Sallygardens Smallholding

Sallygardens eBooklet Store

At long last I've managed to create a Paypal store which will make it easier for you to purchase our Sallygardens eBooklets. Instead of having to email me first to request a Paypal invoice you can place a direct order via this store front. Of course you can still use the old way, this alternative just provides another easier option . Look to the right hand side bar to find the store. Come on in and have a look around.

Goats Cheese Almost Got The Better Of Me

Last year I made the most simple form of cheese which involves straining the moisture out of yogurt until it reaches the consistency of a cheese spread. It only keeps for a few days in the fridge so it has to be made as and when it's required. You can do this with shop bought yogurt or use your own home produced milk if you have it. The process is simple and not much goes to waste, it's also a wonderful thing for the children to get involved with. I think showing them how food is made really broadens their horizons on so many levels. They begin to think about animal welfare, ingredients, the labour involved and of course the flavours. When we buy yogurt in the supermarket now they seem to have far more respect for their food and little goes to waste. Even if they don't finish something, they'll think about which animal could eat it safely or where to compost it.

Since the simple yogurt cheese making all went so well last year I was determined to try and make 'proper' cheese this year. I did a bit of research into which might be the best book and I invested in Ricki Carrols 'Home Cheese Making' which I have found to be a fantastic book. It not only has hundreds of recipes in it but also ideas and case studies from many home producers and small artisan business people. There's great explanations of the whole history and process of cheese making, as well as the essential individual recipes. Having read through the book several times I then decided on trying to make a simple farmhouse cheddar cheese and ordered some sachets of starter and rennet from Moorlands Cheesemakers in the UK.

The next step was waiting for the goats to kid which induces lactation, and once the kids were a month old I began to take just a  morning milking which gave me between one and two litres of milk. A lot of milk is needed for a small amount of cheese so it took me about five days to save two gallons (nine litres). Unlike cows milk which produces golden yellow cheese, goats milk  produces snow white cheese and butter.

All set and enthusiastic I began heating the milk up to 85F which took quite a long time and then added a pinch of the starter.  After leaving it to stand for forty five minutes I added the rennet. After another forty five minutes the milk had magically turned into a delicate white jelly which meant it was time for cutting the curds into one inch blocks.

I then put the pot into a sink and slowly brought the curds and whey painstakingly up to 100F over the course of half an hour by adding warm tap  water at first and eventually hot kettle water to the sink. The curds were gently stirred all the time and shrank in size as the moisture seeped out, forming the yellow greenish whey.  Once at 100F it was left to sit for five minutes.

The contents were then all poured out into a muslin lined colander, and the curds hung to drip. After a set time, the curds were then placed into a clean bowl and broken down gently into walnut sized chunks, I added salt and then packed the curds into molds with drainage holes.

For molds I used small tubs and drilled holes around the base and sides. I didn't have suitable 10, 20 and 50lb (25 kilo) weights to place on the molds for the suggested timings and it was at this point I came close to losing patience with the whole exercise! Luckily Lena our WWOOFER came up with an ingenious idea; using clamps instead of weights.

The next morning I released the clamps and finally we peeled off the muslin and set the little cheese rounds on a wooden board to air dry for a few days. When the rind developed the cheese were painted with melted bees wax and now it's sitting in the scullery for a month to ripen.

I can tell you it was a marathon task and I was exhausted by the end of it all. At one stage, when I realised I didn't have anything to improvise for the weights, I was on the verge of chucking the lot in the bin!!!  I think it's something we will do on rare occasions as special treats and seasonal gifts for friends and family. Stay tuned to see how the cheese turns out.

If you fancy having a go at cheese making it's essential to follow a proper recipe to the letter because the timings and temperatures are vital to the final result. Using scrupulously clean equipment and researching the pros and cons of pasteurised versus non pasteurised milk is also compulsory before the fun begins.

