Two Letters Re: Getting Started With Dairy Goats

Sir,
To add to the Memsahib’s excellent, succinct article on raising goats:

Those interested in self-sufficiency could hardly choose a better livestock animal. Might I suggest Nigerian Dwarf goats? There are several reasons why these fine animals make an excellent livestock choice for those interested in self-sufficiency:

1. Nigerian Dwarfs are fairly small and easy to handle. Their food needs are also minimal: they can graze on minimal pasture and will of course forage through wooded areas. Like most breeds, they do equally well on grassy pasture or in thick woodland, flat-land or hills. But unlike some of the larger breeds, those with only a few acres can easily raise a handful of Nigerian Dwarfs’ with only minimal supplemental feed purchases. They will do well on minimal amounts of goat ‘pellets’ and/or alfalfa, with a good mineral supplement which they’ll pick at as they need to. They’ll also pick at good hay out a horse’s hay net. They hay will do double-duty as bedding, or you can use shavings, or a mix of both.

2. They have the sweetest, creamiest milk of any breed – almost like half-and-half. This milk is excellent to drink, and also makes great cheese. Those who are not particularly keen on goat’s milk tend to warm right up to Nigerian Dwarf milk without complaint.

3. Though small, Nigerian Dwarfs are incredibly efficient at turning forage into milk. A well-bred Nigerian Dwarf can produce upwards of 2 quarts of milk daily – not bad for a 40 pound animal.

4. Nigerian Dwarfs are very smart and affectionate – a Nigerian Dwarf goat is like a half-dog, half-goat livestock animal who will be as much fun to interact with as to it will be to farm with.

5. Those who farm, or are looking to convert woodland or pasture into field, will find Nigerian Dwarfs an excellent tool for use in deforestation, and later in field rotation.

When purchasing Nigerian Dwarfs, or any breed of goat, I strongly recommend your readers consult with a reputable breeder. When it comes to dairy goats, breeding makes a big difference. A little extra up-front investment will go a long way in the long haul – so don’t be penny-wise but pound-foolish. Do your homework and acquire good, healthy stock that will keep you in delicious milk, cheese, ice cream and yogurt for years to come. A good breeder can also offer instruction on health maintenance and vaccination.

I would also recommend that your readers practice disbudding (de-horning) of their goats. This will prevent costly injury, particularly as you add new goats (with new genes) to your herd. However, this does take away a natural defense mechanism. So if one lives in an area with predators, particularly coyotes, care will have to be taken in the building of their evening housing. A well-trained dog can also solve this problem. Another option for coyotes is a donkey, which will excel in keeping coyotes away.

Much has been made of the difficulty of keeping goats fenced in. While they are natural escape artists, it’s really not that difficult to keep them inside the perimeter. For Nigerian Dwarfs, I recommend 5′ wire fencing with metal posts every 5-to-6 feet. This flexible fencing will prevent the goats from climbing and, if properly stretched and staked down, will not yield to their natural tendency to lean into fences. Make sure there are no climbable objects or surfaces near the fence, as a goat’s ability to climb will surprise you. For foraging through woodland and/or deforestation, Nigerian Dwarfs (like all goats) can be tethered. The best way to tether a goat is to use a large cinder block. Attach a chain around the cinder block (ropes will chafe). Then attach a 10-15′ plastic-coated cable (commonly available dog tethers work fine) and attach it to the goat’s collar. The goat will be able to move the block around if they need/want to, but won’t get far and won’t get away. Don’t leave your goat tethered for more than about 6 hours, and make sure water is available. They’ll be happy and graze until they look like they swallowed a beach ball – but don’t worry – they are ruminants and will digest all that fresh cellulose! They will also turn it into milk.

Speaking of milk – unlike cows, goats do not particularly like to be milked – at least not at first.. You’ll have to build a stanchion (milking stand), but there are plenty of good plans available on-line. It may take a few days or even week (or two) of twice daily milking to ‘break-in’ your goat to milking, but she’ll get the hang of it (and so will you). Take care of utters and ensure they are clean both before and after milking. Kids can be weaned at 8 weeks. Take care to separate bucks very early – 10 weeks.

