chickensense

We made goat milk ice cream once but we weren’t too happy with the results. I don’t remember the recipe I used (sorry), but knowing me it would have been something extremely simple with few ingredients.  We don’t have any goat milk right now so I can’t test this out for you, but mississippisnowdog, from the Off Grid Living and Homesteading Yahoo group, has developed her own recipe (below) and she told me it is very good. You can also find a more complicated goat milk ice cream recipe here: www.countrysidemag.com.

If you make these recipes, come back and leave a comment letting us know how it went and whether you liked it enough to do again.

(Don’t have an ice cream maker? No problem, check out the truly hand made ice cream recipes on our web site: http://www.chickensense.com/icecream.asp)

Goat Milk Ice Cream

“I make goat milk ice cream at least twice a week and we love it. I didn’t want to make it too fattening, so I had to figure out a way to do it without adding extra cream. Here’s what I came up with.”

5 1/2 cups goat milk
2 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
flavor, about 1 teaspoon (vanilla extract, mint, etc.)

Heat 5 cups of the milk until it looks like it has a skin on top that is cracking. Stir the cornstarch into the remaining 1/2 cup milk until dissolved. Add to heated milk. Add sugar. Heat at a low to medium temperature until it coats the spoon. Keep stirring or it will scorch. (Might be better to do this in a double boiler.)  Add your flavoring (vanilla extract, mint, etc.) and pour into your ice cream maker.

Mix and freeze, following your ice cream machine’s instructions, until done. Transfer the ice cream into a chilled container. After putting in the freezer (your refrigerator’s freezer), be sure to stir it in about an hour or it will get hard and impossible to scoop. Depending on the type, you might need to stir it again at two hours.

Variations–

For mint chocolate chip, use mint extract and grate two regular size Hershey bars (or peel with a potato peeler). Put the grated chocolate in the freezer till hard, crunch into smaller pieces, and add to ice cream when almost done churning.

For chocolate– eliminate sugar. Add a king size Hershey bar to the mix after removing from heat. Stir until melted.

For fruit flavors (peach and strawberry) add 1 cup chopped fruit when the ice cream is almost done churning.

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One day you can be cruising along on top of the world and the next day disaster strikes. The other night something attacked our chickens and killed 2 hens; our wonderful rooster, Crazy Mike; and one of the baby chicks. Whatever it was also ate ALL of the eggs that were hatching and about to hatch. Then that morning my husband ran over and killed a hen who was sitting under his truck.

Jesse and I worked hard yesterday to repair the damage to one of the chicken coops to make sure nothing could get in again. We put all the remaining hens in the one coop, but we couldn’t find the mother hen and her 2 chicks anywhere. Now that it is light out I’m going to go see if they managed to survive the night unprotected, but I don’t have much hope.

Fortunately I took photos of the mother and babies yesterday so you can see how adorable they were. I can’t believe the attacker ate all the eggs just when they were starting to hatch! I was so excited about the new babies…

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It’s been 3 weeks and I’ve finally got the kinks worked out of our milking process.

It used to be a horrible battle just to get Goldie onto the porch where I milk her. Sometimes I’d have to follow her all over the place to catch her, then drag her all the way across the yard by her horns with her digging in her hoofs and fighting the whole way. Then once I got her onto the porch the other goats would come up and try to steal her grain and she’d be shuffling and bucking at them, hitting me and spilling the grain and all the milk in the process. One of the pygmy goats, Whitey, bucked me in the face during one of these skirmishes giving me a bloody nose and a cut in my nostril from her horn.

Also, at first I wasn’t giving Goldie enough grain (sweet feed) and when she was finished eating she’d try to leave and would step in or spill the milk. Even during the milking she’d shuffle all around trying to get out of my reach and would step in the milk or knock it over. More than once I was in tears after all that struggle and having no milk to show for it.

Perserverance has paid off, however; milking is now a wonderful pleasure.

Now I go get a bowl of sweet feed and the goats race me to the porch. The pygmies have learned not to try to get on the porch while I’m standing there, but Goldie climbs right on up and starts eating. I clip the chain to her collar to keep her from leaving if she finishes eating before I finish milking. I also slide a board across the bottom step to keep the other goats off the porch once I turn my back.

I use some warm soapy water and a cloth to wash her udder and teats, then I sit down and start milking. She doesn’t shuffle around anymore, thank goodness, unless she finishes her grain too fast. I put a rock in the grain to make her eat it slower. I use two milking bowls. I milk into one and every few squirts I pour it into the other bowl which I keep well out of Goldie’s reach. That little trick has been a life-saver— I mean milk saver!

