Goat milking shelter

The goat milking has moved from the back porch, to the yard, to the barn, but every spot had its own pros and cons. Finally we decided to make one more move.. put up some sort of shelter. The requirements were:

• Be enclosed to keep the birds out
• Allow for easy washing with a hose without making mud
• Be protected from rain and bad weather
• Provide running water to wash the milking equipment
• have some storage
• Be close to the barn where the goats are

So.. we set out today to produce such a spot.  The location we chose was at the end of the barn right outside the goat stall. There was a fairly flat spot that was originally a horse washing station. 

First we chose to have a soft, washable, easy to build floor that is raised enough to prevent water puddles. The solution was to use the same idea that I used for the hog feeding stand, and the poultry processing equipment floor. This is a simple floor produced from pallets covered with rubber stall mats. The mats are thick enough to provide stability on reasonably close slatted pallets. the pallets raise the floor a few inches and allow for water drainage. The resulting floor is washable, movable, clean, and inexpensive.  To build it all you do is roughly level a spot, align the pallets  to the area needed, touching each other, then arrange the rubber mats on top. It works best to allow the rubber mats to hang over hte pallet edges, and then to screw the rubber mat to the pallets. 

Final leveling by hand after using the tractor to rough it in. 

Once the floor was in, what we decided to use for the shelter itself is a  12x12 camping canopy. We picked one up for under $100 (in hindsight we should have spent more)  that allowed for closed side panels to be added.  The canopy pretty much just opens to full size by pulling it apart. Then you attach the cover with Velcro straps. This provided the roof and legs. Then you add the walls one at a time with more Velcro and snaps. 

For a washing station inside we choose a portable camping style fish cleaning table. It has a nice work area, a small sink, a faucet for connecting to the water hose, and a drainpipe. This makes a great area to wash up the milking equipment, hands, whatever else without making a mess in the mud. 

The fish cleaning table hooked up with running water and a drain.

When that was done we moved the milking stand (which has a sheet of hard plastic covering it for sanitation) into the new "room". 12x12 is a nice size room for milking one goat at a time.

Inside the completed "room"

Then of course we have to add the important milk inspector.. Everett in his portable play pen!

Everett inspecting his new area in the milking room

The "door" is a zipper panel on one side. It closes enough to keep the birds out. 

The completed milking station on the end of the barn,

I wasnt happy with the stability of the finished product. A good wind would blow the sides around and move the legs.  A better wind would pick this up and drop it in the pasture! Looks like it is time to improvise. What I ended up doing was cutting 4  2x4 that were 12 feet long so that they were just longer than the leg spacing. Then I notched out a slot large enough to slide the legs through. Placing these between the legs locked the legs in position and stretched the sides tight.  The slot is narrow enough so that the caps at the bottom of the legs wont slip through, which helps to anchor the legs a bit by the weight of hte 2x4. All in all, not a bad 2 hours of work.

When milking time comes.. we'll see how well it all works!

First impressions of goat milk separator

Our milk separator arrived this week! Finally we can test making cream from our Nigerian Dwarf goats milk.  the milk itself is incredibly creamy and sweet so we are looking for ward to lots of fresh cream!

The first impression is that these things are temperamental! The adjustments are critical, speed is critical, temperature is critical.  The first run was with refrigerated milk. BAD IDEA! The cream that cam out was so thick it immediately clogged up the inner separator and milk starts running everywhere. Not realizing it was temperature , I adjusted this and that to no avail. finally gave up. The next day we tried some fresh milk right after milking. Much better! This time with a few adjustments we succeeded in retrieving about a half cup from a half gallon. The cream was VERY thick though. After sitting int he fridge for a day it was so thick that it wouldnt pour, thicker than honey.

The trouble is that I think the machine is adjusted for the thinnest cream possible, and still it comes out too thick. Not sure yet if this design of machine isnt going to work for goats milk, or if I have something set wrong. More experimentation is in order.

Good news is the cream is very yummy! Cant wait to get this working!

First signs of overcrowing in the brooder

We have been hatching chicken turkeys and ducks for 2 months and putting them all in the more secure brooder stall in the barn. Sure enough... When we reached a certain population size rhe young turkeys get trampled by the other birds. We found one tonight that had trouble walking. While he goes in the hospital it is now time to move all of the largest birds to the coop to reduce the population.

This has been consistent that at a certain number of birds.. Bad things happen. Each brooder has a max number that it can safely hold. The barn brooder limit seems to be arond 100.

