Breeding My Alpine Goat

Well, I am excited. My alpine goat, Mary, is off to my friend's house where she is being bred for the first time. I can hardly wait for the arrival of a new baby goat (or two--hopefully does) and the great goat milk that accompanies having babies. I had the awesome opportunity to hand milk another friend's milking goat, Amelie, several times this past year and I enjoyed the interaction with her goat very much. I know I will enjoy milking my own Mary even more. It does seem weird not having Mary here and I know little Maggie misses her friend, but at least she has the sheep for the time being. Maggie is about 7 months and is a cross bred 1/2 Dwarf Nigerian goat.

I still have some goat milk (from Amelie and also from Mary's mom Wendy) in the freezer for soap making over the winter when my schedule is much less hectic, but I can't wait to make the soap from my own Mary!

I Have Goats!

It's been quite a while since my last post. You may be wondering why that is so. Well, in the past several months we have added quite the menagerie to our growing homestead. Two of our new additions are goats! Mary is an Alpine yearling and we will breed her this fall. I can hardly wait to actually have my very own goat milk. Our other goat is a Nigerian Dwarf named Maggie. She was just weaned in May and will most likely be too young to breed this fall.

I really had never spent time with goats before so I was in for a surprise--they are very personable and friendly and my children and I love them very much. I am really looking forward to the next chapter in my soap making--have plentiful goat milk (more than I can possibly use!) for all my soap making endeavors. I can hardly wait.