Now as I’m milking I have time to enjoy the peaceful sights and sounds around me. The sounds of the birds chirping, chickens scratching under the porch to get the grain that spills, our 2 roosters crowing, and the sounds of the other goats playing and calling to each other. Plus the beautiful green of the springtime growth all around, and the warm sunshine. It just doesn’t get any better than this!

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Rufus is such a ham! He loves the camera just like his mother, Goldie.

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While Jesse was at school today, I visited a great feed mill near Red Banks, MS. Hendrix Feed Mill (formerly Hawks Feed), on South Red Banks Road, consists of several buildings full of every kind of feed and bedding. When I first entered the small office I felt pretty lost, but Karen Hurdle was right there to help me figure out just what I needed. Being the first time I’ve gone to a feed mill I had no idea what to expect. It is different from a regular store, you have to pretty much know what you want– no browsing the shelves around there! Giving up the browsing was well worth it though: the prices were far, FAR better than the feed stores in Collierville, Tn. Hay bales were nearly half the cost, and the sweet feed and laying mash were also much less expensive. The goats really loved the hay too!

And what a gorgeous day it was for the drive to Red Banks! It rained and snowed a bit yesterday, and froze overnight, but by this afternoon it was so sunny and warm.

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Well, we have named the new bucklings at last.
(the dates on the photos are wrong, of course.)

Born 2/10 — White Pygmy Buckling born to Whitey
– Tonks

Born 2/14 — White Saanen Buckling born to Goldie
– Rufus

Born 2/19 — Black Pygmy Buckling born to Blackie
– Dickon

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The paralyzed buckling seems stronger today! We have kept him in the goat shed for the last couple of days but today was so beautiful we let him out for some sunshine. We are so surprised and happy to see him strong enough to get all around only dragging his rear legs instead of his hips too.

If he was injured, maybe he’s recovering? Could it be that the mineral lick with selenium that we put out for the does yesterday has already gotten to him from his mother’s milk? That seems unlikely since I don’t even know if the does have tried it yet. Whatever it is, it is great! Maybe by the time the selenium-e gel gets here it won’t be needed.

Our last kid was born February 19th to our black pygmy doe. He seems smaller than the other pygmy kid was, but he is very lively. He is almost all black like his mother and so cute!

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All of a sudden 4 days ago a pygmy buckling born 2/10 became paralyzed in his rear legs. He was fine and playing that morning. He was sitting in the sunshine and suddenly started bleating. He doesn’t appear to be in pain. I set him upright and he walked all the way to the shed on just his front legs, dragging his whole rear behind him. His head is up, he’s alert. He bleats when he tries to get up, but if we hold him, and pet him he sits quietly, so I don’t think he’s in pain. He can’t move his legs, tail, or hips at all.

I posted some questions at Practical-Goats Yahoo group and was told several things it could be:

He could have gotten tetanus through the umbilical cord/navel. (I hadn’t dipped it in 7% iodine as you are supposed to do because I didn’t have any.) There is no cure for this and he would die.

His mother could have a selenium deficiency which causes “white muscle” disease in newborn kids, calves, and lambs. Giving him a shot of Bo Se could heal him quickly, but even a little bit too much selenium would kill him.

He could have a copper deficiency. Giving copper sulfate could heal him.

He could have been hit or butted, or fell and injured his back to the point of paralysis.

There can also be problems with deer bringing in meningeal worms which could cause similar symptoms. I was advised that Fenbendole (SafeGuard, Panacur) is the only wormer effective against Meningeal Worm.

So, based on that information, here’s what I’ve done:

I ordered selenium-e gel online, because Bo Se is only available by prescription. I found the best prices with lowest shipping at Jefferslivestock.com. I also bought a mineral tub at Hall’s Feed in Collierville that has selenium in it for the does. Hopefully it will prevent this type of thing in the future. It’s been 4 days and the kid seems just fine except for dragging his legs and rear end, so I don’t think it is tetanus which would keep making him weaker and weaker. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully! the selenium gel will heal him.

Next, I’ll give all the animals Tetanus vaccines as soon as the kids are 30 days old, and make sure all the does get vaccinated before they have their next kids so I won’t have that fear.

I trimmed the umbilical cords of all 3 kids close to their tummies, and as soon as the Triodine-7 (replaced iodine) arrives I’ll get it applied. It may be too little, too late, but it’s the best I can do at this point. At least I’ll have it on hand for future newborns. The 2 younger bucklings’ cords were all shriveled and dry when I cut them, but the older one, the one that is paralyzed, had about 2 inches closest to his body that was not shriveled, though it was hard.

