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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On 10/22/06, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> No, you were saying that you knew about goats because you had kept so many
> and that if I'd kept more, I'd know better.
"You haven't had enough goats. I would have agreed with you at one
> time. I've seen too much evidence to the contrary."

I made that statement in relation to CAE mainly. It's a devastating
disease, and I'll stand by that. I haven't always believed that. I
think that many quart-a-day milkers could easily be half-gallon-a day
(sheesh, it's much easier to type lbs, and most everyone knows that a
pint's a pound) but for the CAE.

> Reminds me very much of what happened this year at Appalachian Regional Fair
> (Gray, Tennessee).  They held a milking contest where dairy owners were
> invited to take the stool and bucket and naught else and milk a cow.  They 
> couldn't
> do it!

Frankly, I'm surprised at that. I'd expect that most dairy farmers
have occasion to milk out a single cow from time to time. When I had
the goat dairy, I milked out all the freshening goats to make sure
that the doe had good colostrum and no problems. Of course, goats are
definitely easier to milk than cows. When I was a kid, we always had
at least one milk cow and sometimes two, so I started milking when I
was 9 or 10.

> So if that's the advice for a few goats, not a miniature commercial dairy,
> it's at best not the only way although to hear a goatatericist tell it, it 
> very
> much sounds like it.
Fine. I've done large dairy and now I have a small herd (fewer than a
dozen goats, several of whom are retired and waiting their turn on the
compost heap and a couple who don't realize that they're going to be
butchered when it gets cooler). The two situations call for different
management, but every endeavor calls for some kind of management.

Marie, probably closer in actual practice to James & Denise than to
the goat nuts James disparages