Part two of three: Goat people of Granby and North Granby
Nancy Butler of Lyric Hill Farm
Nancy Butler refers to 30-year-old “senior citizen” pony Bayberry and Lyric Farm’s three Alpine goats as “my little barn children.” There was a time, after the Butlers arrived on Hungary Road in Granby in 2004, that their goat herd grew to eight. “Our middle son, Austin, was the goat kid and showed our goats as a 4-H member when he was in elementary school.” Interest waned with the advent of middle school.
Care for the goats passed from son to mother. Nancy started making goat soap as a way “to satisfy my goat habit.” A former milk shed on the home property became a self-service store for her individual soaps (bar, felted and needle felted) as well as laundry soap. Her products also sell online, at retail stores from Boston to New Jersey and at the farmers’ markets at Lost Acres Vineyard.
Her goats are Alpines, a breed she describes as “a more headstrong goat than others.” Nevertheless, this breed is one of her favorites. Nancy’s three Alpine goats are Penny (16), Nary (9) and Little Goat (7).
Dorothy and Stanley Hayes and daughter, Ellen Whitlow, of Sweet Pea Cheese
Dorothy and husband Stanley own Sweet Pea Cheese, a goat dairy in North Granby. Stanley shared that, “The goats are milked twice daily, approximately 280 days a year for a total of 1,710 gallons or 14,706 pounds.”
The farm store offers goats’ and cows’ milk (regular and chocolate), yogurt and 15 flavors of chèvre plus two types of feta. These comestibles and other goat-related products, including goat milk lotions and soaps, are available from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the farm store on a self-serve basis.
Dorothy and Stanley, sister-in-law Nancy Hayes, daughter Ellen Hayes Whitlow and Taylor Rogers-Gunderson perform the intensive work required for this enterprise: milking and feeding; the production of cheese, milk and yogurt; the drama of kidding season; and upkeep of barns and fencing. Dorothy and Stanley take a vacation late in the year. Their trips are planned to coincide with the goats’ own vacations—a break of two months from milking during their late pregnancies.
Each year welcomes another generation. During January and February of this year 120 kids were born. There were eight sets of triplets. Sweet Pea Cheese’s goat population currently numbers 80.
Emilia Sales and family of Silkey Mountain Farm
Emilia and her family live at 17-acre Silkey Mountain Farm in North Granby.
The farm is home for three bee hives, four goats, four pigs, four turkeys and 35 chickens. Two Labrador retrievers, Lucille Ball and Grace Kelly, keep watch.
Violet was the farm’s first goat. She rode from Sweet Pea Cheese to Silkey Mountain Farm in Emilia’s Volkswagen sport wagon in 2018. A happy bonus were the two kids riding along with her—in her belly. Violet is now six years old. Veronica, one of her offspring, lives at Silkey Mountain Farm along with herd mates Mario and Luigi. The edges of Silkey Mountain Farm’s fields are prone to poison ivy and other undesirable invasives but Emilia’s four munchers, referred to as “my live-in landscape architects,” have that situation under control.
One’s reaction upon seeing a LaMancha for the first time is to assume its ears have been cropped (as is done with some dog breeds) but LaManchas simply possess tiny ears.
Ann Wilhelm and Bill Bentley
Conservation advocates Ann Wilhelm and husband Bill Bentley live on Wilhelm Farm, a 45.6 acre third-generation homestead in North Granby. The farm was awarded a Conservation Innovation Grant in 2017 by Natural Resource Conservation Service. The grant made it possible to apply the principals of agroforestry (a land use management system).
The practice of silvopasture—which is the thoughtful pairing of trees, pasture and grazing animals to create a healthy ecosystem—is ongoing at the farm. The animals in this case are goats, engaged in what is also known as managed grazing. They are directed to, and eagerly ingest, invasive fauna including poison ivy, bittersweet and rosa rugosa, thus clearing previously unusable land. Each summer Wilhelm Farm welcomes “six or so” residents of Sweet Pea Cheese to “goat summer camp.”
Enjoy the informative—and hilarious—video entitled Why Goats? on the farm’s website (wilhelmfarm.com) under “Video and Other Resources.”
Coming in November: “Goats are smart, curious and calming, and they can even help you make some money.” Raising Goats for Dummies by Cheryl K. Smith
Breeds in Brief
Goat breeds possess curious names such as Alpine, Angora, Boer, Cashmere, Nubian, Saanen, Kiko, LaMancha and Tennessee Fainting. The number of breeds, estimated to be about 300, fall into three categories: dairy goats, meat goats and fiber goats.
High on the list of goats recognized as excellent milk producers are the Saanen and LaMancha. These are the two breeds found at Sweet Pea Cheese, North Granby’s renowned goat dairy. Breeds known for their meat include Boer and Kiko. Angora and Cashmere goats are the go-to fiber producers for mohair and cashmere respectively.
The smallest breeds are the Pygmy and the Nigerian Dwarf. Due to both their diminutive size and their friendly, playful and fun-loving personalities, members of these two breeds compete as candidates for the role of “pet goat,” an adventurous concept to be explored in part 3 of this series.