Anyone for Goat curry?

It’s been a busy week here, we reached the half way mark with the calving during the week when 64 were born and we’re now up to 70. 2 calf houses are full and were overflowing this morning until Brian got a third shed ready.

We are now down to 3 goats – Becky, Megan and Katie. ?Rolo, Soot and Clay were all born last spring and are now hanging waiting to be cut up into delicious meat. Our previous butcher is unable to kill goats at the moment as he needs a separate licence and it doesn’t seem to be worth his while. However, via twitter I discovered that ?@oldefarm was able to tell me about a lovely gentleman of a butcher. The slight problem was that he is based in Cloughjordan and as we don’t have a small trailer or a hitch on our car or a farm car, there was the small difficulty of getting them there. He was coming to Mountmellick last Monday morning and kindly met Brian in Abbeyleix to take the goats – Brian escorted them over in the tractor and huge cattle trailer!

I spoke to him yesterday to discuss how I wanted the meat cut and to mention that I didn’t want to know which one came back to me (I don’t want to be thinking that I’m eating a particular named animal) and he mentioned that they are the nicest goats he has ever seen. We’re not taking all three back, one will be enough for us. ?Mona of Wise Words is taking one and we are swopping one goat with Margaret of Oldfarm for some of her delicious pork. So if you are looking for a recipe for goat meat – you know where to go!

Megan and Becky are both in kid and will be kidded within the month. Katie is now a year old. We had housed Katie with the 3 boys recently in case any of them hurt Megan or Becky as they are both very heavy in kid. ?It is looking like they certainly have 3 each, if not 4 so fingers crossed, all will go well. ?Our goat births always seem to be somewhat traumatic! ?The plan is to sell any female kids along with Katie – partly because I don’t have the time to milk lots of goats and partly because 5 goats = 1 cow in terms of our nitrate calculations which can make things complicated if we have to apply for nitrate derogations and all sorts.

11 thoughts on “Anyone for Goat curry?

  • marc

    Hi lorna im raising 2 goat for freezer this year but im having trouble finding a butcher to process them for me any help u can give me would appreciated

    Reply
    • Lorna

      Where are you based? Our butcher near Carlow now has the licence to do them. @hillfield21 up north also rear goats so must have access to a butcher.

      Reply
      • marc

        hi lorna im in meath i know i can get them done in tyrellspass but im told they treat them like lamb when doin the cuts. I’m also told that to get the best from the goat they should be butchered as goat

        Reply
        • Lorna

          I don’t know about that Marc, are you on twitter? @williamrhaire takes male goats from dairy goat farmers and supplies restaurants with goat meat. He’s based in Antrim I think. He might be able to help you. Sorry for delay replying – was away on hols.

          Reply
  • Elaine Hall

    God you guys are busy with calves our first ten arrived today and we are on the lookout for ten more now . Two more hours gone off the day carrying buckets of milk and cleaning drinkers but they are so cute. Some of the women who ride were asking me the other night what do we do with our lambs and I said they are sold for meat they then asked would I ever get one killed for myself and when I told them I was going to get one done this year they had a look of total horror on their faces how could I eat something I had watched since it was a baby :). I sometimes wonder where people think their food comes from. Is there much difference in taste between sheep and goat meat ? I have never tried it .

    Reply
    • Lorna

      It’s about 3 years since we last ate goat Elaine but lamb is my fav meat so I’ll let you know how it compares. We were conscious of having named the last ones so that spoilt the taste a bit! however, I managed okay eating Henry and Bill the lambs!
      Goat is very trendy in posh restaurants at the mo apparently – very good for the health conscious 🙂

      Reply
    • Lorna

      Love bartering 🙂
      Yes, and looking at these photos of Soot and Katie when they were young, makes me remember just how cute they were. Really hoping all goes well with these births. I still remember the trauma of losing Polly last year all too plainly!

      Reply

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