Interviews

Henk VanSchaik, Elhen Dairy Goats, Blyth ON

1.       How much does a goat give a day? Approximately 2.8 litres (milked twice daily)

2.       What are the percentages of fat and protein etc. in the milk? Fat – 3.74% protein 3.45%

3.       What can the milk used for? Cheese, milk, ice cream, yoghurt

4.       What allows you to ship more milk? You get shares; one share (which is $100) allows you to ship 4000 litres of milk a year. However, you have to prove you can ship that much first.

5.       At what temperature is the milk stored in your tank? 1.5*C

6.       What tests are done on your milk regularly? Smell, visual, ‘bactoscan’, sematic cell count, butterfat content (every few weeks)

7.       What is the price of milk? What costs are taken off of this? 4.5 cents/litre is taken off for trucking, another 2 cents/litre for additional costs, so about 80 cents/litre after/net price.

8.       How often is milk picked up from your place? How much can you hold? Twice a week. Our tanks (together) can hold 9000 litres.

9.       What washing procedures are done to the parlour, milkers, and milk lines? Pressure wash and sweep the parlour; prewash, sterilize and rinse milkers and milk lines.

10.   What is your feed ration? How is it stored and fed? Corn Silage, haylage, high fibre pellets (20% protein), salt licks, and a parlour supplement pellet for milking (23% protein). We have bunker silos for the forage, grainerys for the pellets. We mix it with a loader and distribute it with a feed cart.

11.   What is your system for breeding? By group; at about 7 months or by size, goats are put together with our bucks (out of seven) and later checked for pregnancy by external ultra sound. They’re pregnant for about 5 months, or 150 days. We usually have two big kidding seasons a year.

12.   Which breeds of goat do you raise? We have some Saanen, la mancha, alpine, toggenburg, and other cross-breeds. Our bucks are Saanens.

13.   How often do you bed the goats? What do you use? We have a large square bale shredder which blows chopped straw into the pens. They are bedded with one bale a day per pen; sometimes more depending on weather conditions, herd health, and age.

14.   What is the temperature of your barn generally kept at? How do you control it? It depends on the weather and how the goats react to it (they don’t like it too cold); we have fans for heat stress, large ceiling fans for circulation, roof vents/chimneys to take stale air out, and curtains (natural ventilation) which can be raised or lowered for desired air flow. 

Dave Passchier, Par-chier Farms Ltd., Blyth ON

Lynn Fischer, of the Ontario Dairy Goat Co-op

1. What tests or procedures are taken before/while picking up milk from a farm? Visual and smell

2. What temperature must the milk stay around? 1 to 6 degrees celcius

3. How many liters do you process per week? Does this number often fluctuate? We pick up around

300 000 to 400 000 a week depending on the time of year

4. What is your maximum holding capacity of milk? 112000L

5. How many farms do you pick up milk from? 113

6. Where is the milk shipped? To processors across Ontario and into Quebec

7. What steps are taken to process the milk? It all depends on what you are making

8. Is the number of dairy farms increasing or decreasing since your business began?  It’s staying steady, though many farms are larger than they used to be.

9. How might a dairy goat farmer become a member of the ODGC? You must contact the ODGC office, then you may be placed on a waiting list of people wanting to join the Co-op, or you would fill in a questionnaire about yourself, and what you want to milk.  You might also purchase an existing herd.