[Bright Raven]

I am now more or less self sufficient in veg, eggs, fruit and meat. The main reason I go to the shops is for butter, milk and cheese. Should I try my hand with goats? If I spend about £15 a week on dairy for the family. Would the cost of two goats be more or less. Then of course there are the additional products I might need for cheese and butter making. It is a bit of a major step forward while I am still working full time so would possibly need to cut my hours and live more from the land to cope with milking and food processing. Good idea or bad idea what do you what do you think?  I already have sheep but would need to build a goat hut and make the fencing higher.

[SallyintNorth]

I'll let the goaty people tell you about goats and costs, but I wanted to share my feelings about having one's own milk, butter and cheese.  (In my case, from the Jersey house cow.)

Cows' milk from the shop is not very expensive at all, so I'm sure my Jersey milk costs far more to produce.  But it's proper milk, it tastes wholesome, naturally sweet, healthy.  No need for a 'daily Actimel' for me, I have my own locally produced probiotics!  (We drink it untreated - I filter it to hold the bits of straw and so on back, is all.)  I've been drinking Hillie's milk for 13 months^* now and I can't remember having a significant cold, or any other illness, in that time.  Previously I'd have had one or two colds / throats / coughs every year, so it could be coincidental - but I don't think so.

I never thought I would, but not only do I make all my own butter, I even cook with butter I've made myself as I like it better and think it so much more wholesome than shop-bought stuff.

I use milk and milk products I never thought about before, because I have it and it's so gorgeous.  I use buttermilk for cooking ( ) and make a buttermilk cheese ( ), BH gets homemade cheesecakes (and is missing them now I am taking less milk - and he can't readapt to the shop-bought alternatives!)  I use ripened / soured cream whenever I want (sourcreamed leeks is a favourite veg dish in our house) and make yoghurts and milk puddings, etc.  I haven't cracked hard cheese yet, but we were self-sufficient in salad (Feta-style) cheese, cream cheese, curd cheese (for cheesecake mainly) and cottage cheese when I had the quantities to make them.  I need to get more consistent with my Camembert-style, but I will get there.

Because she's a Jersey, she's also raised her own calf and three others, and fed all the pet lambs and the hound pup.  Her own calf was a Jersey heifer (BH said "two's plenty", so she's called Plenty), she'll be bulled in a few months.  Hillie has another Jersey calf on board; I asked BH what we'd do if it was another heifer (given the "two's plenty" comment) and he talked about buying really good calves at the mart to set on...  Clearly he thinks she's making a contribution to the farm, as well as our larder.

Sorry to go on (and on and on  ) but as you can see, I absolutely love having my own milk.  And my little Jersey cow is a total treasure 

In terms of other equipment and so on for using the milk, I have bought :

• food grade plastic bucket for milking into - less than a tenner
• sievey thing I use with muslin for a filter - about £6
• muslin at £2.40 a square metre from the crafts' shop for filtering, cheesewrapping, etc
• skimmer for slicing cheese curd - less than a fiver
• scotch hands for beating my butter (which is churned in jamjars - free) - less than a tenner 2nd hand off u-no-where
• cheese moulds for shaping my cheeses; these do cost a bit more but you don't need a huge number of them
• cheese matting - cheaper by the roll but I managed for quite a while with two at a pound apiece
• thermometers for liquid and for room temperature - I spent more but you can get them for about £5 apiece
• umbrella food covers (to keep the cheese flies off), a few quid each, two of

Pans, bowls, a walking stick to make a hanger for draining cheese curd, a mineral lick bucket upturned for a milking stool, many things were to hand.  Yoghurt cultures well in a food flask under a fleece hat next to a radiator in our house; if you have an Aga it's even easier!
I have bought other stuff but none of it is essential.  I have used naturally occuring cultures for my cheeses; I'd have had to spend the odd quid if I didn't have them to hand.  I didn't get on with dried yoghurt cultures, I think the odd pot of Yeo Valley is ok expenditure!

So, in my experience, you do not need to spend much at all to be milking, making butter, cheese, etc.  (But don't forget, Jersey cream seperates itself; I think it's a different job with goats' milk.)

Hope that helps.  Sally xx

^*13 months because she took a while to get back in calf, I'm reducing her output now and will dry her off completely soon.

[Hermit]

I dont think you will ever beat supermarket prices against being self sufficient. The idea is quality. We are now equalling the super market bill we would have paid with the feed merchants bill and that is half paid by selling produce of one description or another. We are like you self sufficient in most things. I do have goats which provide milk and some cheese, we are expanding to produce all our cheese, butter and soap but were already set up  when we bought the place luckily. We make our own hay which is a big help, if I had to buy hay it would be too expensive and hay is unreliable up here anyway. You dont need fancy gear straight away either , you can make do and mend for cheese and buy second hand/ recycle rather than fall for catalogue speel. I honestly dont think you will be able to cut hours on goats produce till you get producing to sell as much as you are losing. Depending on what you produce in the way of bedding/ hay etc can make actual upkeep very cheap, they can be wormed and treated along with your sheep so no extras there. Good luck, goats are daily productive so you do see the benefits rather than sheep that are annually productive.