Launch of the Sallygardens Goat Keeping eBooklet

'Keeping Goats for Smallholders, A Beginners Guide' is an eBooklet that I have been working on for some time now. It's finally finished and ready for sale. The success of the first Sallygardens eBooklet on pigs,  'Rearing Weaners for the Table, A Beginners Guide' has encouraged me to continue with more. This goat guide is aimed at those who wish to keep goats on a flexible small non-commercial scale, perhaps to provide milk and cheese for their family. It draws together from many sources all the nuggets of information that took me months of research to gather before I felt ready to buy our first goats. Sources include books, websites, blogs, forums and friends. Also included is the practical experience we have gained during keeping our goats and advice from other veteran goat keepers. The booklet covers where to buy a goat, how to ensure you buy a quality animal, which breed will suit your needs, housing, feeding, fencing, milking, set-up and running costs, breeding and more.

Goats get a lot of bad press but by following a little bit of advice you can easily avoid the stereotypical nightmare scenario* and find yourselves a lovely couple of well natured and productive goats that will bring you many hours of delight and provide you with milk, cheese and meat. The eBooklet costs €8.

*goats breaking into vegetable gardens, destroying rose bushes, billies chasing their owners across fields, nannies flipping the milk bucket over your head etc.

Welcoming Our Newborn Kid Goats

The arrival of our two new kid goats didn't run quite as smoothly as it could have. In fact the whole thing was a bit of a trauma as a number of events took the wrong turn at every possible opportunity. It all started five months ago when the goats visited the billy, our first mistake was not writing the expected due date on the calendar immediately. A couple of months later we accepted a very special invitation to attend a baby welcoming ceremony for my best friends child. This event was to be very special as her arrival  into the world six months ago had put both herself and her mother at serious risk. With mother and child now thriving, celebrations were truly in order.  A couple of months later I counted up the days and realised that the goats due date was three days before the baby welcoming ceremony date. Pants.

I was certain that fate would be kind to us and that the goats would kid several days before we were due to leave, meaning we could be confident that both the mothers and kids were safe to be left with a carer to keep an eye on them. But, this was not to be the case! The morning we were due to leave one goat went into labour. Against our better judgement we set off with a great sense of trepidation. Their carer was great and she texted us five hours later to say two kids had been born with no complications and they were both up on their feet.

After seven hours of driving we reached our destination, the beautiful town of Kenmare in Co Kerry. We checked into the Hostel and found a great little pub for dinner. We chatted excitedly about the ceremony planned for the following day, and how we would then take a boat trip out to the Skellig Islands the day after, and before heading home we would stay in An Daingean (Dingle) to swim with Fungi the Dolphin. Spirits were high.

Then my mobile rang and it seemed that all was not well. The kids weren't yet suckling and they must do so within six hours of birth in order to ingest antibody rich colostrum. After six hours the ability to absorb the colostrum through the stomach and gut lining is lost and the kids then have no defence against illness. Their chances of survival would be minimal. She tried all the tricks in the book, including bottle feeding, but as the six hour deadline loomed and darkness fell their carer milked out some colostrum from Esme, loaded the kids into her car and took them to the vet for a tube feed.

At this stage Dan and I knew that we had made the wrong decision to leave our goats at such a crucial stage, so following a tearful phone call to my best friend to explain what was happening, we packed up and left Kenmare after only two hours! We arrived home at 2.30am and stayed up till 4am looking after the goats. At 8am I got up to check them and was delighted to witness the smaller doe suckling but the larger doe was still not managing it. Although she licked the udder she seemed to have no sucking reflex. I tube fed her again.  Tube feeding can get the vital colostrum into their system, but it's only an emergency solution. For a weak kid it can give them enough energy to get going and suckling, but having a full tummy also inhibits the sucking reflex ... vicious circle.

Happily a few hours later hunger kicked in again, and before the fine line of exhaustion took hold she finally managed to suckle. Exhausted we all breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed a good nights sleep.

You've Got To Be Kidding

Five months ago (151 days to be precise) our goats were covered by a billy. Yesterday was their due date but it's not unusual for a goat to go a few days before or after that. This week I've been out to the field every couple of hours to try and spot any signs of impending labour but as yet, nothing. I'm still not entirely sure if they are both in kid. I'm pretty sure I felt kids kicking in the belly of Esme but then again ruminants tend to have massive belly gurgling events as a matter of course, in fact it's a sign of good digestive health. The same goat is definitely 'bagging up' which means her udders are filling out, a sure sign that something is afoot.

