Ethical Dairying

Last night I had a dance party. I drank beer and let my hair down and I danced.

I was celebrating.

Because as of right now we only have three goats left to kid, the girls are coming into the parlor really nicely to get milked, the babies who have been moved to the cuddle barn are finding their groove with the bucket milker, and we made our first batch of chevre for delivery to a new client, Grand Central Bakery.

We’re finding our groove and the insanity and exhaustion that was Kidding Season 2020 is almost over.

But of course, this begs the question.

Why are the babies separated from the moms?

It’s a good question, and if you’re asking it then it means you care about the animals that make your food, and for that, we thank you. Because it’s what we’ve been asking people to do since the very beginning.

Which is why it’s so important to Matthew and I that we’re able to answer this same question for ourselves. And not just a blind, “because it’s necessary” answer, but a true, honest to goodness answer. For the past THREE weeks, Matthew and I have spent every single night discussing the ethical implications of dairying. It’s a conversation we have every year, but this year we really went into it. We have covered every single scenario and worked it through to the end to be able to sit comfortable with our own decision to become dairy farmers.

So believe me when I say, if this is something you care about, I promise you, Matthew and I are not your enemy.

But back to answering the question. The majority of the babies in the kidding barn we pulled early from moms because the moms, to put it bluntly, weren’t into them. They weren’t feeding them and managing 45 goats and their kids, monitoring who has had enough milk and who hasn’t, it’s just not something we have the capacity to do. If it was up to a lot of these goats, their babies would end up dead from abandonment. I know this because we’ve inadvertently watched it happen. And so, as soon as we notice a mom isn’t into their baby, or is floating a little too far away, we pull them. It guarantees the life of the baby. Why do we have such a high number of moms who aren’t into their babies? Likely because we’re a dairy and good mothering isn’t something we’ve focused on when we choose which babies to keep as future milkers. And so now, in our fourth season, we’re probably seeing the affects of that. Also a likely scenario: We’re still milking the same girls we started this dairy with. They know the drill. When they kid and come into milk, they’re ready to go to work. They enjoy coming into the parlor and getting grain (there’s really no other excuse to grain a goat if they’re not in milk). They also have their own relationships with each other, as adults, and they’re always happy to find their friends again after the responsibility of managing their babies is gone.

This year though, we are trying something new. We’re keeping the babies with the moms who show a deep connection to them. It’s made milking a bit more stressful, but, it’s something we committed to try this year all in an effort to be on the right side of our conscious as dairy farmers. The girls still come through the parlor to get milked, but then they go back to the barn where their babies are waiting for them. There’s no risk of stealing all their milk (setting their babies up for starvation) because they actually hold milk back from the pipeline. So far the system is working but I have some pretty big concerns, mainly in the friendliness of the babies. We have babies that were raised by their mothers on our milk line and it’s not ideal.

Bottle raising baby goats sets them up for success as goats who enjoy the company of humans. If the goal is to send all our goats to “pet homes” or to a homesteading operation, then being a goat that loves humans is definitely to their benefit.

But of course, the greater question is, do we even need dairy?

Again, Matthew and I have spent countless hours talking about this.

And here’s where we’re at.

We believe in regenerative agriculture. We believe in diversified farms. We believe in being sustainable.

Our farm didn’t start out as a farm. It started out as a whole lot of clay and rocks. Slowly, over time, we’ve amended our soil with manure and lime, and our land is starting to become something. Our farm is becoming more than just a dirt path with pockets of animals in it. We are sharing this land with nature. Coyotes, rabbits, squirrels, praying mantis, eagles, hawks, bats, and so many little meadow birds…these are all things that didn’t exist here when we came. And now, because we are diversifying the ecosystem, nature is moving back. While some farmers look at these things as pests, we do not. We have always understood that our footprint on this land should be made in harmony with nature, not against it.

Which brings us to the main point. We could not transform this piece of earth without manure. Manure comes from animals. And so, we chose goats (well I did, and Matthew married me, so he chose them too). Our farm is too small to manage cattle, and the only thing we can raise for meat is pigs, because of our excess of whey from cheesemaking. Even now, once these last pigs go to freezer camp, we will take a break from them, because they have completely uprooted over an acre of pasture and it needs a break to reseed and come back even stronger. We are constantly balancing what our land can support with what will do the greatest good for our planet.

The other day Matthew had me look up the birth mortality rate of deer in the wild. Deer could be considered the wild cousins of goats, so, in doing that, we were gauging how many of our animals would survive without the extreme management we give during Kidding Season.

The number I found was 50%. 50% of baby deer don’t make it into adulthood. Knowing how much Matthew and I intervene in our goat’s lives, that sounds completely plausible to me. And so, we have come to terms with our decision to manage babies the way we do. We do not bludgeon babies at birth and we don’t expect local rescues to take in our “discards".

Our goats have incredible lives. They have access to pasture 24 hours a day, they can roll in the grass whenever they want, they can stand under the sun and see the open sky, they are loved and well cared for, all their dietary needs are met, and their health needs are always met. Do we make mistakes? Absolutely. We are first generation farmers learning as we go and fighting like hell not to screw up too bad. Do we always learn from our mistakes? You bet.

Any amount of food production, from almonds to oranges, involves a trade off with the land. Wether it’s loss of habitat for wildlife, or excess use of water in drought filled areas, everything we choose to grow is robbing from something else. Which is why we will always advocate for the support of regenerative farms and we will always strive to enhance our own biodiversity.

Dairying at its core is not an evil thing. Dairying is one of the oldest relationships man shares with animals, and, when managed with the animal in mind, it can be a beautiful thing. Our goal, as dairy farmers, is to always put our animals at the center of every decision we make. I know we’re not doing everything perfectly, but we are operating in a way that is constantly asking questions, constantly seeking to improve, and constantly strives for Eden.

As a small family farm, that gets no subsidies from the government, I feel like that is pretty damn good.