Herding in hot weather…

In Bible times shepherds were kind of outcasts, they stayed in the fields and probably smelled bad and were not as cute as our shepherds.  Erin and Chelsy were outside while the goats were grazing and helped with herding the goats towards their pen with their handy dandy water guns!

Did I mention that goats do not like water and therefore squirt guns are effective means of getting them away from trees and shrubs or back in the pen.  Even the first drop of rain sends them to the shelter.

Even the dog got in on the fun, but if you know labradors…they love water!

Visitors from another planet…I mean state!

Thinking Calvin and Hobbs here.  oh wait that’s weirdo’s from another planet.  Cathie and Mitch visit from PA are in KS for some art conventions in KS City.  Well when city folk come to the farm you have to teach them about milking!!!

Mitch watched with some interest and Cathie gave it a try and got some milk sooner than I did.  Being photographers we had to document the occasion!  The cheese was a hit.

This first goat is Barbie, she has so much milk and such large “teets” that you have to squeeze really hard!  Baarbie is on lone as we needed some extra milk before we got Alice.

Alice is much easier to milk.  She is a Nubian/ Alpine goat with rich white creamy milk and I’m not sure how but it is just easier to get it out of her.  She gives us almost a gallon a day. 

Here are our visitors from another state they left us taking some Anderson’s farms eggs and goat cheese.  Thanks for the visit!  Love ya!

Summer babies on the way…we hope

Our does are starting to look pregnant and that is exciting!  We do not get sonograms for them so it is always a surprise. 

We did not get Darla (to the right) off grain soon enough in the winter so she is a bit fat!  They are due in August.

It's a funny little farm yard

I just never know what I will see, where I will find the chickens, where an egg might be or who will be visiting the goat stantion when Hans or I come to milk.  One morning he saw a Great Horned Owl right on the roof of the shed.  (no camera of course).  This morning I am visited by a cardinal, the chickens and our Stumpy Cat. 

The boys with the girls

Erin and her friend Christina had fun checking out our little kid who is a boy as the big boy that we are borrowing for stud services watched on. 

Our new “kids” on the block…

This is Barbie.  She is a registered Nubian milk goat from our “goat lady” on loan to us until she has another milk goat we can buy.  When we got Shasta it became apparent that to both drink milk and have extra for cheese, ice cream and  yogurt, we would need another goat.  That will allow us to have two milk goats at a time.  Ideally.  So Barbie comes to us after her first “freshening”.  She has been good and stays calm even when the cats are begging for milk.  Shasta, the goat we bought last month gets very agitated and starts stomping and kicking when cats and dogs come to see if there is any milk up for grabs.  Sometimes I think they do it just to make her kick because if she catches me off guard the milk ends up on the ground.  Hans was so frustrated with me as we lost two containers of milk in one day.   One she kicked and one I just dropped for no good reason.

I sometimes wonder why I am loving this so much because it can be a bit of a pain and it hurts my hands as milking two goats takes about 30 minutes start to finish.  I noticed the other day after a stressful, rushing around day that to milk I have to stop, slow down and do something so basic and even primal that it takes me back to my  nursing days.  Except of course for the farm noises!  

Milking on Anderson farms.wmv

Why Goat’s Milk??????

“Goat’s milk has several attributes that cause it to be a far superior choice to cow’s milk. Goat’s milk is less allergenic, naturally homogenized, easier to digest, lactose intolerant friendly, and  biochemically thermodynamically superior to cow’s milk.”  Ok this is taken from a goat milk producing farm, specifically www.mtcapra.com however, I am noticing some of these qualities in the milk we have been receiving from Shasta, our current Nubian milk goat.  The milk has a thin cream layer on top, but otherwise is very smooth naturally and yet thicker than homogenized cow’s milk.  When considering a calf to a kid, it makes sense that the goat’s milk would be better suited for us as kids and goats are similar in weight to people.  In terms of goat’s milk being less allergenic???  The studies report that individuals who were allergic to cow’s milk (rash, swelling etc)  93% of the time were not allergic to goat’s milk.  Also those with lactose issues were able to tolerate goat’s milk better.  This is early in my research process, if you read this and “know” something different let me know.  If you would like to try let us know.  We are selling goat’s milk for $2.50 a quart (minus .50 if you return the jar for refill or recycle). If you are interested contact teri.anderson247@gmail.com

Last year's chickens are providing this year's eggs and we are thankful for them.  We have 8 Rhode Island Red and Americauna chickens (4 each) that give us lovely brown and green eggs!

It's cute to see the animals interact with each other.  Kids are very curious!

Welcome to Andersons' Farm!  We are located in the country's heartland raising kids, grain, chickens, goats, dogs and cats!  As our interests on the farm expand I thought it would be fun to have a place to share what is going on and what we have to offer. 

Here I am with one of our first goats, Emily.  This started as a project our Erin wanted to do, but truth be told I really enjoyed working with the goats.  Well, I enjoy it when they are behaving!   With the the drought last year we sold all of our goats that were not pregnant or lactating and sadly we let Emily go.  She was one of my favorites!

This is Erin with her goat Dolly.  Dolly is a spotted Nubian who also ended up not being able to have kids.  She gave us a lot of laughs though.

 Here are our first series of "kids".  This is Sasha and her 2 day old kids.  They left us in November. Sasha has had another kid this winter/ early spring and he is getting big enough to sell in May.

Meet Darla, very pregnant doe with her first set of kids. 

 She had two adorable Nubian/ Boer crosses which made for some nice meat goats for someone.  Darla is/ was our first goat that we milked.  In December when we weaned the kids we started milking and decided we really liked this aspect of goat raising.  A trip to South Africa post poned our milking endeavor until now, but this was where it started.

Kids and goat kids are just too cute together!