We took a goat class

Jon making new friends

Yep, you wouldn't be the first one to boggle at this. In fact, my fabulous friend Elizabeth was like, "You're doing what exactly?" To which I replied, "A class. You know . . . goats."  I should've known this would amuse Elizabeth to no end. As it was, I got a voicemail from her later that day with her bleating "baaaaaaaaaaaah" down the phone at me. Only Elizabeth would have the bravado to do so.

So before I start telling tall tales about Elizabeth's priors, I should get back to the topic at hand - said goat class. Lots of people are probably wondering how we came across a class on goats. It was in a roundabout way really.

At the Heritage Harvest festival this year, we ran into some people from the Blue Ridge Permaculture Network. While at the stand coveting all sorts of cool hippie stuff including a home-made solar dehydrator and rocket stove, I decided to put my name on their mailing list. For me this was me being magnanimous. In general, I loathe mailing lists especially when you start receiving the paper version in the post (if I wanted to kill some trees, trust me, I'm happy to go out in my yard with a pair of loppers - ed.)

I didn't think anymore about it until I got my first mailout. It had inadvertently ended up in my junk folder and I had planned on keeping it that way, but as I was procrastinating on writing my next chapter I had a quick look. It turned out to be a veritable cornucopia of events/classes/lectures that hit the sweet spot. Including said goat class. Here was the blurb:

Want to learn about what's involved in keeping miniature dairy goats (which were recently legalized in Charlottesville)?

The Charlottesville Goat Justice League has organized an urban goat keeping workshop at Dragon Hill Farm in Scottsville next Saturday, Oct. 9, 2-4:30pm, rain or shine. Wear farm-friendly clothes and bring a folding chair.

$20/person with pre-registration, $25/person at the farm. To pre-register, make check out to Dragon Hill Farm for $20/person and mail to Meghan, P.O. Box xxx, Cville, 229xx For more information, please contact Meghan at 434-293-xxxx ormxxxxxx@gmail.com.

Everyone who pre-registers will receive 2 free bags of shavings from Tractor Supply.  There will be other  door prizes donated by Whole Foods, Rebecca's, and Fifth Season.  

I mean who could pass up something that a) had been illegal and b) came with 2 free bags of wood shavings? I didn't know what on earth I would do with said shavings, but I'm always a sucker for freebies.

In addition to the two of us, we roped in our neighbor Themis who is already a goat aficionado (his uncle owns over 200 goats in Cypress). I'm not 100% sure why he took the class unless it was to placate me (I can be pushy imagine that.)

So, alright already what about the class?

Well, although I was freaked out that goats have the eyes of Satan, they were in fact very lovable and friendly creatures. If you will, a dog with horns. And they were cute, not too smelly, and generally well-mannered citizens of the barnyard.

Some things about goats that I didn't know:

• Goat's milk tastes just like full fat cow's milk
• Miniature Nigerians have a higher butter fat content than standard dairy goats
• Unlike popular belief, goats shouldn't eat just anything - There are tons of plants/foliage that are poisonous
• Goats have to be vaccinated once a year & get rabies and distemper boosters like dogs
• Does have to be impregnated every couple of years to keep milk standards high

And lastly, it's not cheap to keep goats. You can't just let them roam and eat grass. They need grain like other barnyard animals. So expect to spend $100/month to keep 2 miniature goats.

After finding out about the last part, it didn't really make a lot of sense for us to have goats. The amount of milk and cheese that they could provide and that we could sell would be substantially less than what it costs to maintain them every year. People seem to either keep them as a hobby/pet and/or breed them (selling buck and doe kids). Neither of those options really appealed to us. After all, the objective of the SSB is to be as self-sufficient or self-reliable as possible on the amount of land we currently own.

Final thought: it's highly unlikely that we will get goats.

Yet, the class was invaluable for giving us the knowledge to come to this decision so it was a worthwhile endeavor regardless. And if nothing else, I learned how to milk a goat.

Me milking a real goat