Dual purpose

Lula Mae, Chloe and December had a male visitor last month in hopes of bringing goat babies into the world early this fall. Davinci came and left, but hopefully he left a little of his genetic material behind to become his legacy.

Lula (see later in this post to see how much December looks like her!)

Kinder goats are great dual purpose breeds--milk and meat--though ours are a little on the "dairy" side. We brought in an outside male to try and correct for this "deficiency". Since we use our goats as all purpose homestead animals--meat, milk, land restoration, and quality entertainment--we want to make sure each generation is better than the next for our family.

Chloe, the stubborn one, who regularly fakes choking when upset

Sweet, sweet December. (actually she is as much "goat" as the others, just more polite about it)

We are not licensed to sell meat/dairy and we probably never will sell our products. It just isn't practical for a homestead (vs a farm). We have folks do their own processing/goat share if we barter or want to share more than a meal of milk or meat. That's good enough for us right now (and follows the laws!). We have enough meat and milk to regularly consume and are not dependent on stores for these products. Our friends make us soap and lotion in exchange for milk and our neighbors teach us how to tan the hides. In future we will add a buck of our own perhaps to make us truly self-sufficient (but ohmygoodness they smell). 

When we do eat the meat or drink the milk, Babybee wants to know which goat (or other animal) it came from. You may have heard that saying "don't name it if you're going to eat it". Well, we've sort of evolved into an opposite approach. We answer his question. "We knew this animal, we loved this animal, and we are grateful to have this animal's life to feed our family. This was Desi."

And then he holds up his little fork and says "Desi. Meat for family" and we eat.

How does this work? You could never do it this way? I didn't originally think I would do it like this either. 

But it's ideal. It keeps us conscious about our meat consumption. It keeps us honest with our  little guy who asks big questions. It keeps us grateful for the lives we raise and the lives we take. 

We wouldn't have it any other way.