Kaelyn's favorite duck

Kaelyn has decided that she wants her first farm venture to be raising ducks (second choice was growing melons) so we have been hatching duck eggs from Jack and Jill to get her started. Her plan is to sell duck eggs to people that can't eat chicken eggs. There seems a good markt for duck eggs!

This little fellow is the first multi colored one. The rest hatched out grey but this guy is grey, silver, yellow, and orange! It is by far her favorite!

Organic grains becoming difficult to find

We have run into a new challenge here at Little Sprouts.  It is becoming increasingly to find organic grains and bulk foods, even harder to find heirloom varieties. If this is a coming trend, it is concerning indeed. We are struggling to find good feed for our animals.

The mill where we were getting organic wheat, peas, barley, and rye has nothing left but corn and milled feed with soy in it. The other local mills are also only carrying soy and corn. Ironically these are the two grains least attractive for animal feed!

 While it is possible to buy milled feed pellets without soy, these gain are one scientists "formula" of the perfect feed. After doing this for a couple years we have come to learn that no one has the "perfect feed" and thus relying on any one formulation is dangerous. All pelleted animal feeds, even organic, has added vitamins, minerals, etc to "support health". While at face value that sounds good, it reminds me of the modern cereal box that lists a couple processed foods as ingredients, then a long list of supplements. Well... if the foods were truly whole, and grown properly, there is no reason to add supplements. The reason there are supplements is simply that the foods they started with are devoid of nutrition themselves, then are further stripped of nutrition by processing to make them more appealing, so the end result is not a food at all! then they add artificial supplements back in to make the numbers work out appealing. The bottom line though, is that this is simply not the same as starting with well raised whole foods full of natural nutrition.

to keep out animals healthy we are on a mission to find good animal feed. They deserve the same quality of food that our family consumes. If we compromise on feed quality, we will  end up with medical problems and costs, just as we do in our own family when we slip on demanding the highest quality food ourselves.

So... we are searching for whole heirloom grains and feeds, organically grown, and available in bulk.  They are hard to find. America has slipped so far from the ideal that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a source of truly good food for human or animal.

I was speaking with one out of state farmer who grows organically, and he tells me that the organic movement is struggling. Insects are plaguing his area, making it increasingly difficult to grow organic crops. This is very scary because the natural inclination of the modern farmer is to give up on organics, claiming that is "doesnt work after all" and just spray the bugs with poisons. This of course further complicates the problem for other organic farmers.

We have to remember that insects are God's cleanup crews.. they are intended to attack unhealthy crops and rid the earth of things that are too unhealthy to be growing.  That is their purpose.. genetic improvement in our foods.  The presence of bugs in a field is for 2 reasons:

1) the soil is so devoid of plant nutrients that the plants are not fit for nature to sustain. This is evidenced by the increasing need to use artificial fertilzer to grow decent crop yields. The artificial fertilizer produced bulk and yield, but does nothing to increase nutrition. Therefore the more need for this fertilizer there is, the more bugs will attack the crop, because nature is against it.

2) Monocrops are against nature. Monocrops (planting many many acres of only one crop) are simply not found in nature. Farming this way is a problem in itself, because it concentrates the bugs and diseases. In a multi species environment many of the problems that plague the monocrops of america simply dont exist, because nature has designed the various species of plants and animals to make up for each others weaknesses and complement with their strengths. Raising a single species in a large area eliminates the natural protection this affrord and increases the chances for failure due to insects or disease.

So the result is.. monocropping in "dead soil" is destined for failure. Only intesne organic methods applied for several years can restore the soil to health, and one of those methods involves multi species production. The sad irony here is that "light" organic practices are also destined to fail becasue the soil is too far gone. Farmer  trying out organic farming with "light" methods instead of intense deep organic practices will also fail, often blaming the organic movement itself.

So.. it seems inevitable that light organic practices will bring a bad name to organic farming in general and in fact inhibit the organic movement.  the more farmers "try" organic farming instead of committing to it, the less successful it will be.

Our solution, at little sprouts, seems to be to have enough land to grow our own animal food. I see no long term solution.  This is the only way to ensure that the feed we use is the right type, and highest nutritional content possible. Unfortunately 10 acres that we currently own is just not enough land to produce enough food for hte animals we plan to have so again we are faced with a need to move and expand. Until this happens, we will continue seeking out the best possible feed we can to ensure our customers hav ehte highest nutrition possible in our products.