Location : Townshend , Vt . Specialty : goat ’s Milk River yellowish brown and Malva sylvestris
When Louisa Conrad and Lucas Farrell began intern on a dairy farm , they gestate it to be a worthful experience , but they had no estimate that land would finally become their way of animation . function as teachers , they found themselves with a break in their docket when the economic system took a turn for the worse in 2008 , and they decided to become students themselves at Blue Ledge Farm in Salisbury , Vermont . It was there that they became dependent on goats .
“ We fall head over bounder with their magical personalities , ” Conrad says .
In the fall of 2010 , they began work at Peaked Mountain Farm , a sheep dairy , where they were capable to convey three of their own Goat . Although cheese initially bestow Conrad and Farrell to dairy farming , they realized that they need a way to distinguish themselves from othercheesemakers , so they came up with a production that would typeset them apart : goat ’s Milk River caramels . slow , they began selling their caramel and high mallow at farmers markets , online and eventually in brick - and - mortar stores while buying Peaked Mountain Farm piece by bit as the owner withdraw .
Today , the renamedBig Picture Farmis home to 40 Saanen , Alpine and Nubian goats that forage on fresh pastures after every milking . Conrad and Farrell are as enamored with Goat as they were when they first started farming .
“ They are smart and have far more personality than sheep , ” Conrad says . “ They are just goofy and make you smile all the prison term . ”
Louisa Conrad
Although they find that goats do indeed earn their reputation for puckishness , Conrad and Farrell would n’t have it any other way because , as they put it , “ Goat are really the coolest . ”Louisa Conrad
Biggest Success
Making the farm financially sustainable was a huge milestone for us . Once we got there , it was really important for us to pay our employees living wages , and that was also exciting to be capable to do . Ultimately , though , we do what we do to guarantee that our Capricorn the Goat live the healthiest , happiest lives possible , and it has been exceedingly rewarding to watch this happen . During our first year on the farm , the goats live in the chicken henhouse — the sheep were using the barns — and I promised our first two goats , Orion and Fern , that someday they would have some serious dig . Now , they browse on more than 130 Acre and have a b and several skimpy - tos to peck from for their nighttime remainder .
Biggest Challenge
Farming ! When you grow on the diminished scale that we do — we milk 35 does — it ’s very difficult to contend with any type of commodity milk . We experience lucky for the living that our customers give us , and in doing so , they ’re acknowledge the surplus toilsome work that run into create sassy , in the buff , creamy Milk River from a solidification of pastured and happy creature . It for sure is n’t the easy way to do things , but it ’s the only way in our intellect .
Firsthand Advice
Focus . When we first started farming we wanted to do everything — the whole gamut of animals and vegetables and baking and farmers markets and wholesale . It ’s enticing to have your fingers in all the honey pots at once . However , we promptly memorise it was really expensive to do so . It was authoritative for us to scale one thing—our goat ’s Milk River caramel business — and put all of our energies there . That allow us to really focus on the efficiencies and musical scale of that part of the farm to make it financially sustainable . Once that became steady , it was possible to add up back in all the other elements of the farm — the plantation and gardens and bees and poulet and pigs — that we do on a homestead scale . They are important to our lifestyle and happiness , but we ’re realistic that the dairy and the caramels are supporting them .
This article originally appeared in the November / December 2016 issue ofHobby Farms .
Louisa Conrad
