Chestnut Meat Goats

Farm Visit

2009-04-27T16:18:00.006+01:00

This weekend saw the visit here of the Pennine and Bingley Goat Society, from Yorkshire. These are a group of people who have an abiding interest and wealth of knowledge about goats. Their secretary, Elaine contacted us months ago, and, it being such a long way away we had no hesitation in saying yes. Well the visit crept up on us rather quickly, and before we knew it they were here. Literally. We were expecting visitors at 12-30, and due to a clear run over the pennines on the M62, they were here at 10-30. We were still in our scruff and had barely finished feeding. Following a cup of tea and a brief talk we set of to look at the goats. I learned a lot in the next few hours. They had a wealth of knowledge which they were only too happy to share with a young lad who has only had goats for a few years. All I can say is thank you.
We then went back to the house for goat burgers and tea. We were joined by Lola, the bottle fed kid who made herself at home in the garden. Unfortunately our 2 year old got a bit keen, and she (the goat) was squirted with tomato ketchup. This resulted in a few passers by stopping at the house to tell us we had a goat that had been hit by a car, as blood and tomato ketchup look very similar!!
We have a farm open day, here on June 7th as part of 'open farm sunday'. This visit was a good practise run and we are now a little more confident ahead of the big day.

Back Again

2009-04-17T18:44:00.003+01:00

Hi, it seems like ages since my last post. The reasons being a mix of being really busy and not getting around to it. More the latter than the former if truth be told. Today has been a super day.

Kidding seems to finally be over, with nothing been born for a week. Things have gone ok and we are planning to get at least some of the goats out this weekend. Some have been out for a few weeks, getting out in the morning when I feed them and then I let them in at night. We have got the Pennine and Bingley Goat group coming to visit on Sunday and having visitors is a good incentive to have a tidy up. I am looking forwards to the visit and sharing the day with them.

Today we have had several customers from London, Manchester, Congleton and Gloucester who have travelled a long way to be here and to buy our meat. I have also had someone buy some hay for me at the local market. The farmer we bought it off delivered it here on a trailer behind his car, and as he pulled onto the yard Lyndon, from Gloucester was just about to leave. I told the farmer, Geoff to wait and follow me to the sheds, about quarter of a mile away to unload. Lyndon jumped into his car to go home, I jumped into the JCB to unload. Lyndon pulled away, down the road, and the load of hay followed him... At this point there was not a lot could be done, except wait and wait and wait.
I did at one point ring Lyndon to find if my load of hay was still following him.Half an hour later the hay reappeared, grumbling that he could not keep up and it seemed like a mighty long quarter of a mile. He did see the funny side, eventually.

Australian Fires

2009-02-10T19:15:00.002Z

This was something that I felt I had to share with you.
Eleven years ago I was awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship, to travel the world for 8 weeks studying a particular topic. Mine was Dairy Cows. Usually about 20 scholarships are awarded annually in the UK. Similar schemes operate in Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia.
Nuffield is very much a family and scholars keep in touch, have study tours and conferences to pass on the latest findings and best practise as found by each other.
There are a large number of scholars in Victoria, Australia, and following enquiries we found they were all well and out of harms way.
But.
The fires have left hundreds of people homeless, affecting an area of more than 3,000 square kilometres. Entire towns were wiped off the map within about 24 hours.

This was received from Paul Mumford. Paul is a 2009 Scholar, about to embark on his Scholarship in two weeks time. His response below gives you a sense of the pressure he and his family are under.

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul & Lisa Mumford
To: Paul Ford ; Jim Geltch
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 7:52 PM
Subject: Won Wron Fires

Just a note between a shower, returning to the shed to fix the vat and a bed.

The Fires in our part of the world are still continuing to taunt us since Saturday, which was our greatest threat. We had a 2 hour window to collect the whole 650 female cows on the farm and place them onto the only green vegetation we had which was the Sorghum crops. (Boy were the girls happy about that!)

Our fire plans had been implemented with my 3 children staying at home with Lisa to defend our home. Looking at it now it all payed off but at the time was one of the most difficult things to do. The children were extremely distressed to start but as they understood there roles they had to play in saving themselves as well as saving the farms/business they were much more calmer and focus about the event. The house was full of 2 cats from the neighbours 3 farm dogs a friend from down the road and her 2 dogs. So

Myself and Aaron (our co – worker) protecting the Assets being the rotary, shedding and animals. All fire breaks, pumps, tractors and spray units were at our finger tips which seems like an overload just for the 2 of us to operate. From the rotary we have a direct view down the valley where the fire was coming from which was a sight that will remain with us all for the rest of our lives I think. We were very lucky with only small sport fires landing on our farm which we were able to extinguish quickly, and were falling some 10km ahead of the fire front at the time, some embers were about 80cm long and the fires were creating their own black rain. So it all seemed so surreal!

