Jumping the Moon Dairy - the next chapter

[bonbean01]

Babs...you know many of us love you and KNOW if any one can do this....YOU can!!!! Wishing you only great success and YES....you can do this and also really happy that you started this thread

 

[BrownSheep]

YAY!

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Babs, I just love this adventure and hearing about it along the way has made me more willing to take leaps of faith. Maybe not in that I am going to go out and build my own dairy, but you have influenced me in many ways with your passion and determination. Thank you.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Congrats on being so close to your dream!

I would love to be able to do something like this when I retire too....but that is another 20 years off or so I imagine.

I enjoy milking my girls, now more than when they were just learning and we were having all out rodeos all the time. Except for StinkerBelle. I think she was just born to milk.

Just curious, how many goats are you milking right now and how long does it take you? How long do you anticipate it taking to milk 20 -30 a day?

I have about 30 goats here now including all the babies and boys, but I only milk 3 and they are all nigerian. I take about an hour in the mornings to feed,water and milk (and bottle feed 3 kids). But just the goats. Not including other animals.

 

[babsbag]

Right now I am milking about 9 and that will increase as I wean some kids and most of the 9 have kids on them too so I don't milk them everyday. I have a milk machine and It takes me about 1.5 hours to milk and clean the equipment and another 30 minutes to feed. When I get the dairy done I will be milking 4-6 at a time so I am hoping that I can get them all milked in about the same amount of time. Hoping that cleanup doesn't take much longer either. In many ways it will be easier as the goats will have one door to come in and one door to go our and I won't have to fight them at the gate; I am really excited about that. I am only planning on milking once a day.

 

[babsbag]

Thought I would share some pictures of my weekend project. I am converting the office in the trailer to a space to make cheese so I needed a sloped floor that I could apply epoxy paint to and it needed to be lightweight and something I could install. I didn't want to use a concrete like product for a few reasons...a 30 day curing time and I stink at concrete work. I can do just about everything else but no finish cement stuff. Ceramic tile, yes, patios and walkways...NO.

So I cut wedges of wood and sloped the floor to the center drain and then cut triangular pieces of plywood so they could slope too. I am now waiting for the epoxy paint to arrive.

 

[babsbag]

Here are some pictures of the bottling room with no equipment in it. I need to re-caulk all the seams in the paneling and I am recoating the floor.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Wishing you the best with your new adventure!

 

[Southern by choice]

YOU ROCK!

 

[BlessedWithGoats]

Great job!