Dairy Farming with Goats

In 1989 Melvin Lawrence took over the dairy farm his father Alvan started in Shaftsbury in 1953. At the time he was milking 107 cows on the farm. Striving to expand and increase production, by 1994 Melvin had increased the milking herd to 169. He found that this undertaking was too much extra labor and not enough increase in production for it to be worthwhile. Shortly after, he auctioned off some of the herd and turned instead to raising milking goats with his wife. The two spend numerous hours raising and bottle feeding baby goats and milking the adult females. They decided to start the transition from dairy cows to goats, keeping only enough cows to support the cost of the new goats, looking to diversify the dairy farm and take advantage of the growing demand for goat meat and milk products. The two are very excited about working with goats and were eager to share their story.

	Baby goats are kept in sheltered pens and bottle-fed twice a day. Currently the farm has 100 baby goats. Females are raised to become part of the milking herd, starting one year after birth. Males are raised for meat and are sold once they reach 50lbs. Baby goats are very playful and can be seen climbing on chairs in their pens.
Goats that are not mature enough to milk are raised in a barn with a fenced-in outer pen. These are the first goats to be born on the farm. As you can see, goats are very social animals.
	More mature goats that are old enough to be milked are kept in a separate barn that is connected to the milking parlor. They remain in this barn where they are fed, milked, and bred, unless one of them escapes- which is not an uncommon occurrence. At milking time a gate leading into the milking parlor is opened and they file in.
This is a photograph of the Cabot milk truck that stopped by to pick up the fresh milk from the goats. Milk was transported by truck for the first time in 1914.
	This is a picture of Melvin unloading hay from a truck and throwing it into a barn. As you can see, despite obvious advancements in technology, manual labor is still required. On the lower right-hand corner you can catch a glimpse of some of the cows that remain on the farm.