On the face of it, lawyer turned cheesemaker Will Atkinson is a walking, talking advert for giving up the rat race. Hill Farm, the dairy he set up with his wife, Caroline, in 2008, sits in 30 acres of picture-perfect rolling English pastures and woodland south-west of Taunton, with 100 goats gambolling happily around the place.
But there is a dark side to the dairy goat industry. Most male kids are killed at birth and their carcasses burned, or they are sold to the local hunt as meat for the hounds. Unsurprisingly, this makes Atkinson uneasy: “My goats aren’t just units on a spreadsheet … ,” he says. “They have names, so we see them as individuals.The idea of treating my billies as a waste product doesn’t sit comfortably.”
While the plight of male dairy calves led to a flexing of the national conscience, legislative change and renewed demand for humanely reared British veal, billy kids don’t get so much as a mention. The numbers involved are tiny by comparison – Defra says there are around 90,000 goats in the UK – but that still means a lot of billies going to meet their maker soon after their first bleat.
And that’s a terrible waste. Goat meat is damned tasty, but when was the last time you saw it at the high-street butcher, let alone supermarket?…
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21 Comments!
But it’s a womans right to do the same thing.
Some entrepreneur should market them as “kid snacks”. Wouldn’t that be a kick?
Well, buffalo wings are popular now when they weren’t even heard of not so many years ago.
When I worked down near the Miami airport, a lot of the restaurants served goat dishes. Wonderful stuff, it’s one of the few things I miss about the area (glad I moved otherwise….)
I don’t have a problem with offing the billies. They are nasty, smelly creatures whose greatest contribution to the world may well be as food, or eaters of blackberry bushes. They don’t mess around. Right to the ground the seemingly hopeless brambles go. Even my giant, fierce dog Bruiser respected our billy, who knocked him on his ass one time.
I had curried goat once, and it was mighty tasty. Even my date that night, who was this prissy little English babe (eww! ick! fa fa fa!), eventually tried a bite, at my urging, and I said goodbye to the plate after that. She made up for it later.
The nannies are something else. Sweet as can be. Not nearly as smart as a dog, but just as affectionate. They love being petted and scratched behind the ears and the ones with the real long eyelashes are… uhm… uh… I gotta go now.
I want a pygmy goat but JR’s a mean poo poo head and won’t let me :(
^ Corgis are herding dogs. If they can herd welsh cattle, surely they can herd pigmy goats.
Maybe you could sell getting several as giving the corgi something fun to do. After all, everybody likes a happy dog.
^ LOL! I didn’t even think of them with Corgis!
( Who are freaking ecstatic when up at The Asylum…it’s like night and day )
Maybe it’s because a billy will piss in it’s beard. That has a tendency to ruin an appetite.
Goat meat appears on the table at our place from time to time.
ALL of it has been “harvested” wild; i.e. shot in the field. Feral goats are a major pest in parts of Australia, hence the “applied ecology” expeditions.
A mature billy is often called a “stinker” for good reason, but provide good pet-food and hat racks. The younger ones make for good eating, especially the rib and eye fillets. Roast legs basted in a good herb concoction go well too.
“Delicate” visitors get served “low-fat-lamb” on occasion. And that is how we treat the meat. The lower fat content means you have to be careful not to dry the meat whilst cooking, but other than that, it is excellent and flexible fare. Goat on a stick, goat mince in pastry pockets, goat casserole, etc, etc.
“Goat on a stick”
DING DING DING! I believe you may have just invented a new fast food franchise! Would also probably work at county fairs, events, etc.
Do they have county fairs in Indonesia?
You might want to take that one to Shark Tank, on ABC (my one weakness for network TV shows).
I live out in the backwoods of Nova Scotia, and the local supermarket (about 20 miles into town) in a town of 8000 carries goat meat.
Had some jerked in the Caribbean years ago, from a street vendor, was actually pretty good, if a bit strong for some taste buds.
I have a baby goat. He’s the cutest darn thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVKsOTfpwwk
Geee’s that poo poo head won’t let you have a goat or a Basset. You’re right he is a poo poo head. Chickens clucking,Basset howling,goats baying,Corgies barking and all of them crapping— What fun!!!!
Paladin…all the more reason now to kill and eat them!!!!!!!!!
geezerette…my friend wants to give me her huuuuuuuuuuuuuge fish tank with a monster Plecostomus and he won’t let me have that either!
I’ve been looking into buying a small farm and trying to raise something that can be profitable on a small scale without too much overhead.
Pig and goat numbers seem to balance well, if you can find someone to market them.
OMG no Plecostomus!!! That does it he’s not just a poo poo head he’s a big caca head!! shhh don’t tell him I said that—(oo)
^^ I had to look “plecostomus” up. It turns out the common name for that fish is “sucker fish.” (Which makes it a bottom feeder?)
JR probably thinks you’re trying to keep a union boss in a fish tank. Who can blame him? I wouldn’t want one either.
They should be kept in penitentiaries where they belong. That’s a kind of a giant aquarium with bars.
Mmmmm …
goat kabob while ashore in the Greek islands and Turkish coast
or a carved-in-front-of-you goat sandwich from a cart in a marketplace.
Add some high-pH coffee or beer and a feta-topped salad … life is good.
(What? Yeah, may have to go back again for a few weeks of sailing and eating.)
Speaking of sex selection (no, not China).
Speaking of bein’ nice to future food.
Well, as Jesus said: “Blessed are the Cheesemakers”
Historically, “Cowboys” made the fair sex wet down to the bottoms of their petticoats.” ————- “Goatboys”, not so much…..?
A plecostomus is a good fish to have because they suck all the algae off the glass so you don’t have to clean it.