Pardon me being so direct, but if you end up with a buck, you’ll soon understand the origin of the expression “randy as a billy goat”. Let’s just say bucks will do things that will surprise you. They will also make your milk taste funny. So keep them separate from the does if you plan on keeping them intact. Or, they should be castrated early using one of several humane methods – I will leave it to your readers to do their homework on this subject. The resulting wether (a castrated male goat) will be an excellent companion animal if you have a small herd – for example, if you have 2 does and one is with kid, the wether will keep the other doe company as goats hate being alone. Some also raise wethers for meat.

Finally, remember that goats are intelligent and playful animals. They will appreciate any type of toys you may build them – basically anything they can climb on, even if it’s just a series of sturdy wood platforms. As with any animal, healthy, happy, natural livestock means healthy, delicious, natural food. – HPD

Hi James,
Thanks for the blog. I read it every day. This is in response to Memsahib’s goat article. There are several web sites with information regarding making goat milk butter, while not as simple as cow milk, it is possible and in a survival situation, butter may be dear regardless of time and trouble to obtain. For example, see this article from The Mother Earth News, circa 1978.

Thanks again for all you do, It is important and the legacy your leaving will be remembered long after you and I are gone. Keep your head down and keep moving. – Tom H.

Economics and Investing:

Don W. sent this: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive. Bulldozing whole neighborhoods? This sounds like a land developer’s dream come true. Talk about “stimulating demand” for new housing… Maybe we ought to crush half the cars in the country while we are at it, just to make sure that the Detroit auto makers will get plenty of business.

Oh, but wait! SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large Michael Z. Williamson sent this: House ‘cash for clunkers’ plan to boost car sales. Mike’s comment: ” They really are insane. The sheer conceit that makes them believe they can manipulate the economy, and that a trillion here and a trillion there doesn’t matter…”

HPD forwarded this commentary from Mish Shedlock: California Foreclosure Moratoriums an Exercise of Stupidity

Manny B. sent us this: Grocery Stores Begin to Accept Silver! [JWR Adds: This may be a rarity now, but once inflation kicks in, thousands of small merchants will start taking payment in silver coinage. But far fewer will have the savvy to test scrap gold.]

Items from The Economatrix:

G-8 Chiefs Get Ready For Economic Recovery (Right after the Great Pig Air show)

Six Flags Parent Company Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Peak Soil: This Land Grab Is Just Beginning

US Homebuilder Confidence Unexpectedly Fell In June

Schiff: Property Rights Take A Hit

Proud To Be An American? You Should Be Ashamed! (Scroll down for: They Really Are That Dumb Department)

Paper: Inflation Fears Return

Ailing Factory Towns Face Tougher Roads To Recovery

A Look at the Hardest Hit Counties

Weapons Makers Look Overseas as Pentagon Cuts Back

Summer Slowdown Setting In on Wall Street

Homeowner Associations Start Foreclosures to Collect Dues

Odds ‘n Sods:

Recycled Homes, One Box at a Time

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Reader “D. from Sweden” mentioned that Sweden’s biggest radio station, public service channel P3, is having an apocalypse theme and is broadcasting an interview with a gent from the Swedish Survivalist Forum. It airs Tuesday, June 16th, at 18.03 local time, which is 12.03 EST. Readers can read about it here.

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Reader Kat C. recommended two books on food storage: Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation and Putting Food By.

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The latest from Nanny State Brittannia: Banning “stabbing” kitchen knives.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“The proliferation of state concealed carry laws has evidently reduced the rate of violent street crime to a considerable extent. When the goblins do not know who is armed and who is not, their professional enthusiasm declines. Now that Britain has made sure (insofar as any law can so insure) that everybody is disarmed, the streets are given back to the bad kid with the baseball bat. We hope they are satisfied.” – Jeff Cooper, Cooper’s Commentaries

A Derivatives Market Meltdown: “We Apologize for the Inconvenience”

The collapse of the Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) market underscored the enormous overhang of the larger over-the-counter derivatives contracts market. This is far from over, folks! For example, we have not yet to seen a full-blown Credit Default Swap (CDS) market implosion. I have been warning blog readers about CDS instruments since 2005. And even though our politics are diametrically opposed, I was not surprised to see George Soros recently chime in on the subject. Derivative instruments are essentially unregulated and they measure in the hundreds of trillions of dollars. The counterparty risk is enormous, yet the derivatives market is quite opaque and little understood, even by most of the people that work in the financial sector.