As it stands tonight we have 5 fires surrounding us. There is no single one which is an immediate threat but, all could be. The largest is to the east running along the farms flanks some 5 km away and heading north, with all reports saying it will head in that direction in the short term.

Tomorrow is another day of pretty well the same! Fire vigil. The kids are home from school for the week, Lisa is on sandwich duty for the CFA crews and the cows are on the crop.

I personally want to thank you for your offers of support to us, which we will accept if the need arises and hope that we can return the offer to show our appreciation. It really meant a lot to myself and Lisa, so thank you both very much.

I must sign off now and again, thank you!

Regards

Paul Mumford

'Gelbeado Park'

100 Greig's Creek Road

Won Wron Victoria 3971

AUSTRALIA

email : mumfordpl@bigpond.com

Nuffield Scholar

Let it snow!!

2009-02-04T14:09:00.003Z

A very strange thing has happened. It's winter. It's February. Let there be snow! This is the first proper snow in a few years. Sunday it tried, with a few flakes. Nothing stuck, but overnight we were transformed to a winter wonderland. 2" is not enough snow to cause chaos, especially when there is no frost, but its enough for a family of snowmen.

The Literary Goat

2009-01-20T20:42:00.004Z

Every two weeks the local Mobile Library comes to visit our farm. For a bookworm, like me it is a highlight of the week. Books are far better than the TV as they allow your mind to build a picture of the story, in a way that film never can. As our children have got older they have all come with me, and now the girls are at School, only Douglas comes during term time, ie today.

The library parks in our yard, right next to some of the goats;

and today one of the kids decided it was time to pay a visit.

She was a bit of a hit and managed to behave herself perfectly. Her plan is to go back in two weeks to return the book she borrowed...

Butchery News

2009-01-13T20:54:00.006Z

We have spent the last few weeks getting the processing and butchery side of the farm right, and thought you would enjoy some pictures of the meat we produce, and of Marnie, who runs that side of the farm.

Kid goat selection, chops, diced and leg

Marnie and her produce

Marnie in the cold room with some kid goat

Last Saturday was our local farmers market. This is it's second month, and I have been involved in setting up and running the market. this month was pretty cold, and at one time the temperature probe for the meat read -9 degrees!
Goats are kidding well and we have also cleaned out their pens so they are clean and warm. The manure has been spread on the land to provide fertilizer for the grass we will make hay with in the summer.
Over the last few months Angela Ion, from Romania has been helping us with the children. She is going back home for a holiday tomorrow and will be greatly missed by us all. Hurry back Angela.

Finally an introduction to a great friend of ours, Hector who took these fine photos, in our front room.

Kidding

2009-01-05T09:16:00.000Z

Our first kids were born this morning, on what is the coldest night of the winter so far, -4degrees.

Ready Steady Cook Recioe

2008-12-30T17:29:00.001Z

We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we enjoyed our day in the TV studios!

Marinated goat with olive tapenade and green beans
by Gino D'Acampo
from Ready Steady Cook

Serves 1

Preparation time less than 30 mins

Cooking time 10 to 30 mins

Ingredients
For the goat
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp clear honey
½ orange, juice only
1 tbsp sesame seeds
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 goat cutlets
For the olive tapenade
85g/3oz black olives, stones removed
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
For the green beans
1 tbsp olive oil
¼ onion, chopped
100g/3½oz green beans, trimmed
pinch cayenne pepper
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint
To serve
2 dried apricots, chopped
sprig fresh mint

Method
1. For the goat, in a bowl, mix together all of the ingredients except the goat cutlets until well combined.
2. Place the goat cutlets into the marinade and set aside for at least 15 minutes.
3. Heat a frying pan over a medium heat, add the marinated goat cutlets and fry for 4-5 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside to rest.
4. For the olive tapenade, blend the olives and olive oil in a food processor until smooth.
5. For the green beans, heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, add the onion and beans and fry for 5-6 minutes, or until softened.
6. Add the cayenne pepper and the chopped herbs and stir until the beans and onion are coated. Fry for another 2-3 minutes, or until the beans are tender.
7. To serve, spoon the green beans into the centre of a serving plate and place the marinated goat cutlets on top. Drizzle the olive tapenade around the edge of the plate. Sprinkle over the chopped apricots and garnish with the fresh mint.

