Kidding season, as goat farmers casually call it, runs through the winter. From roughly late October to mid-March, depending on where you live, billy goats are courting does and by early spring, the farms are rife with little baby goats, or “kids”. Because of this regular goat propagation schedule, you can count on spring to be the best time to buy some of the tastiest goat’s milk cheese for the year. With the new little ones, does are producing milk in abundance and since it only takes three to four weeks for the kids to wean off of their mother’s milk and start in on the new spring grass, fresh milk is typically available almost before spring arrives.

At Jeremiah Farms, little goats were scampering around everywhere. Their pen is toward the back of the farm and even before I opened the door, their little teeth were trying to eat everything from my shoes to my notepad. According to Casey, their family got started in the goat business almost by accident. “We were driving home one night and say a sign that said ‘goats for sale‘. I didn‘t really think about it; the kids were interested so we just decided to stop.” There she met Tyler Davis, the man who sold her the first Jeremiah Farms goat and helped her through the first few months of goat ownership. “ In the end, they‘re a lot like owning dogs,” she said. “You make sure they get their shots once a year and besides feeding and milking, they pretty much take care of themselves.” Her very first goat Rosie, a full-blooded registered Nubian, was as much of a trial-by-fire in the goat business as she could get. “Rosie was pregnant when we bought her, but Tyler assured me that I had at least a month before she had kids.” Casey remembered, but the next morning after Rosie came to the farm, Casey woke up to find not one, but two goats roaming the temporary pen. “To say I was shocked would put it lightly,” she laughed, “but it was a great learning experience.” Today, Rosie, her children and grandchildren still roam the Price‘s property, with only a few of the new goats being sold each year. The milk from Nubian goats is prized for it‘s high butterfat content, giving it a uniquely rich quality for what is normally a very light milk.

“Why are they so friendly?” I asked Casey as one of Rosie’s grandchildren propped his forelegs on my hip and started chewing on my hair. “They’re used to people since they’re milk goats,” Casey said. “We usually milk the does twice a day and each goat produces around half a gallon per day.” Saying that, she led me to a small shed next to the pen. The dim light revealed a foot-high platform and small stool, with a latch for securing the mother goat’s harness during the milking process. Another door in the back opened into a separate part of the huge outdoor pen and suddenly we were surrounded by dozens and dozens of chickens. “We usually keep between thirty and forty chickens at the farm,” Casey said as she scooped one particular fowl from the group. The one she picked up was unlike any other chicken I’d seen. It looked like a chick had grown up and never grown its proper feathers. “It’s called a silky chicken,” said Casey and the name definitely fit. The chicken was covered in soft, silky white pinfeathers, causing the poor poultry to look more like the Bumble from Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer than a hen. I asked if her eggs looked any different and she shook her head, no. The only eggs on the farm that were slightly unusual came from the guinea hens, whose eggs were slightly thicker and harder to crack than normal chicken eggs. “Anyone that wants to can come out and pick their own eggs,” Casey said as she helped me put the silky back in the hen pen. “In fact, that’s sort of the theme of the farm; we want people to see where their food comes from.”