To illustrate both the potential magnitude of a derivatives disaster, and the incredibly blissful ignorance of most investors, I offer the following analogy:

You are a business traveler. It is 9 a.m. on a Monday morning and you are seated at a crowded gate at the Newark, New Jersey airport, waiting for boarding of the 9:25 Delta Airlines flight to Atlanta. You are feeling nervous, because the 20-something man that is sitting next to you is suffering from a bad hangover. You’ve correctly surmised that over the weekend he got fleeced at the gaming tables in Atlantic City after the casino offered him too many “comp” cocktails. He looks only semi-conscious and you are afraid that he is going to puke on your nice suit. A ticket agent announces on the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have some bad news.” She pauses and you think to yourself: “Oh great, two or three of us are going to get bumped.” The agent goes on: ” It was just announced by the chairman of Delta Airlines that the company has declared bankruptcy. All Delta flights have been cancelled for the foreseeable future. Because Delta is now insolvent, no replacement tickets, vouchers, or refunds will be issued. We apologize for the inconvenience. Have a nice day, and thanks for flying Delta Airlines.” There are shouts and anguished cries from the other passengers. You sit for a minute in stunned silence. Your mind is racing. You remember reading that Delta has over 1,630 scheduled flights a day, moving roughly 277,000 passengers per day from city to city. The drunken gambler shouts “Hey!” and he leans close to your face. With his breath smelling like a dog kennel and his eyes glassy, he asks: “I don’t get it, man. What do they mean, “insolvent”? You take a few minutes to explain the situation in simple terms to him. But the gambler just gives you a blank stare. “What do you mean,?” he repeats. Now you are angry, and you shout at him: “Aren’t I getting through to you? I’m talking about two hundred and seventy seven thousand bumped passengers!” Finally, the dazed drunk has a flash of realization across his face. “Oh. I get it. This is bad news. It’ll be hours before they’ll call for seating on my row!”

Getting Started With Dairy Goats, by The Memsahib

Getting any dairy animals is a very big commitment. However, I believe that they are a valuable part of your livestock preparedness. Even more importantly I believe goats are the best dairy animals for the survivalist.

Here are my reasons to recommend goats over cows for a survival situation:

1. A dairy goat is about one fifth the cost of a dairy cow.

2. Five goats can be fed one the same amount it takes to feed one cow.

3. If your your one cow dies you are out of luck. But the odds of losing all your goats is small.

4. Goats browse rather than graze and can make use of a wider variety of forage.

5. Goats are easier to handle

6. Because of their smaller size, goats are less likely to cause injuries or damage fences. Getting stepped on by a goat is trivial. Getting stepped on by a cow is not.

The downside is that it will take more time to milk five goats than to milk one cow. You’ll have to get five animals in and out of the stanchion, Wash five udders, milk five does (female goats), strip five udders, etc. But I really believe that the benefits of having the insurance of multiple dairy animals far outweighs the extra effort.

The main drawback is that the cream does not separate readily in goats milk so that you will not be able to skim the cream off. And therefore you will not be able to make butter. On the other hand, goat milk is much easier to digest, and many people who cannot drink cow’s milk can drink goats milk. And of course you can use goat’s milk to make yogurt, cream cheese, hard cheese, and ice cream, as well as use it in recipes just like cows milk.

As I mentioned earlier dairy animals are a big commitment. This is because they are traditionally milked twice a day, at the same time every day. Perhaps your current schedule doesn’t allow for this? There are ways to get around this and still being prepared. You could for instance milk in the morning but let the kids nurse during the day. You could also have a small herd that you do not milk at all, but instead just let them raise offspring until your family needs the milk. Or maybe have a small herd but don’t even breed them until TEOTWAWKI. (Needless to say, they will not produce milk if they do not give birth.).

