Introduce yourself! Where to start...
I'm a longtime animal lover with strong historic roots in farming and agriculture. Two generations out from any "real" farmers, I guess I'm a throwback. As a baby, my inspiration for learning to walk was the cat. In kindergarten, I really wanted an elephant. Fast forward to grade school, at age 7 my aunt gave my sister and I a pair of goats on my sister's birthday that my homeschooling mom turned into a life sciences/4-H project. Mud, exhaustion, cuts, bruises, and even the occasional loss of a newborn kid failed to deter my childhood self from the hobby and from there on out when adults asked the "what do you want to be when you grow up" question... my answer was always "a goat keeper". That interest rapidly turned into an obsession that has now lasted 20 years (as of June of last year).
Myself and my first registered dairy goat "Sunshine" I originally wanted a rare breed Guernsey goat, but settled for a golden colored Nubian instead since the Guernsey was at the beginning stages of importation into the US
Once I reached graduation, the adult questions changed to "well, aren't you going to sell your goats and go to college?". My thoughts on the subject were not always popular. Ten years of breeding and selecting a goat family, and I'd finally gotten the coveted Guernsey goat? Are you mad? Half of my young life was spent cultivating that herd (now numbering 4-5 goats of Nubian and Guernsey breeds), and now you want me to throw it all away for a degree that might or might not get me a job? I also had a goat at the time who was, to be honest, a soulmate of sorts. One of those rare animals that can't be replaced, who has a knack for cross communication with the human world, and she and I had a bond. Every year on the anniversary of her death, I get emotional and get to thinking about her (and then realize it's her death date). I don't even do that for my grandparents... she was really special. I chose to retain the herd, and go to school locally.
Kalakala, queen of the herd, matriarch of a family, excelled at almost everything, opinionated about absolutely everything, co-pilot and living GPS on hikes
Ever since I started getting really serious in goats, I've been a diehard dairywoman, and kept trying to figure out how to get those goats to pay for themselves. Goatkeeping is not cheap. Most college students don't have a lot of spare cash, and since my dad didn't want to "enable" my addiction, feeding the herd was now on my young shoulders. During school, while trying to decompress from schoolwork, I landed on a "Sustainable Farming" facebook group. After spending some time on there, it was like my world opened up. Now, between classes and assignments, a large portion of time was dedicated to exploring this vast world. Mushrooms, dairy, meat of all kinds (not just beef and chicken!), veggies, fruit, eggs. The sky was the limit (although I would find that my petite frame would create limits). Now I wanted to have a raw milk goat dairy, and it was gonna support those goats. I made attempts at rotational grazing with the limited resources at hand.
Several years after my first attempts at rotational grazing. Originally that area under the trees, past the white fence, was bare with a few struggling, tiny weeds. Last year, for the first time, it was able to solo support three animals without added hay or grain for the entire spring, and in the unusually dry summer, it was the only nonirrigated land within a 30 minute drive that was still green by the end of the year. Rotational grazing works! Even if you're not good at it yet
Naturally... the world came crashing back down when the young idealist realized the financial requirements, regulatory hurdles (the source of most of the financial issues) and labor involved was going to crimp her style. Still, dreams are what drive me. I don't get motivated by social standings, peer or parent expectations. Dreams are my fuel. So, while I can't (legally) sell milk, now what? Breeding stock requires significant time and money investment to have a good market for your goats and have a large enough herd to get a good selection of good kids to move your herd up in standings. I also had more milk than I or the household could use.
Legal ways of "selling" milk in Washington State include as soap, becoming Grade A (the cost prohibitive plan of previous), and by feeding it to other animals and then selling those animals. I'm not much for hanging around the kitchen, but I love starting and raising baby goats. Everything you can raise on a farm eats/drinks milk at some point (including plants, believe it or not), and pretty much everything thrives on goat milk. Pigs, calves and "bum" lambs (orphans or rejected by their mothers) are all common "milk sponges". I had worked with hogs before and hated it every time, and sheep were dumber than bricks, so the next logical choice was calves. Bull calves are easily obtained from local dairy farms, and cheap. They drink upwards of a gallon or two of milk every day for two to three months. As long as they get colostrum, the first milk, and you don't increase their intake too fast, they aren't that hard to raise. And, unlike hogs, they can use the same facilities as the goats rather than constructing new shelters and fences.
And they're so dang cute!!
My family and I also swore we'd never own sheep. At the tail end of my (failed) attempt at RN school, we had a random phone call begging us to take a sheep. That emaciated little ewe was the start of a little flock of sheep. We ended up losing her after a couple years to a bear, but the spring after the bear got her, I started picking up bottle babies. That project has since slowly grown to my current flock of 6, two Katahdin hair sheep, three East Friesian dairy ewes and one little Romney mix ewe, and I will continue acquiring bottle babies for my pastured/alfalfa finished lamb venture.
Helga. She's now a 200 lb yearling, due in March. She never grew into those crazy ears
In 2017, I had the opportunity to concentrate all of my does and ewes onto a larger property courtesy of the Tilth Alliance's FarmWorks incubator farm program. I was able to intensify the rotational grazing idea, and expand the calf and lamb operations. I appear to be the only farmer trying to do humanely raised veal in the entire Western Washington area, so IF I can develop a market, I should have the corner on it for a while. Lamb has more competition, but since I'm a small operation, I can offer more flexibility on how big the animals are at harvest, and I finish them on alfalfa rather than grain. Mmmm, mmm. That flavor... This year I am hoping to move to a semi-permanent location and am working on an application for a grant to make my little farm more efficient, profitable, and live in peace with the local wildlife. There's a lot of potential this year... and it's only the beginning. I now have a head count of about 20 goats, 6 sheep and one Jersey heifer. I can think of so many ways to get in so much farming trouble with those!
Cows, on grass. The way it's supposed to be.
I'm told I can write pretty well, and I'm told I make a pretty good teacher, so we'll see what I can turn this thing into. Thankyou for reading. You can also find me on Instagram (creations_song_farm) and on Facebook with a page by the same name as Instagram. All photographs are taken by the author or, in case of the one of me with the goat, my mother.
Hey. I translated into Russian and read it. I'm a vegetarian))) good luck to you))
Thankyou! Some of my best customers are Russian immigrants. They really like farm fresh foods
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Thankyou, I did a little of that already. There's lots of interesting stuff on here :)
You're Welcome!
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