May 2007
Blackie The Billy Goat
Blackie Up Close!
At Highfields Farm, we only make cheese from milk produced by our own goats. We also breed all of our own female goats to increase our herd size and replace the older nannies when they stop producing milk. The reason for this is that we feel it is risky to buy goats from other farms as we could be introducing diseases to our herd (some of which can remain undetected for up to two years).
The only exception to this rule is when we buy in a male goat which we are prepared to do to make sure that we introduce new blood lines to our herd.
Unfortunately one of our billy goats suddenly died at the beginning of the month and we were only left with one other male. I felt that we needed to buy another billy and I was able to persuade a friend of mine in Yorkshire to sell one of his. So we travelled up to St. Helens farm and bought a very nice looking British Alpine crossed male goat (called Blackie) who is fourteen months old and already one metre tall.
On the one hundred mile journey home, we stopped at a service station and while my companion went to buy two cups of coffee, our new friend stood up and stared out of the rear window at every passer by causing many surprised looks.
Joe
April 2007
Now that the clocks have moved forward and the evenings are lighter, our thoughts are turning to the growth of grass in our two fields.
We established a new grass ley in our 17 acre field in April 2006 but because of particularly dry weather in the following month, it didn't grow sufficiently to yield a crop of hay that year. As a consequence, we had to buy in hay from a neighbouring farmer to feed to our goats.
In the second week of March this year, we sowed our 8 acre field with grass seed as the old ley was full of nettles and docks due to the acidity of our clay soil. The nettles in fact are a good source of iron and other trace elements for our goats but we found that we struggled to make them into hay without causing mould. At the beginning of April now, we can already see the new germinated seeds developing from beneath the soil surface.
Now is also the time when we are in the midst of our first batch of kidding. We have had 87 goats kid so far in the past 6 weeks and today, our next batch of 110 will be pregnancy scanned and not milked for 8 weeks before they start to give birth.
Joe