For greater detail on raising goats, I recommend the book: Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats: Breeds, Care, Dairyingby JD Belanger.

Letter Re: Bugs in the Pantry

Mr. Rawles,
I’m new to prepping. But for some time now, when I go to Costco, I pick up peanut butter, a bag of rice, or a bag of beans to toss in the closet. I really like storing wheat, because it seems to have a much longer shelf life, but it is a little harder to find than rice. I figure I’ve probably got about nine months to a year worth of food for myself now. I know that the bugs will get into it eventually, and I’ll throw a bunch out and start over. I’ve been examining rice in the super markets for years, and I can tell you that a lot of it has bugs in it before you even bring it home. The trick is to use it before they “blossom.”

What happens if there is a crisis and I go to my closet, and I find out the bugs have blossomed? I figure this sort of thing must happen in the Third World all the time, and I have a very hard time believing the locals just throw it out. Is it okay to just wash it and cook it? I’ve noticed that most of the bugs float to the top and can easily be removed. But what about the bug excrement?

I tried a little experiment yesterday, and boiled some wheat to make soup. It had been stored for at least ten years, maybe fifteen. It was just starting to show bugs, so I washed it about 5 times, and then boiled it, seasoned it with some mushrooms, dried broth, and a can of diced tomatoes and ate it. It tasted fine, and now about 28 hours later, I’m showing no ill effects.

I’m guessing that after the TSHTF, a lot of us are going to have the opportunity of eating a lot of food that bugs and maybe rats have sampled before us. Any advice? Also, do you know of any good places to buy bulk foods (say 25 lb.or 50 lb. bags) of less common staples, like lentils, barley, or beans other than pinto beans? – Jonathan Z.

JWR Replies: Things might not be too bad now, but once your pantry starts to develop a bug infestation, you’ll be will be in an escalating war that you will lose. Trust me, without better packaging, the bugs will win.

Read the SurvivalBlog archives about how to prepare rice, grains, and legumes for storage, using CO2 in food grade HDPE plastic buckets. Bugs (and their larvae) can’t breathe CO2. There are also details on this my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course–including a very simple CO2 displacement method using dry ice.

A wide variety of staple foods in bulk are available from Walton Feed, in Montpelier, Idaho. Order them in six-gallon Super Pails.

Economics and Investing:

Reader Ben M. mentioned: World Bank sees even worse slump. All the recent talk of a “nascent recovery” is balderdash.

China’s Commodity Buying Spree. Well, gosh , if given the choice between dollar-denominated paper assets and buying useful tangibles, which would you choose?

Jim B. sent us a link to an essay titled The Coming Economic Collapse, by Graham Summers. “To give you an idea of how big a problem these deficits are, consider that the US government could tax its citizens 100% of their earnings and not have a balanced budget.”

From the Dr. Housing Bubble blog: Foreclosure Reality Check: 1.6 Million Foreclosure Filings with 5 Months of Data. California Notice of Defaults and Foreclosures Skyrocketing

Items from The Economatrix:

Protect Yourself From A Treasury Market Collapse “Fund doesn’t have to have “Treasury” in its name to be vulnerable

Green Bay Lays Down Gauntlet For Obama “We’re fed up with all this spending that is totally unnecessary,” said Dennis Feldt of Green Bay. “Obama is assigning all these stimulus packages and demanding a vote on it a day later. No one has time to read any of this. The lawmakers don’t even know what’s in it. It’s all because the president says we need it right now or we’re going to lose jobs. Where is all this money going?…It’s all gone. It makes us all very nervous.”

Odds ‘n Sods:

The saber-rattling continues. We read: US Raptors Deployed to Japan, and (some crude gray propaganda from North Korea)Nuclear War Is Kim Jong-il’s Game Plan and, US General: North Korea, Iran Joined on Missile Work, and South Korea sends more troops to North Korea border.

