the guide in the future.

Today marks two weeks into the new year, and we are still on track with our resolutions! (I think that may be a first.) For those of you that don’t know, our family’s goal for 2020 is to go plastic-free. I decided to share our progress with the world, in the hopes that we may help others achieve their sustainability goals. Today’s post will be a brief review of a simple homemade deodorant recipe that we found online. You can find the link to that recipe here: https://simplegreensmoothies.com/recipes/green-beauty/homemade-deodorant

This recipe takes less than 5 minutes to make, and uses a few common ingredients that you may already have in your kitchen. We used corn starch instead of the recommended arrowroot powder, just because we had it in the pantry and we couldn’t wait to test it out. In this recipe, you can use any essential oil (or combination of oils) that you like, so long as they have antibacterial properties. We chose to use a blend of eucalyptus and orange , but we will probably do something different next time, just to mix it up!

Our Thoughts

We have been using this deodorant for about a month now, and it really does work! We have both been stink-free, except of course for the usual smells that come along with caring for farm animals. The deodorant is a good consistency; it is solid at room temperature, but seems to melt as you put it on, allowing for full armpit coverage. The only negative we noticed is that the baking soda gives this deodorant a gritty feeling, so it’s best to apply it with a light hand. We will experiment with using less baking soda in the future.

The original poster stores her deodorant in a mason jar, which works quite well. I’m of the belief that mason jars are the solution to everything. They’re sturdy, easy to clean, multipurpose, and infinitely reusable! However, my husband and I prefer the convenience of a deodorant stick, so we ordered some top-fill deodorant tubes online, reheated the deodorant, and poured it into those. I spent hours searching for containers that were not made from plastic, but was unsuccessful, so I’ve committed to using this single tube over and over again for the rest of my life. (If anyone knows of a metal/wood/bamboo alternative, please leave a comment!) It is important to note that this recipe will fill more than one standard sized deodorant tube, so consider gifting the second one to your spouse, kid, friend, or your funny-smelling coworker.

Overall, we are satisfied with this deodorant recipe, although my husband does find the baking soda to be somewhat irritating. It checks all the boxes for us: it’s effective, it smells nice, it’s 100% natural, and (most importantly) we will never throw away another plastic deodorant tube! Give it a try for yourself, and keep checking our blog to see what other sustainable solutions we discover.

Happy New Year! You may have seen that we shared our New Year’s resolution on our Facebook page, but for those of you who missed it or who don’t follow us there, I will reiterate: we are going green! We will be eliminating single-use plastic from our business and our lives in 2020. We have been packaging our soaps in biodegradable materials from the very beginning, but now we are turning our attention to the supply side. We are reducing our plastic consumption as much as possible, and finding creative ways to repurpose our plastic grain bags, buckets, etc.

We know that many of our customers are also trying to cut back on single-use plastics, and thought that you might like to see what we are doing to become more eco-conscious as consumers. We will need to find alternatives for the following:

• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Deodorant
• Toothpaste
• Mouthwash
• Dish soap
• Laundry detergent
• Household cleaners

We enjoy DIY projects, so we will be attempting to create our own substitutes for some of these everyday staples. We prefer to make our own products because doing so gives us complete control over the quality and sourcing of ingredients, however, we recognize that some of these items may be difficult to produce ourselves without sacrificing their effectiveness. We will be sharing recipes and reviews of other companies’ products over the course of the year, in the hopes that we can help others find environmentally-friendly solutions that will work for them! Keep checking our blog to see the latest updates.

We recently purchased two properties that will serve as the new base of operations for our farm. Initially, we purchased a 26 acre wooded lot that we planned to clear and build upon, but the opportunity presented itself to purchase the half acre adjoining it, which already has power, water, and septic. (As we’ve discovered, installing these utilities can get expensive quickly, with the cost of drilling a well being $15-$30 PER FOOT!)

Not only is purchasing this second parcel saving us money, but it adds to the overall cool-factor of our property; we believe it to be the site of the original farmhouse and barn. When we walked our land for the first time, we noticed old barbed wire and panel fencing embedded in trees around the perimeter. From what Brandon’s grandfather tells us, it may have been a sheep farm sometime in the early to mid 20th century. We were excited to hear this, and we think it’s pretty cool that our goats will be grazing land that used to be pasture over half a century ago. It’s just going to take a few years of work to get there!

It will be slow going at first, as we acquire the equipment that we’ll need and get in touch with all of the right people, but I plan on sharing progress reports here on our website whenever we’ve done something worth sharing. We are hoping to get our greenhouse up before winter arrives, so that we can start plants in the spring to get our farmstand up and running next season!

On Friday morning we welcomed Nova’s first calf to our herd. He is a robust young bull, whose name has yet to be determined. Nova delivered him overnight without complication, and has seamlessly transitioned into her new role as a mother. The calf will be available for purchase when he is weaned in the fall.

We thought it would be neat to make a map of all of the states we’ve shipped our soaps to thus far. Our goal is to reach all 50 someday, so if you know anyone who lives in Alaska, be sure to tell them about us!

Yesterday afternoon we welcomed two new additions to our farm! Both healthy little does, one solid black, and one black and tan (chamoisee) like their father. Their birth was quick and uneventful. Ginger was exhibiting signs of early labor when we checked on her around 1:00 PM, and by the time we went out to feed at 5:00, the kids were already up on their feet. Both are vigorous nursers, and their mother, Ginger, has been taking excellent care of them. Their birth marks a milestone for us, as these are the first of many babies to be born on our farm!