Christmas Butchery

2008-12-27T14:08:00.005Z

Well, I'm back. It has been a long time since the last post, as life here has been rather busy. We have been commissioning our new butchery.
It started the year as a straw yard full of goats. In September it was cleaned out and pressure washed. Then Dad and Alan Shore helped us lay a level floor for the coldroom. Marnie and I have been lucky to have our friend Ken to help us as we tiled the floor and clad the walls. Simon and Tim P plastered the ceiling. Paul did all the electrical work and Andy fitted the walk-in fridge.

Then Marnie and Carl were able to make sausages

Cathy helped to pack the sausages

Grace and Amélie kept an eye on the turkeys and Geese

And Douglas was in charge of the machinery...

Merry Christmas!!!

Ready Steady Cook

2008-12-08T10:42:00.016Z

STOP PRESS!!!!

We have just had the dates for the Ready Steady Cook Christmas Special. It is on Tuesday 30th December on BBC2 at 4-15pm. Enjoy. We were the goody bag

Tim & Marnie with Sir Henry Cooper, host Ainsley Harriot and Geoff Capes

Lesley Walters getting ready

Ainsley warming up the audience

Tom & Sir Henry
Tim's Mum & Dad and Grace from RNK Restaurant

Even the chefs were starstruck

Julia, Tim, Marnie John and the cast

Goats at Tarporley Country Market

2008-12-07T13:56:00.012Z

This last week has been busy here with little time to think, let alone write a blog. The reason has been because we are involved in setting up Tarporley Country Market. Tarporley is our local 'big' village, about 5 miles away it is where the local senior school is, the garage, and where we go to Chapel.
A few months ago the Parish council and some local producers, us and the local yogurt man, got together to make a farmers market happen in the village. The idea was to sell local goods, in the village to add to the High Street and the local community.
We had borrowed the stalls from Aston market, in Manchester, the tables from the First Tarporley Scouts. The site was split so that people coming from both ends of the village met stalls, one section was at the west end, by the chestnut pavillion and had 4 stalls. The rest of us were in Church lane, 15 stalls. This is a cul-de-sac leading to the lych gate.

One of the advantages of organising the market is getting to choose your pitch, we were at the top of the lane, and everyone had to go past us to get to the market. It was brilliant. We sold out in hours and could have sold many more goat burgers and sausages.veg went down a treat Heidi and Karen were the brains behind the day. They even fixed the weather, cold, dry and sunny!!Not many markets have a chainsaw artist He sold a few of these wonderful owls.

All in all we had a good day, the village had fun, and we'll be back next month!!

Goat Farm Walk

2008-11-26T17:27:00.004Z

Today was the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers Goat Farm walk, at Nick & Caroline Brandon's farm in Endon, Staffs. Marnie and I went, I gave a talk on meat goats and Marnie did the catering. There were nearly 200 people there. Goat burgers went down a storm and had all gone by 2pm. Our friend Mandy had made 200 muffins, and every single one was eaten.
Nick & Caroline milk 1500 goats in a huge rotary parlour, and have 1500 youngstock as well. It was a very big, well run business and was a credit to all the family and staff.

Ugandan Visitors

2008-11-22T15:44:00.004Z

Yesterday we had some visitors from Uganda(these things never happened when we milked cows). They were here on an exchange visit with Dolen Ffermio (farming link) www.dolen-ffermio.co.uk, the welsh branch of the Farmers World Network which promotes links between farmers in the North and South. The visitors were Moses, a teacher, Emmanuel who runs the kumi orphan project along with Miriam and their Welsh hosts Prof Emyr Owen and Veteranarian Lorna Brown from Liverpool vet school. They had left behind a hot and dry winter for cold and wet Cheshire. We found that they are using Boers to improve their native small african breed, who average 7.5 kg at slaughter to 18-19kg when crossed with the boer.

Pictured are Moses, Emmanuel Miriam & Lorna in one of our barns. They were an inspirational group of people and it was fascinating to spend time with them. What they are acheiving is making a huge difference to the people and the land in Uganda. We wish them every success.

Goat Peter

2008-11-19T14:50:00.006Z

I would like to introduce you to our very own Goat Peter. Peter drives a cattle lorry and trailer for his living, and as you can see is a little camera shy (this was the fifth attempt at a picture). On Saturday, for the first time, he transported a load of goats.