Their shelter is ready with clean fresh hay, baby bottles just in case, some lubrication jelly, a pair of long plastic gloves and antiseptic for the umbilical cord wound ... with any luck I won't need most of it! I'm hoping to milk out a small jar of milk in the first few hours after the kids have had a feed. It contains antibody rich colostrum which is vital for their survival and must be ingested within hours of birth or the kids won't survive. Having a small amount in the freezer for emergencies is an indispensable  and wonderful insurance policy.

Right, I'm off out to check the goats again!

Making Cheese

This summer I really want to try my hand at cheese making. Last year I made some soft yogurt cheese but I'm ready to move to the next level and try a complicated hard cheese. This involves the use of rennet and a starter culture, and following a recipe to the letter. Unlike the soft cheese I won't taste the results of my efforts immediately, it will be a tantalising few months before I first cut into my cheese.

I've been reading up on cheesemaking for over a year now and I am sooo impatient to get stuck in. I keep looking at my two goats for signs of pregnancy and I'm hoping at least one of them is in kid.  We will know one way or the other when they reach their due date in roughly three weeks time. Unless they give birth I won't have a milk supply this year.

Being ever optimistic I have just ordered a few bits and pieces from a cheese making supplier in the UK and I'm waiting for the delivery like a child anticipating Santa's arrival on Christmas Eve. So assuming the delivery arrives safely, one of the goats has a successful birth and my cheese making skills are up to scratch we will be consuming our own home made cheddar and blue cheese by the end of summer.

I'm always thinking ahead for my next project and at the moment I'm toying with the idea of home made wine. Cheese and wine, the perfect combination!

Frisky Goats

When our goats were in season last month they were taken to spend an evening of romance with their gentleman friend Igor. There are no pregnancy test sticks for goats available from the chemist so how can we tell if there has been success? Well the first thing to do is to watch the ladies closely after 19 days to see if theres any sign of them coming back into season. Their normal cycle is 21 days at this time of year, so I marked on the calendar four days from day 19 to 22. I always see my goats once or twice a day anyway and spend some time saying hello, having a chat, and just observing them sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes I sit with them for a while on warm days and chew the cud, they then often rub cheeks with me and sniff my ear.

There were no telltale signs ... no loud bleating (to unashamedly entice any potential billy from miles around), their tails weren't wagging with excitement, and they just generally didn't look frisky! I can't quite put into words how a goat looks frisky, but when you spend time observing your animals, after a while you can read them like a book.  I suppose their movements are a bit more speedy, they seem to glance very often around the countryside and they are a little lighter on their toes ... skipping about as compared to their usual heavier plod. When they do show signs of this 'friskyness' a pat on the base of the back where the tail emerges can result in frantic tail wagging, another sign when put with the other observations gives you the clues that you need. In our case none of these signs have reappeared since their blind date, which bodes well but isn't at 100% guarantee. If we are wrong then we have missed the boat for this year, as they won't be back in season again until next autumn and that would mean no milk and no meat ie an expensive mistake.

Well Igors guardian texted on his behalf on day 19 to enquire as to whether or not Esme or Willow would be interested in another visit. Alas, unfortunately for Igor, I had to reply and explain that both ladies seemed very content and not quite up for adventure.

The other thing we can do to decipher whether or not they are in kid is to wait and see if any kids are born in 5 months time. It's not until quite near the due date that they get big, and if you look closely you may see some kicking around their abdomen area.

Tune back end of April to see if we are blessed with any new arrivals ... best case scenario four healthy kids.

Breeding Goats

In the Northern Hemisphere the shortening days bring goats into season this time of year.  From roughly September to December they have a 48 hour fertile window every 21 days. We don't keep a billy goat for a variety of reasons .... the ability to keep him fenced in is an insurmountable challenge I don't wish to get involved with! Also the amount of extra feed rations he would require would leave a serious dent in my wallet. There's of course also the safety aspect ... I have no desire to be the guardian, or indeed be in the vicinity of a creature seriously stronger than myself and with a lust that eradicates any hope of cooperation between (wo)man and beast! Last but not least theres the overpowering odour that a male goat exudes, an odour that seems to be able to penetrate all organic and inorganic matter within a half mile radius of his whereabouts and with the ability to last indefinitely!

