I actually considered it, but our fences are totally inadequate (both in condition and completeness) for any sort of grazing animal. This is just something I'll have to save for my next life. I'll just have to find someone who makes cheese around here. It just ticks me off that the stores call cows milk cheese feta.
I love feta and make it from both goat and cow milk. Made from cow milk it is technically called "Bulgarian Feta" but I'm sure the stores don't label it that way. I wish you were closer. Right now I have a half gallon jar filled with cubes of goat milk feta marinating in their brine. I'd be happy to let you have some of them if there were an easy way to get them to you.
I have a high school friend in Wichita I've been going to visit for 6 months. This just may get me moving in that direction. I'll be in touch.
Well, the good news it does have to be a component of the milk that is what you are reacting to. In other words, milk is made up of lots of different things, including plain old water, and it is unlikely you are allergic to every component - far more likely that it is only one or perhaps two of the components that is causing the issue.
Where I grew up, schools were required to provide students a pint of milk per day because it was considered healthy. Unfortunately, the milk was delivered to the classrooms at the start of the school day and with no refrigeration....by lunch time it was sour. We were forced to drink it anyway, unless we had a note from a parent stating that we didn't have to. I begged my mother for some time before she finally relented, after extracting a promise from me that I would continue to drink milk at home. By that point I would have agreed to anything to get her to sign that note, but in reality it was ruined for me and I never touched another drop after that. I'd still use it on cereal or in cooking but never again poured myself a glass of milk to drink.
After we got the cows, I braved it. From the first milking, I poured a glass of milk and drank it - for the first time in decades. It wasn't bad. But - decades of "habit" or whatever you want to call it and I haven't done it since. I eat yogurt, cheese and ice cream but these days I don't ever eat cereal, so my milk consumption is only in cooking/baked goods or those other dairy products.
Agreed. I currently have 7 broody chicken hens and a few broody turkeys. I am not interested in more chicks so my broody hens get their eggs taken every night. Unlike Trish, I don't kick them out as I figure they'll just get straight back on anyway. I just take their eggs and leave them there. Eventually they'll give it up. I already had a couple quit brooding but a couple more started to take their place. It is always broody central around here
@sharol I don't know your set up but have you considered getting a couple of milk goats so you can make your own cheese? I hesitated to get dairy animals for a long time because I didn't want to be tied to twice a day milking and never be able to travel. However I can honestly say after doing it a year and a half that I don't regret it at all. I could do without the cows but I find the goats really easy. They aren't near so hard to contain as people will tell you - ours are really very good (this morning notwithstanding - more on that in a minute). They stay in the pasture without challenging the fencing and right now when we're doing rotational grazing, they respect the portable electric fence very well. Milking them only takes about 15 minutes for two goats. Right now I am doing twice a day but plan to get them down to once a day milking in the next few weeks. Compared to the cows I find the goats to be very cheap and easy. The cows cost a ton more to initially purchase and as they only have 1 calf a year and that calf has to stay on them 8-9 months, it will take a long time to get our money back in calf sales. By comparison, the goats initial purchase price was low, ours have each produced twins every pregnancy and the kids can be sold at 10 weeks. We are already "in the black" on the goats so if we sold them tomorrow, it would be pure profit.
Okay, so this morning didn't start out so well. I went out around 6:30am to check on everyone, only to find the goats in the hedge. We currently have them grazing in our lagoon as part of the rotation and the previous owner fenced the lagoon with 2x4 welded wire fencing. This of course does NOT stand up well to animals and I've told DH a number of times that at some point we're going to have to re-fence it, preferably with livestock panels. I knew the fencing was weak, particularly on the hedge side, as the goats will stand and lean on the fence to try to reach the leaves on the hedge trees and bushes. However I was hoping it would stand up to a few days of rotation and then we'll be moving them anyway. I didn't get so lucky. One whole section between t-posts was completely gone so the goats had taken advantage and started browsing the hedge. The sheep of course stayed right within the lagoon fencing because "Mom said we're supposed to stay in here". You gotta love sheep - they are so GOOD all the timeAnyway, fortunately the goats are halter trained, so it was an easy matter to get them back. All I had to do was go to the gate that leads into the hedge, call them and they came running. I put their halters on and led them back to the lagoon. However, I knew they'd be out again in a flash if I didn't repair the fencing so there I was at 7am wiring a livestock panel to the posts to keep them in. BEFORE COFFEE no less. My fellow coffee addicts will understand how hard that was
Fortunately it was the only really vulnerable spot so I think we'll make it through this rotation now, but we do need to get that fencing repaired more permanently before we try to graze animals in there again. Its always something isn't it?
Same here on the weather. It is awful. I dug potatoes this morning and got a fair number of little ones. Not much. It was too wet when I should have been building the hills and then got hot and rock hard.
Ok good. If hens are broody don't they stay on the eggs all of the time though? She's hardly ever on them. The Buff Orphington that I have hatching eggs is on them almost all of the time...
(Confused. I thought you said she was sitting on nothing. Have you given her eggs to sit on?)
Also, does anybody know anything about wild quail? We have some on our property and the other day we were mowing some of the tall grass and went right over a quail nest. All of the eggs are intact and we put some grass around it so that it would be hidden. We have been checking on it often and haven't seen any quail on it, and we are kind of worried that she may not have been able to find it and abandoned it... I don't know how the process works with the hatching for them but if anybody knows some help would be great
You have a soft heart. I would have tried too, but then what do you do with the babies after they hatch with no one to teach them to fend for themselves?