Grace and I rode shotgun with him as we traveled from home, firstly to County Durham, where we had bought some dairy females. The farm was up on the moors, and Peter kept worrying if we were going to get there as the roads got narrower, and we even started going across cattle grids on single track roads. If I got Goat Peter the navigation wrong it was going to be difficult to reverse on these roads.
There were some nannys, some of last years kids and some of this years kids. They are all females and are all going to be bred to our Boer billy goats.
They are really nice animals and Simon, the man who sold them to us had made a really good job of rearing them. With luck they will be here for many years.

Goats in the lorry

From there we travelled to Thirsk, where some Boer Goats were waiting for us. We have bought goats from here before, and our first meat goats came from here, so it was good to meet up with old friends, Neil and Louisa.
From here we went home, after a long day's travelling. But before we could finish for the day we needed to unload the lorry.The lorry was easily backed onto our yard and the goats unloaded, however the drag (trailer)

Loaded and ready to go to a new home

was too long to reverse onto our yard off a narrow lane. So we backed up as far as we could and dropped the tailgate. The trailer was partly on the yard, but most of it and the lorry were blocking the Queens highway.
Just up the road, our friend Dawn was having her 40th Birthday party. By now it was 8-30 at night and people were starting to arrive for the party. Problem was, they couldn't get there. Because we were blocking the road.
There soon got to be quite a queue.
They were patient. They had to be, we were working as quick as possible. By 10 we were unloaded, washed brushed and at the party. Our friends were having fun at our expense, and the goats? They were warm and snug and had just been fed. Home after an adventure none of us would forget.

Good goat links

2008-11-12T16:54:00.007Z

Today was a day away from the farm. Having been a dairy farmer for more years than I care to remember I have over the years got involved with some farming organizations. One of these is the RABDF or the royal association of british dairy farmers. We organise the Dairy Event at Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire every September and lots of farm walks, as well as some lobbying. Later this month, on the 26th we have a goat farm walk on a dairy farm in Staffordshire. All are welcome, and the link for details is www.rabdf.co.uk.

This led me to think of some good links to go with this blog.
The first is an article about Marnie and I in the Farmers Guardian this summer. We were up for the best farm entrepreneur 2008, in an award sponsored by Waitrose. In the finish we came second to the really garlicky company, from northern Scotland. You don't mind coming second, when the winners are so good. The picture shows the judges visiting, as well as a shot of Judge Danusia holding one of our kid goats.

The link for this story is www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=84storycode=20827

Next up is an article sent to us by my cousin Sue in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9505E1DE163DF936A25753C1A96E9C8B63

This is a story about Bill Ninman, who had a large beef operation and has walked away to go into goats on the pacific coast in California.

The final link also comes from the USA, but this time, Texas and is the story of a

girl called Paula Disbrowe, who went on to write a book called 'Cowgirl Cuisine' . She went for a job interview in South Texas and came away with a new job, and a love of goat meat.
The article tells a good story and has some good recipes.

Hope you all enjoy these stories

Tim

2008-11-08T16:14:00.001Z

Today has been a fun day on the farm as we have had students from the local agricultural college here to look at the goats.

They spent the morning at the college learning about the theory of keeping goats, then came here for a practical session. We looked at the animals and showed them what the various breeds look like, Nubian, Saanan, Boer and Angora. We looked at how to vaccinate the goats,what to feed them, how to fence them in the fields. Then we had chosen some goats that needed their feet trimming and everyone had a go at least once.

The picture shows Mark, the lecturer showing the students how to trim feet.

While they were here my cousin came to visit, and you can see the family playing with the goats

Finally we came into the house and had goat sausages inna bun, I felt like CMOT Dibber from the Terry Pratchett books!

Marnie has been selling on Stafford farmers market today and is on her way home now, cold and tired. I definitely got the better deal today. We have had lots of visitors, sunshine, a lovely autumn day!

2008-11-06T08:03:00.002Z

Hi everyone
We have been busy yesterday putting pictures of the meat we produce onto the website. One of our friends has been busy taking photos for us, and we think that it looks delicious!! Tim and Kit, our web designer did the work and Kit bought some salamis after having seen the pictures.
Marnie is busy packing parcels this morning, so today's picture is of her. At the moment we work in the side hall of the farmhouse, but we are converting one of the stables into a butchery

2008-11-03T14:31:00.000Z

This is the blog of Tim & Marnie Dobson, we are farmers in the Cheshire Plain. Until last week we had a herd of milking cows, these have been sold to a farmer from North Wales where we hope they will have a long and happy life.
For the past 3 years we have had a herd of meat goats and we are planning to earn our living from these goats, this is their story...