When our goats come into season we take them off for a romantic weekend to a friends farm who own the lovely docile Igor, a fine specimen of the laid back Boer billy goat. I gave Esme and Willow a pedicure (hoof clipping) and blue nail varnish (foot rot spray) so they looked their best. Their fleeces are at their peak ... very glossy, long white ringlets of Angora ... if you were a billy, they'd look pretty good to you.

I was away when the goats came into season, a day earlier than predicted, so I missed their trip to meet Igor, their chosen suiter.  However my children gave me a blow by blow account of Igors advances,  the first mating of Esme, his consequent interest in Willow, and how Esme then became jelous and tried to head butt him off her competition!  Living on a smallholding children naturally know about the birds and the bees, and the circle of life and death, its happening around them every day.

So how do you know when a goat is in season? Different goats display different behaviours, but in general she may begin bleating far more than usual, wag her tail a lot, and you may notice a clear discharge from her vagina. If you have a billy rag (a piece of cloth thats been rubbed on a billy and imbibed with his odour - store it in an airtight container!), offer it to the female goat and watch for interest! Only one of my goats displays one of these traits ... she bleats incessantly for 2 days. When she does that we take both of them to the billy, hoping their cycles are synchronised. We will be watching out for her coming into season again in 19 to 21 days, and if there are no signs then hopefully there will be successful births in five months time.

Goats and Fencing

Whenever somebody wonders about whether or not a goat is an animal they might like to get, the issue that will require considerable thought, is fencing. Fencing is expensive, and is often the main factor that puts people off getting goats. You may need something about a metre and a half high, with heavy duty stock fence wiring, round posts at very frequent intervals, and an electric wire along the top. Jumping and climbing are a goats favourite pastime, and of course, the term 'the grass is always greener on the other side' is at the forefront of a goats brain.

The are a few things you can do to help deter the goat from indulging in the great escape. Always make sure they have ample food .... fresh water, ad lib hay, the odd branch. Give them things to scramble and climb on. Ours have steps up the back of their shelter, and we give them tree stumps and planks.

Some goats are more prone to climbing and jumping than others. A determined billy can jump over just about anything if theres a female within range. Dairy breeds and goats with close feral relations are taller and more likely to climb, meat goats are heavier and more docile. Its said that angora are also more docile and less likely to climb. My goats have angora in them, and I'm lucky so far that a 4 strand electric fence seems to do the trick. Most of the time.

Grass must be kept in check in order to prevent an electric fence from earthing, and thus losing its charge and becoming useless. It doesn't take long for a goat to find out a fence is not working! For us, this means bringing the lawn mower into the field and mowing along the fence line. We use the grass clippings as a mulch under the fence to slow down the grass growth.

We also rotate our goats paddock every six weeks or so. During the summer, the whole family is recruited to help!

The other thing little ones like to help with is the milking. Theres a fine balance in deciding when to let the smalls have a go towards the end of the procedure, and then calling a halt to it before the goat gets peeved off and puts her foot in the jug!

Lathered Up

One of my children has very sensitive skin and has suffered from eczema over the years. Some of the things we have tried to help her includes eliminating the use of washing detergents by using ecoballs, going dairy free, minimising wheat in her diet, using a Crystal Ball Bath Dechlorinator and using the most simple of soaps with the least amount of harsh ingredients.

All these things add up in cost and so began my latest quest (as if I hadn't enough things on the go!!! ). I decided I could try to make our own soap, and so after an awful lot of web based research and the use of a wonderful book called The Handmade Soap Book (The Handmade Series). I eventually donned my husbands face mask and respirator from his workshop, this coupled with my own pink rubber gloves, was not exactly a fetching look! However, fashion aside, the end result of the soap was excellent.

I'm delighted we now have a soap which I've made with natural ingredients, and some of those from my own smallholding. I used my goats milk, added some herbs from my garden, and used oils sourced with the least amount of air miles. That mean't that coconut and palm oils were out as possible ingredients. I also made an animal fat based soap which turned out wonderful. My local butcher who raises his own animals, donated the fat, which would otherwise have been thrown out. In return I'll give him a few bars of soap.

Before you shudder at the thought of using animal fat in a bar of soap ... unless you specifically buy vegetarian soap, it will be a major ingredient. It may be listed as tallow. Personally I think that unless I have chosen to be a vegetarian, then I should try to waste as little as possible of an animal which has lost its life for the sole purpose of providing people with food.