Thursday, December 11, 2008

Keeping Christian Busy

Technically, we are deep within the low season. Milk output is WAAAAY down, as happens this time of year. Goats have a natural lactation curve that has them generally drying off after 10 months of production. Some will go dry before that, though others - the rare milk superstars - will just keep on milking, oblivious to nature's plan. We don't have a lot of superstars. :(

In the low season, we get to follow the sun. The work day is shorter and we catch up on the long list of things that need to be done in the house or around the farm.

But not this year.

Christian just finished his second custom milk stand, has one order in the hopper and three more potential builds to do soon. I kind of started a side business for him.

The stands are like ours, but can be built in sizes from those for a single goat to the full fiver, like we use. With each stand he makes, C tweaks the design a little to make it even better. The latest, pictured below, has an adjustable head stock (as the woman who bought it has meat goats, who can get quite beefy, but still may need a good hoof trim) and is in two pieces that can be unbolted for easier transport.

The stands are cool. And hopefully Christian won't burn out on making them. I let him buy a rad new chop saw to aid in the effort to keep it interesting enough. So, you know -- if ya need a milk stand....

3 comments:

Michael@greenakeys.com said...

Will goats kid out of season? Can you have multiple births per year like some sheep breeds can?

Blue Heron Farm said...

You can force them to kid out of season, but we do not. It's just against our philosophy on sustainability and respecting nature and our goats.

As for multiple breedings in a year - it is not a good idea for a dairy. You want to milk them for the full lactation. If you rebreed, you have to stop milking the last 50 days of gestation so they can grow out the kids.

All of that being said, we had three goats come into heat really early this year so will have three births in the next two weeks. :) yay!

But two of those goats have already been sold to a new home, so we won't get their milk for more than a week or so. :( boo.

Unknown said...

How much do you charge for the milk stands?