It is a miracle that these does and kids have survived my learning curve! (I really had thought I was reasonably prepared– I’ve studied several goat books from the library, read a ton from internet sites, and been frequenting the Practical-Goats Yahoo group since we got the goats in December…)

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The lady who gave us the goats will be taking the pygmy twins for brush control on a small island. Jesse will be upset, but the pygmies will be much happier living where there are no people to bother them. They will be easy to catch because they are used to us now. Jesse even milked whitey a little bit to make sure she had plenty and that the kid could get to it.

I have been researching and I think Goldie, the large doe, is Saanen. She really has a ton of milk but her teats are very short and difficult to milk. Perhaps that is why no one wanted her? I like her very much though. She really likes being petted and scratched. She is so funny to watch with the pygmies because she is so bossy. She is very, very protective of her kid. Never lets him out of her sight. The kid is sweet and lets us pet him and pick him up.

The white pygmy seems very careless about her kid. She has lost him entirely twice in the first days after he was born. We never could find him when we put them all up for the night. Fortunately the next mornings when we let her out she found him. He sticks pretty close to her now that he’s older. He is very skittish. Guess he takes after his mom.

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Our big goat, Goldie, had her baby today. It is a mostly white buckling (boy), and he is big and strong.

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One of our pygmy does had a kid an hour ago. We were given these goats suddenly in early December so we had no idea when they were bred. It is soooo cute! It was born while we were at church this morning, and is a buckling (boy).

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We live near Memphis, TN, and it is has been so cold and rainy that I am so glad we almost finished the “patchwork” goat shed today. (We’ve “pieced” it together with scrap everything.)

We have noticed that the white pygmy has a definite udder now, so perhaps it won’t be long before she has her kids. We are pretty sure Goldie, the standard-size doe, and Snowflake, the white pygmy doe, are pregnant, but it doesn’t look as if Blackie-Tango is, or perhaps she is just not as far along. We have no idea when they were bred.

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Whew! We have our goats back. They had escaped the 2nd night we had them and for 5 days no one could find them. Without much hope, I put an ad in the paper. The next day a lady phoned to say the goats have been walking up and down their street for a few days. Yay!

We are really fortunate because those people have black angus cows so they’ve been feeding our goats too. I was so worried they were stuck in the woods somewhere starving; I am so glad they were safe and fed.

We’ve bought 2 dog collars and leashes, plus 2 tie out chains for them. We are keeping the pygmies in the chicken coop with lots of hay and sweet feed and water. We take them out for walks a lot; this will work until we can get some sturdy fencing.

Goldie, the large goat doesn’t fit in the coop, and she keeps butting the others anyway. I’m so worried about her because she’s out in the rain. She’s got plenty of hay and sweet feed and water too, and a nice cushy area for laying down, which she seems to like. I just hope she doesn’t get sick from all the recent upheavals, and being out in the rain tonight when it’s going to get so cold… (The high tomorrow is 45 degrees F.)

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We’ve been so worried about the goats all night. It started raining around midnight and has kept up at least a drizzle since then. The temperature dropped all night too, and it will not get above 50 F until tomorrow.

Since they arrived earlier than we expected, we do not have their shed or pen ready, so we had them tied on a line running between two trees. It is so cold and wet, and they keep getting so tangled up! One of the pygmy sisters, the white one, got loose this morning somehow.

I had to get them out of the rain and wind so we moved the black pygmy twin into the rooster coop since it has a nice, dry, fresh, straw floor so she can get comfortable. We hope to lure the white twin there too. We tied Goldie, since she is too big for the rooster coop, into the unfinished glass studio temporarily. The white twin has followed her there so she is at least out of the rain and wind.

When the guys get home this afternoon they are going to work on getting the fences finished for the goats and building the shed for them. Hopefully we’ll be able to catch the white twin soon and get her into the rooster coop.

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We have determined that we have 3 grown roosters now for sure, our original two, Crazy Mike and Junior, plus one in the newest batch that is very plump and dark greenish black. We think 3 others of the newest 15 are also roosters, but very young. At least 3 more of the 15 are too young to lay, if they are hens.

We are getting 8 eggs a day now from all the hens.

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We suddenly have goats! The pygmy goats are pretty wild and scared, but Goldie, the largest is sweet and docile.

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Jesse found where the ranging hens have been laying! We found 12 eggs in one “nest” in the glass shop this morning. Yay!

We’ve put a loop of fence around each coop separately so that our original chickens will have to stay nearby and lay in their proper nests. The two groups of chickens are still trying to fight each other right through the fence. But the fence isn’t keeping the original gang in. I guess they are so used to wandering now, and the fence isn’t tall enough in some spots so they fly over.

