Preserving cheese, milk etc.

[Ozark Lady]

Here is a great barter idea, offer to help the goat farmer with chores.

You learn how to feed, how to groom, how to clean and care for goats, before you ever have one.

I bought a pair of twin Nubian doelings. They were adorable.
I asked at the local feed store and found a woman who had milk goats. I asked her to teach me about them, including how to milk.

I would volunteer to help her with chores one afternoon per week in exchange for teaching me. And I often swapped bags of goat food for goat milk (for my animals). But it was clean enough for my kids. Legally it was still animal milk, but it was in the fridge, our normal milk.

I still absolutely couldn't get any milk out, when my girls grew up. We had to load her up and take her over there to be taught to milk her, it seems, my girl had 4 teats, not the traditional 2. This was a defect, but she did fine with it.

And my wages for helping with the chores were: milk, eggs, and knowledge! I also got buckets of goat berries, and rabbit berries for my garden. So, it was a win/win situation for us.

Rabbit, and goat berries are not "hot" manure like chicken, cow, or horse, but it is still possible to overdo the manure use. But often, we simply side dressed about 2" from stems with these and covered with hay. Sometimes we got too much, and got all lovely green and no fruits in the garden! So, moderation is needed.

The berries, are handy pellets, pretty much odorless, unless, you make manure tea, then, well, it is manure.

[Lehcar]

We had two Lamanchas and two Nubians. The Lamanchas (wethered male, and female) were incredibly vocal while the two wethered male Nubians were less into making noise and more into making trouble. I'm not sure if this was because of temperament or because of how we raised them. We raised both Nubians (Jack and Andy) from the same litter when they were about a week old. We had bought one goat from the seller before the babies were born and at a week old the mother refused our boys so in exchange for taking our goat early the seller gave us both boys to hand-raise. We got the male Lamancha (ET) at 4 months old and the female (Miss Priss) soon after at around the same age.

The Lamanchas were always "outside" goats but the Nubians were mostly "indoor" pets.

We had a weird cold spell when we first got Jack and Andy so we kept them inside and treated them mostly like puppies. We house trained them... to a point. We could get them to pee outside but no matter what we tried we couldn't get them to "do number two" outside. It wasn't really a big deal, though. They'd usually do it where we could see, it didn't really stink and as long as you didn't step on them first you could get them up very easily. They got baths like puppies do, once or twice a week and we didn't notice any smell at all, really. They were wethered by our vet at 2 weeks old (he put a very tight-fitting rubber band around the top of their testes and eventually the testes fell off). We installed a large-breed doggie door in the door leading from the house to the garage and that's where they slept and ate (unless they could convince someone to let them sleep in the bed which happened with us kids... a lot!).

I think the only concern you may have with keeping your goats indoors in a "suburban area" is finding a vet that would be able to take care of your goats. They do require quite a bit of maintenance as compared to a dog or cat. Dogs or cats can get away with a single vet visit a year for heart worm pills or well-check-visits but goats need attention every three or four months to trim hooves, grind down horns and, of course, vaccinations.

Many large animal vets nowadays have gone to the "mobile service", preferring to do most of their work out of a truck with specialized equipment in the bed rather than from an office. If you're trying to keep the neighbors from being suspicious than a visit from a mobile vet three times a year may be a bit too high-profile for you. Just something to keep in mind.

However, I think goats are great pets as long as you keep in mind the expenses and issues that come with them and can be kept relatively easily like a dog would.

[applestar]

I live in a cookie cutter development so poultry, let alone goats are out of the question, really. But I keep having wild ideas like ... What about Pygmy goats!!?

[Ozark Lady]

I have rarely taken a goat to a vet. Normally, I do the vaccinations.
I like horns, so I don't want them damaged. And I do the hooves myself.
I want to get a new microscope and then I will be able to do fecal counts, to see what parasites they have and treat them accordingly. Right now, I just worm them on a schedule, with a scatter gun effect. Seems to work, mine are fat and healthy. I don't wether, I just butcher them when they are optimum sized for the freezer. I think the male hormones in the meat are important for human health.

