I visited the North Carolina Zoological Park today which is just a few miles south of Asheboro. It is a marvelous park with large open parcels of grasslands in the African exhibit for the animals to roam. The trails connecting the various parts of the park are like hiking in the woods. I went down there because I wanted to meet the GLD herd at Widerness Trail Dairy in Trinity, NC.Sammy Gray is the farmer and dairyman who cares for the Tate's herd along with his own herd, around 180 goats in all. This arrangement was struck up last year when the pressure of managing the herd at GLD and making cheese and running the farm and managing the monthly dinners became a bit much after 12 years.
There are still a dozen or so goats at GLD but the large milking herd now lives at Wilderness Trail Dairy, a lovely farm owned by a a fellow named Joel out on Gallatine Town Road west of Asheboro. Sammy pretty mush manages the herd by himself including the kidding, cleaning, feeding, milking and pasturing. It is no easy life especially now with the soring increases in the cost of fuel and feed. The cost of hay and goat feed alone is impacting the bottom line significantly for everyone. The pressures on a small goat farmer and a micro dairy to be managed in such as a way as to remain profitable or just break even are becoming a topic of conversation. While I am continuing to thoroughly enjoy my experience here, the realities of what it takes to make the entire operation work from an economic perspective are becoming much more apparent, a topic I will likely address further down the road.
Sammy cares for the goats and milks them twice a day, about a 2.5 - 3 hour process. First he corals the goats in an area leading up to the door of the milking parlor. There is a mad dash for the door each time it opens as only 12 animals are allowed in. The main reason goats cooperate with milking is food. The goats receive their special ration while being milked. Actually only 6 are milked at as time - all 12 goats eat but remain in the parlor for two milking cycles at the first 6 then the second 6 are milked. The process involves cleaning the teets with a sanitizing solution then attaching the milking apparatus.
The milk comes out every efficiently via the vacuum pump in the system and deposits the milk into a receptacle. Should there be any problem in the system during milking, this provides a means of holding the milk without it being deposited directly into the bulk tank and wasting the entire load. When the receptacle is full it empties into the bulk tank.
Milk is kept in a bulk tank until is is ready for transfer to GLD. Every two days Sammy transfers the mild to a tank in a trailer delivering about 250 gallons on each trip. We have our bulk tank in a room behind the pasteurizer in the dairy. All these tanks are sanitized after each load and are refrigerated to keep the milk from spoiling.
The goats are a mix of Nubian, Saanen and Alpine. Nubians are recognized by their amazing basset hound like floppy ears. There is hardly anything cuter than a baby Nubian but as you can see to the right, the Saanen babies are very cute as well. The Saanens are typically white and vwey goat looking. The Alpines are pretty with a variety of patterns that makes each unique. Herd management to breed in the most desirable characteristics including sustained good milk production among many other things is an entire art and science unto itself.So that is it...this is where our milk comes from. I have learned over the past year that obtaining a steady, reliable, quality supply of milk whether it be cow, goat or sheep, is one of the great challenges of cheese making. The politics, the economics, regulatory aspects, land availability, storage and transportation are just a few of the very significant issues facing anyone interested in setting up a dairy.
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