It is soooo cold today! It is 1:00pm and it is not even 40 degrees. Brrrr! I have huge windows with no curtins in my kitchen; it is freezing in here! I got started on the new curtins today, and I’m going to hurry up and finish. It should help keep the kitchen warmer. It hasn’t been getting this cold this early for the last several years; usually highs in the 40s don’t come until January. This does not bode well for our electric bill.

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The jury is still out on the “roosters.” Our chickens all have bumps on their legs where spurs would grow on a rooster, so apparently that isn’t a way to tell male from female until the spurs are actually growing out. I’ve been told to look for long hackle feathers, larger combs, upright posture, longer tails, and long wattles on the roosters. Based on those characteristics, we feel we have one or two roosters in the newest batch. Little Girl, who we bought from the same person, is maybe a rooster too. We’ll just have to wait until we see them laying an egg, or until their spurs and tails grow out to tell for sure.

We are getting 3 or 4 eggs from the 15 new chickens each day which is pitiful. I hope it improves once they settle in. We are only getting one or 2 from our 8(7?) original hens. I think this is because they are laying all over the place instead of in the nests, and we can’t find the eggs. We put up a fence for the original hens today to keep them near their nests so tomorrow we will hopefully get the 4 or 5 eggs we were getting from them in the past.

I can see now why there are so few “free range” egg producers. If you do let them range you can’t find the eggs. We are going to compromise and give them a large fenced yard instead. Their favorite hedgerow is in the yard so I’m sure they will be very happy.

We are keeping the two groups of chickens separate for a while longer because they are really trying to fight each other, even through the fence…

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Since my ankle is hurting I’m not able to go check the new chickens myself to see if they are developing spurs or not. We just got a 3rd egg from the new group, so 3 are hens for sure, which means only 12 could possibly be roosters, not 13 as Jesse said. So… I think I’ll reserve judgement until I can get out and check them myself.

In the mean time I’m a bit worried about the 7 hens we already have because they can’t get to their normal nests since I have the new chickens penned there. Are chickens smart enough to use the nests in the other cage? I’ll let you know this evening.

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It seems that 13 of the 15 “hens” we bought yesterday may be roosters–they have bumps where their spurs are starting to grow in. Also, at least one of the “hens” we bought a few weeks ago, Little Girl, the one Jesse fell in love with, is really Little Guy. We saw and heard “her” crow this morning. (Jesse said, “No wonder Crazy Mike never goes after her.”) So we checked “her” legs, and sure enough, spurs are starting to grow. Now this is really a predicament …

Also, the ankle I twisted trying to catch these chickens is definitely more than twisted, it is sprained. I’m limping around, and it is painful, but slightly better than it was last night.

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I got 15 new chickens today. I’m so sorry I forgot to take pictures of us all running around like nuts trying to catch them. I got wounded early in the race–twisted my ankle–so I had to mostly watch from the sidelines.

These were mostly Red Star and Black Star hens, and a few of their offspring. Red Stars and Black Stars are hybrid, brown-egg-laying chickens, which are a cross between the world’s top laying chickens, Leghorns (which lay white eggs), and high-producing, brown egg layers such as Rhode Island Reds. They make the best brown-egg layers; however you never know what you’ll get in their offspring.

Four of the new hens are for some of our friends, as well as our young rooster, so that leaves us with 19 hens, and our beloved rooster, Crazy Mike. I’m hoping to get a dozen eggs a day during the winter, once the new hens settle in, and by spring, when the youngest ones begin laying, we should really be cranking.

I have been really surprised by the huge demand for free-range eggs here, yet there are so few producers. Come spring, I will really focus on building a flock of exceptional layers, beginning with new chicks in the spring. I want to get away from the hybrids, though, so I can hatch my own replacements as time goes on, and maintain a consistent level of quality, without the expense of buying chicks every year. In short, I will strive for sustainability.

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I got 5 new hens on Saturday. They are a hybrid type called Red Star or Black Star, depending on the color. I got 3 of the black and 2 of the red. The fellow I bought them from raised them as day old chicks from McMurry Hatchery. They are supposed to be really good egg layers. The day after we got them we got 2 eggs from them!

Now I have 9 hens, and 2 roosters. I’m finding a new home for the biggest rooster and will keep the other one with the hens.

There are a lot more photos on my web site, www.chickensense.com.

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We got our first chicken egg today. What a thrill when my son came running in with it. From the nest it was in, we think it is from one of the 2 new Australorpe hens.

We just can’t wait until the others start laying. The days are getting shorter and colder and often when a hen hasn’t started laying by now they don’t start until spring. Some people put lights in the chicken house for several hours in the evening to fool the chickens, but we’ve decided to just wait and see.

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