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Glenn Reynolds posted this over at Instapundit: Mark Steyn on William Forstchen’s One Second After. Why worry about an EMP attack?

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FG. sent this: Rural Michigan counties turn failing paved roads back to gravel. F.G.’s comment: “Don’t swap out that truck for a gas sipping micro car just yet, folks.”

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Matt B. recommended this bit of conjecture from the Shenandoah blog: Sarajevo, Ohio.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“No one realized how bad the economy was. The projections, in fact, turned out to be worse. But we took the mainstream model as to what we thought — and everyone else thought — the unemployment rate would be.” – Vice President Joseph Biden, June 14, 2009 (Backing away from the BHO Administration’s estimate that “stimulus” funds could “create or save” 3.5 million jobs, instead now promising just 600,000 by the end of the summer.)

Letter Re: Three Abstracts on Public Health in Ghettos During the WWII Holocaust

James,
In light of the recent shooting by a Nazi whacko in Washington at the Holocaust Museum, I think it is important that we remember the victims and impact of a totalitarian government deliberately starving, looting, and otherwise dehumanizing its citizens. (The articles were published in Hebrew but the following abstracts are in English) – Yorrie in Pennsylvania (a retired physician)

Clinical Manifestations of "Hunger Disease" Among Children in the Ghettos During the Holocaust
Hercshlag-Elkayam O, Even L, Shasha SM.
Western Galilee Hospital, Nahariya, Israel.

The harsh life in the ghettos were characterized by overcrowding, shortage of supplies (e.g. money, sanitation, medications), poor personal hygiene, inclement weather and exhaustion. Under these conditions, morbidity was mainly due to infectious diseases, both endemic and epidemic outbreaks with a high mortality rate. The dominant feature was hunger. Daily caloric allowance was 300-800, and in extreme cases (i.e. Warsaw ghetto) it was only 200 calories. The food was lacking important nutrients (e.g. vitamins, trace elements) leading to protean clinical expression, starvation and death. The clinical manifestations of starvation were referred to as "the Hunger Disease", which became the subject of research by the medical doctors in the ghettos, mainly in the Warsaw ghetto in which a thorough documentation and research were performed. The first victims of hunger were children. First they failed to thrive physically and later mentally. Like their elders, they lost weight, but later growth stopped and their developmental milestones were lost with the loss of curiosity and motivation to play. The mortality rate among babies and infants was 100%, as was described by the ghetto doctors: "when the elder children got sick, the small ones were already dead…". In the last weeks of the ghettos there were no children seen in the streets. In this article the environmental conditions and daily life of children in the ghettos are reviewed, and the manifestations of "Hunger Disease" among them is scrutinized.
[Harefuah. 2003 May;142(5):345-9]

Morbidity in the Ghettos During the Holocaust
Shasha, SM.
Western Galilee Hospital, Nahariya.

The environmental conditions and daily life in the ghettos of Europe during the holocaust are reviewed, and their effect on morbidity in different ghettos is scrutinized in an attempt to construct a typical morbidity profile. The outstanding characteristics were: crowding, shortage of basic necessities (such as food, clothing and medications), harsh environmental and sanitary conditions, inclement weather, poor personal hygiene, chronic undernutrition and malnutrition, physical and mental exhaustion. Morbidity was mainly due to infectious diseases, both endemic and epidemic outbreaks with high mortality, and high infestation rates of lice and other parasites. The dominant feature was "hunger disease" with its protean clinical expressions, endocine pathology, growth and development retardation in children, and amenorrhea and infertility among women of child-bearing age. Polyuria, nocturia and increased frequency of bowel movement were common. The typical presentation of a ghetto dweller was of extreme emaciation (a loss of up to 50% body weight); muscle weakness and skeletal abnormalities; pale, dry skin with excoriations; pedal edema; anxiety and nervousness; often goiter in children. Most of the inhabitants had some, or all, of those signs and symptoms (there were times when more than half the population was sick). This syndrome complex was termed "Ghetto Sickness" or "Ghetto Fatigue" (ghetto schwachkeit).
[Harefuah. 2002 Apr;141(4):364-8, 409, 408]

Medicine in the Ghettos During the Holocaust
Shasha, SM.
Western Galilee Hospital, Nahariya.

