The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 27, 1997 - C1

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AUGUST
29, 30 & 31

GOATS ARE MORE than a source of fresh milk to Pat Weissner.
They're also her pets and they like plenty of attention. Head rubs

are a favourite treat, while other goats are more playful, and like a
game of head butting.

Fair a good venue
for hobby farmers

AT WEISSNER opens up the

gate to the goat pen and a large

white goat pushes her way out,

charges to the next room and
jumps up on a wooden bench. Peppermint
Patty, as she’s known, then sticks her head
through a stockade, looking for grain.

That’s the start of a twice-a-day milking

ritual for Weissner. She has eight goats and
five of those are milked twice daily. They
produce about eight litres of milk per day in
total,
“The. goats look forward to the milking —
provided there’s a treat invalved, she says.
They even have their own order with boss
goats. like Peppermint Patty getling first
dibs at the milk bench,

There’s a bit of trick to milking goats.
When you squeeze the teats on the udder
you have to pinch at the same time to make
sure milk doesn’t get squeezed back up the
udder instead of into the sterilized bucket.

Then there's a few other obstacles. When
the goats are nervous, or being milked by a
stranger, they tend to move around, sonic-
times slepping in the milk bucket,

_ Dirty milk usually gacs to the cat. And
she’s ncarby, rubbing up against goal and
human, looking for a treat.

Weissner ended up with her goats almost
by accident. About ten yeats ago a friend
asked her if she could board a few goals for
the wititer. Those goats never went home,
aud she eventually bred them, and their off-
spring...

Contrary to folklore, goals will not eat

anything,

“They're very,. very fussy,’’ says
Weissner, She feeds them top quality hay
and a special grain mixture,

Old hay or grain that’s spilled ona dirty

Qoor will be ignored. — ;
However, if the goals escape from their
pen — something they’re fairly cralty at —

they'll head straight for Weissner’s garden
and nearby shrubs.

“They love nibbling on underbrush,’’ she
says. ‘‘But cinammon buns are their
favourile treat.’”

However Weissner likes to kecp strict
control on their diet, otherwise their milk
develop strange flavours.

Owning milk goats is a part time job for
her. Every times she milks each goat she
has to clean its udder and wipe down its
coat.

Once she’s finished she strains the milk,
making sure it’s free from hair and dust.
Then she heats it to a scalding lemperature,
and cools it off quickly. Thal’s a process
called pasteurization and it kills any bac-
teria present in the milk.

In sterilized bottles goat milk will keep in
the fridge for about a week, she says. It’s
hard to tell the difference between goat and

“They love nibbling on un-

_derbrush. But cinammon buns are

their favourite treat.”? -—— Pat
Weissner on feeding goats.

cow milk, although Weissner says babies
who aren’t able to tolerate cow milk can
sometimes drink goat milk.

Weissner has also started to make her
own cheeses, such as feta, ricotta and ched-
dar, plus yogurt.

She brings her goats down to the Fall Fair
every year and usually enters their milk as
well.

Aug. 31 at 10 a.m. is the time of the dairy
goat contest at the fair, Weissner says the
competition is a great one for children to
watch, since they’re usually fascinated by
the sight ofa goat being milked.

TIMOTHY LO learned how to milk goats while he
was visiting Pat Weissner at her farm. He's from Ed-
monton, so he loves taking part in farm chores, Un-
fortunately the goat he was milking here stepped in
the bucket, so the milk was handed over to a coin-

cidentally nearby cat.

peseee

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