[princesspiggy]

id make sure u like goats milk first!
we used to milk our gg but i just dont like goats milk in any form whether its handmilked or shop bought. i wish i did tho.
we got 2 heifers instead, as our family (mostly my son  ) drinks stacks of milk. i cant wait to milk them next summer (if everything goes to plan-touch wood)
im very jealous u are so sufficient, i really should try harder with the veggie patch! 

[colliewoman]

What make sheep do you have?
I would start by milking them or a couple of them if they had enough milk spare.
Sheep's milk yogurt is divine
I've milked shetlands and produced a fair bit, and balwens though not so milky.
It might be worth a try?

[Lesley Silvester]

Naturally enough I say go for goats.  They aren't that expensive to feed.  I reckon it costs about £13 a week to feed my three but they are yarded so have root veg and extra hay.  If I was milking all three (difficult as one is a boy) I would get more than enough milk to make cheese, yoghurt, butter as well as milk. Probably two would be enough as there'sonly two of us. I did have a go at hard cheese but it wasn't a success because I didn't have anywhere cool to leave it while it was maturing.  Soft cheesemaking is a doddle as it yoghurt.

[jaykay]

Just thought I better say hello  We don't have many animals but I love them all! 17 various chickens including my beloved Pekins and blue Orpingtons, Sydney my Indian runner and his 4 I.R friends, 3 turkeys, 8 cats,3 of them are Norwegian forest cats 4 dogs, 2 Labradors, a naughty Whippet and a Lurcher, and 2 Dutch rabbits.
 My sister thinks I ought to get an Alpaca, so she has a supply of wool for her knitting. I think she can buy it and clean it out!

You missed your sheep out! What do you have? Because as Colliewoman says, that could be something to consider?

[Sylvia]

When my children were small and I seemed to have a lot more time!! I kept goats and Friesland milking sheep. The sheep milked only from April, when they lambed until about the end of October. The goats, of course, milked throughout the year.
The goats had on average one and a half kids apiece (most of which went for meat) and the sheep, on average three lambs apiece (ram lambs were very sought after for crossing with other breeds to get a good, milky, multiple lambing ewe and a good sized carcass) Our best year was fifteen lambs from four ewes!!!! two sets of triplets, quads and quins and the ewes had enough milk for all
The ewe milk made the best yoghurt and cream cheese.

[Rosemary]

Tim Tyne has a section in his sheep book about milking sheep. You may want to investigate that further.

Goats' milk (and anything made with it, including fudge) is one of the few thinks that makes me heave, so they were never an option for us.

[Black Raven]

Just thought I better say hello  We don't have many animals but I love them all! 17 various chickens including my beloved Pekins and blue Orpingtons, Sydney my Indian runner and his 4 I.R friends, 3 turkeys, 8 cats,3 of them are Norwegian forest cats 4 dogs, 2 Labradors, a naughty Whippet and a Lurcher, and 2 Dutch rabbits.
 My sister thinks I ought to get an Alpaca, so she has a supply of wool for her knitting. I think she can buy it and clean it out!

You missed your sheep out! What do you have? Because as Colliewoman says, that could be something to consider?

Wrong Raven! I was wondering why someone had thanked me for some bacon the other day 

[jaykay]

Wrong Raven

Oops, sorry - need that little 'dizzy' smiley here 

[Black Raven]

You're not the only one having a blond moment on here! xx

[plumseverywhere]

When we first bought our goats a couple of years back I did a costing based on the fact we are a family of 7. Now I can't stomach goats milk..at all!! so 6 people are drinking it and using it in mashed potato and other cooking. We worked out that we were saving over £40 a month in buying goats milk from the supermarket, feed costs (after the large outlay of making a shed and buying the bits you need to keep goats including very good fencing!) about £16 month then hay on top (currently £4.50 here for heston bale, they eat one of them every 3 days)
tried making cheese, no-one liked it (boo!) so this is how the soap business came about - the milk had to go somewhere 
try some goats milk produce like cheese and butter (delamere do a very extensive range) but I think quite often the shop bought stuff tastes very different to that made by someone in a similar situation to us keeping goats.

[SallyintNorth]

... and buying the bits you need to keep goats including very good fencing!) about £16 month then hay on top (currently £4.50 here for heston bale, they eat one of them every 3 days)

Well that must be another regional term variation - up here a heston is 0.3T to 0.5T, a mini-heston is a big oblong bale, about 8 foot long, equivalent to 8 - 10 small 'square' bales, and a small 'square' bale is the only one you can pick up and throw about without a tractor to help. (And isn't square, but has the ratios 10:5:4)

[plumseverywhere]

LOL I think so. I always call them 'little farmers bales' because that's what they look like to me but someone passing the other day mentioned they were hestons which I'd never even heard of!