The Health systems in several ghettos in Europe during the holocaust were studied in an attempt to construct a typical structural profile. The medical system in a typical ghetto consisted of a department of public health (sanitation) that belonged to the Yudenrat, several hospitals, outpatient clinics, first aid stations and physicians in the labor groups. The structure of the system in several ghettos is discussed and the functions of the various units in the prevention of epidemics, and health education are reviewed. Also described is the medical research that was carried out in the ghettos, emphasizing the work on "Hunger Disease" in the Warsaw ghetto, as well as the heroic endeavor to establish a clandestine medical school in the Warsaw ghetto during the holocaust
[Harefuah. 2002 Apr;141(4):318-23, 412]

Letter Re: Sprouting is Key to Good Nutrition in TEOTWAWKI

James,
I am a fan of sprouting, but I have to disagree with Roxanne on a few points:

The idea that the human body needs external enzymes from raw food and that we will ‘run out of them if we eat cooked food’ is a food myth that traces it’s origin to the natural hygienists of the last century, along with the idea that you can live forever if your colon is clean.

Humans have been cooking food since we discovered fire. Our pancreases are bigger and we do suffer plenty of diseases wild animals don’t and yes, eating some raw food is a good idea but no, you will no more run of enzymes than you will run out of saliva or any other fluid.

Eating raw food means you are more at risk for food borne pathogens such as E. Coli and parasites. Furthermore cooking vegetables allows the body to digest them. We do not possess the enzyme cellulase that vegetarian animals do so we cannot break down plant cell walls without cooking, juicing or chewing and regurgitating and chewing again like a cow.

Also, all sprouted foods contain some toxins during the sprouting phase which is how the young plants try to avoid being eaten by animals, as well as anti-nutrients (protease inhibitors etc.) Alfalfa is one of the worst offenders as:

“Alfalfa sprouts contain approximately 1.5% canavanine, a substance which, when fed to monkeys, causes a severe lupus erythematosus-like syndrome. (In humans, lupus is an autoimmune disease.) Canavanine is an analog for the amino acid arginine, and takes its place when incorporated into proteins. However, alfalfa that is cooked by autoclaving (i.e., subjected to pressure-cooking) doesn’t induce this effect. [Malinow 1982, Malinow 1984].”

Add to that, the fact that many people will experience gas when eating raw food and that sprouted grains don’t taste as good as cooked grain and you have a problem.

I spent a year eating only raw food. I felt great for the first little while as I cleaned out my system but over time I got quite weak. When I added in raw meat towards the end of the experiment (chicken, fish, beef and eggs) I felt better. You can eat raw meat and sprouted grains but consider it something you do in case of emergency. While raw meat now is quite clean thanks to the USDA inspection process (I still eat 4 raw eggs a day), after an event, without refrigeration, eating road kill or trading for wild meat or eating meat you hunt without cooking it first is too risky.

As I mentioned in a article I wrote for SurvivalBlog two years ago, sprouting allows you make Vitamin C from grains (a vitamin that is difficult to store long term) but this is something that should be done as digestive capacity allows. A handful of sprouts is all you should need to take care of this.

One option is to sprout your grains and then bake with them (such as Essene bread), then you get the best of both worlds, but this type of bread is so sweet as to be like candy and will not give you the slow burn of energy that cooked grains can deliver. – SF in Hawaii

Influenza Pandemic Update:

Don’t Worry, It’s Just a Pandemic Just redefining it so there is no panic.

Symptoms of Swine Flu and What to Do

Delayed Pandemic Phase 6 Designation Raises Pandemic Concerns “The parallels between the 2009 pandemic and the 1918 pandemic are striking; Both began as a mild infection in the spring and targeted previously healthy young adults. In the fall of 1918, the virus was much more deadly, leading to the death of 20-50 million people, most of which were previously healthy young adults….the two-month delay in the pandemic [phase] 6 declaration may prove to be quite hazardous to the world’s health.”