So you wanna make your own soap, huh?Well it couldn't be easier! In this 3-part blog will show you exactly how to make your own Goats milk (or cows/sheep/nut/coconut/yak/horse/soy/etc. milk) soap. The first step is choosing the oil that you want to make soap out of. We use a combination of Olive oil, Coconut oil, Canola oil, Shea butter, Grapeseed oil, Vegetable oil and Lard to make ours. We hope to add a few more like: Sweet Almond oil, Rice Bran oil, Meadowfoam oil, and Castor oil. I probably left out a few, because the types of oils that you can choose are almost unlimited. I'll run you through the few that we use. Olive oilOlice oil is a soft/hard oil, meaning that soap made from olive oil will start out soft, but will cure into a nice firm bar over time. Olive oil is a humectant which will attract moisture to the skin. It also is good for sensitive skin, and contains vitamins A, E and antioxidants. Olive oil has nice conditioning properties, and has slippery lather with not much foam. Coconut oilCoconut oil is a hard oil, which means that the resulting soap will harden faster and produce a firmer bar. Coconut oil has antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal, and antioxidants. Coconut oil is good for superfatting, and helps nourish and moisturize the skin. Coconut oil produces soap with big fluffy bubbles, and good cleansing. Shea butterShea butter is a hard oil like Coconut oil, but produces smaller, creamy lotion-y like bubbles. Shea butter is a great moisturizer, and contains vitamins A, E, and C. Shea also helps aging. Canola oilCanola oil contains vitamin E, an antioxidant, and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids which helps with pre-mature aging, and dry skin. Soap made with Canola oil has a nice dense creamy lather. However if used alone, (like all soft oils) the finished soap will be too soft. LardLard is rendered pork fat–HEY! Stop scrolling and read this. I know 'rendered pork fat' makes you think 'bacon grease' but Lard is wonderful for soap. And yes. I know what I'm doing. Lard is a hard fat, and produces a firm bar with a creamy conditioning lather. Lard tends to make soap a nice pretty white too, so if you like nice white, firm bars, Lard is for you! Grape seed oilGrape seed oil is a soft oil, and results in a soft bar of soap with mild cleansing and medium lather. Grape seed oil has antioxidants, and is good for sensitive skin. Vegetable oilThe Vegetable oil that you pick up at Walmart in really Soybean oil. We got this to make cheap soap, but as soon as we run out, we are omitting it from our recipes. The quality of Veggie oil is just is a bit lower than I like in soap. Soy bean oil, however, have a nice creamy conditioning lather, and if added with Palm, or Coconut oil, can help make a firmer bar. Stay tuned for Part 2!
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When we started out with goats, we bought 2 doeling who were registered with NDGA. After deciding that we wanted to get into big-time breeding, we decided that we wanted to re-register them with one of the largest dairy goat registries in the US, the American Dairy Goat Association. We had a stumbling block, however, because ADGA does not accept NDGA paperwork for registration. Thankfully the American Goat Society will check NDGA paperwork to see if it is possible to register with them, and after your goat is registered with AGS, you can re-register with ADGA. So long story short, we got our does registered with AGS, and sent the paperwork into ADGA to be re-registered. Our paperwork came back, but turns out we were supposed to send in a Transfer Record Request form from AGS. We also had to tattoo our doe's tails with the letter "Q".
Transfering can be a bit confusing, and somewhat expensive if you have more than a few goats to register. Since couldn't register Ella and Blossom with AGS without registering 1 grandma, and both parents, it cost us $59, plus a membership. I'm SUPER glad now that we have the AGS membership, since I plan to register my babies with them, so I'm not complaining. From what I can tell, registering babies born on your farm is easier. Thanks for reading! Years ago Mom said that she had a |
She was a 7 week-old German Shepherd/Australian Shepherd cross, and we went through a long list of names trying to figure out the right name. We had settled on 'Muffin' when Taylor decided that Muffin wasn't the right name, and we needed to choose a different one. Mom suggested 'Molly', and that's what we went with. |
First fresheners typically produce less milk than subsequent freshenings, and my doe Blossom was down to less than a cup a day, so I decided to dry her off. First I milked her like normal, except I left 2 or 3 squirts left in her udder. I stayed on this milking schedule for the next few days, and then moved on to phase two. Over the next week-and-a-half I proceeded to leave more milk in her udder squirt by squirt to prevent discomfort and/or mastitis. At the end, I was only milking out 1 or 2 squirts out of each teat. Then I stopped milking completly, and she continues to dry off for the next 1-3 weeks. So far only Blossom has been dried off, and we plan to start drying off everyone else in late January. Happy drying! |
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