Most folks find they can either learn to care for the goats themselves, or get out of the livestock business.
A few backpackers get into the vet thing, and treat them like dogs...

But heck, I vaccinate my dogs too, except rabies must be done by a vet to prove you did it. I can't remember ever taking these dogs to the vet for anything other than rabies shots, when they have clinics.

I did have to have a couple "C" sections done on pygmy does that snuck in with the full sized Nubian buck and had babies they couldn't deliver.
They would walk past the pygmy buck and go for the big guy, every time, so I had to concede defeat and no longer keep pygmies.

If you want milk, don't go pygmy, they are wonderful pets, but very difficult to milk, we have had to do it. But there are mini's that are not much bigger, and they are developed and bred for milking. Pygmy sized, pygmy temperment, and an udder you can actually milk! Not huge, but large enough to get hold of.

In goat forums folks talk about Nubians being loud and La Mancha's being quiet. I have had both, and both can be really loud, if they want something, or want you! Even pygmies can be heard from a long distance. I did find Oberhasli were quieter goats, and beautiful.

[WinglessAngel]

Okay, I made the heading kind of general.
I have an issue of too much milk.
I am learning cheese making, and am still working on the soft cheeses.
I am also making yogurt and buttermilk.
I do freeze some yogurt for the next culture, and some buttermilk to get new going.
I made some frozen yogurt/peach ice cream in the freezer, yesterday, the family loved it.
I also made some cheese that is a non-melting cheese, that you batter and fry.
But, from the gallon of milk the recipe calls for is alot too much of this cheese. It will spoil before we use it.
I am debating, should I cut it up and freeze it, then batter at point of use?
Should I batter the slices, then freeze them, and simply take them out to fry?
Should I batter the slices, and lightly fry them, and then freeze them, so I can just barely fry them on reheat. (they cook fast anyhow though)
Or should I just cook them like to eat, and then freeze them?

And what about all the soft cheeses like cream cheese and cottage cheese.
All recipes call for a gallon or two of milk... that is alot of soft cheese, we just can't eat it before we lose it.

I get a gallon of milk everyday, 7 days a week, I can't get ahead of it, can't keep the fridge emptied of milk, and have all these containers of soft cheeses, yogurt, buttermilk, chocolate milk, strawberry milk, banana milk... give me a break... how do I best store this? Okay I can pressure can it, but a gallon per day is 8 pints daily, it wouldn't take long to have alot too much in that area too.

I do make yogurt for grandkids that like it, and send jugs of milk home with my milk loving grandkids, but still, they aren't using enough!

I really must get started on hard cheeses!

But any suggestions for in the meantime? I need to use up or store large quantities of milk, yogurt, buttermilk, cottage cheese, cream cheese, and frying cheese.

Hi there Ozark Lady!

Something I do with cheese when I buy in quantity, is I do freeze it, I cut it up into manageable block sizes and then either wrap in celophane or vacuum pack it (when I had a vacuum sealer) and it kept just fine, when ur in need of the cheese just take it out and defrost it, works great.

I think u can freeze cream cheese, I've done it before and never had a problem with it, only problem is it takes a long time for it to come to room temperature enough to be spreadable, the only downfall for that.

Cottage cheese I am not sure would freeze well as it still contains a lot of liquids in it.

As far as battering and freezing, I would go ahead, make it easier on yourself the next time you want to fry some cheese up! Just lightly spray some cookie sheets with cooking spray and layer them with parchment or wax paper, batter your cheese chunks and carefully lay them on the paper. I don't know what type of batter u use, but sometimes sprinkling corn meal on the paper also helps the batter not to "pool" out, kinda gives it a roadblock effect. freeze trays individually and when they are fully frozen, peel them carefully off the paper and then just throw in zip top bags and pull out as many as u need when u want them. I do this method for a lot of things I know I use a lot of in the house...like when I make egg rolls, I usually make a hundred or so at a time, I just freeze individually and then throw in bags. When u need them, don't defrost just put straight into hot oil and go, but be careful u don't burn urself bec the ice crystals from them being frozen can make ur oil pop.

Hope this helped (sorry for my long winded-ness)