The male goats urinate all over themselves constantly and the females they are mating with. You will know by the smell how far away to keep them and it's a LONG way! Their smell will permeate everything around, including the milk and anything else nearby. The folks I know with a few dairy goats for milk just have females and young ones. They take the females to another farm for mating when they come in heat. If the kids are male they sell them before they get very big. You could also put them in the freezer. Mature bucks can be very aggresive and hard to tame, as well, but that might depend on the breed. If you get a fertile buck, you will need to keep him way out in a large pasture, but not by himself. A whether makes a good companion for a fertile buck. I don't think you want to put two fertile bucks together as they might fight a lot. You can also shear some goats, or comb them when they shed. Mohair (from Angoras) and Cashmere both come from goats. I have not kept goats myself, but have friends who do. I am considering it for when I have more time, though. I'd like milk and cashmere. I want a spinning wheel :-)

depends on if you are doing melt & pour glycerin soap or if you are making cold proccess soap. If it's melt & pour, (M&P) it's easier to buy it already made into goatsmilk base....or you can ge plain & add your own goatsmilk powder to it. Then either fragrance/essential oil. This you can use immediately. If it's cold process you want to do, look on the web for recipies....it would involve palm, coconut, olive or vegetable oils (or a combination), lye, goatsmilk or goatsmilk poweder & fragrance/essential oil. THis has to age 4-6 weeks before using it. If you want to do cold process (CP) soap, it might be easier to start with a plain recpe first, then move to the more complicated ones. Good luck....both are fun to do. I'm just to impatient for the CP, so I went to the M&P. Plus the colors are brighter, & the scents can be made stronger in M&P...it's much more forgiving than CP. Hazel

I have never done it, but on the various M&P forums I belong to, it is advised not to. It is very difficult to do, the way I understand it, and you must use some kind of stuff that prevents germ growth (because the goatsmilk has the potential to spoil). Nearly everyone says use the base. I have always used SFIC Goatsmilk base, which is really wonderful. However, I bought some powder to use in a pinch when I had an order and was out of goatsmilk. The goatsmilk soap made with the powder didn't hold a candle to the ready-made base! If you have never used a ready-made goatsmilk base, give it a try. If you really want to add fresh goatsmilk, do a google search and learn about what you will have to do to sterilize it, etc. (You can't just put the goatsmilk in.) Susan

You need real milk kefir grains to make REAL kefir at home, OR, the not-so-real powdered kefir starter which has little to do with real kefir grains - the powdered starters contain only a few of the good bacteria that makes kefir. Only real grains can be used over and over. These grains (which look like little gelatinous cauliflowers) will grow, and you divide them when they get about the size of a quarter, so you should have a never-ending source of them for life. Mine are about 15-years old and still going strong. The commercial product you purchased from the store isn't going to work because it probably has a sweetener and/or other ingredients. Homemade kefir is plain, not sweetened and flavored like the stuff from the store. You can add sweeteners and flavors after it's fermented, but not while the grains are in the milk. As an alternative to making kefir, you can use plain yogurt (I'd suggest Stonyfield Farm Yogurt because it not only contains the 2 strains of bacteria in most yogurt products, Stonyfield has 6 varieties of live, active cultures) and make goat yogurt. Keep in mind, yogurt and kefir are worlds apart. Kefir (made with real kefir grains) is actually much better for you than yogurt. Kefir has a smaller curd than yogurt, so it's easier to digest, especially for children. Yogurt is more difficult to make than kefir, when it comes to scalding the milk, the temperature window for adding the starter/culture, and the temperature for incubation. When making kefir I add 2 to 2-1/2 cups of milk (from a number of sources, including goat milk, but I mostly use powdered milk and coconut milk - also powdered and rehydrated) to a quart jar (usually cold from the refrigerator)and add kefir grains. Place a plastic lid on the jar and allow to ferment for 12-24 hours (the ambient temperature will determine how long - warmer temperatures ferment faster). That's it! After it's fermented, I remove the grains and either start another batch or rest them in 1-cup of milk in the refrigerator in a pint jar with a lid on tight until needed. I use kefir as a substitute for buttermilk, sour cream, cream cheese, and plain yogurt. I can drain the whey from the curd and make "cheese" like making yogurt cheese. Just drain it to the consistency you need. Once you have shaken or stirred the kefir curd, it will quickly become a liquid and you will have to use it as a liquid. It won't get thick again. The curd is more delicate than yogurt, plus, most commercial yogurt products, and some homemade recipes, include thickeners. Try to find some kefir grains from a person who already has them in use. If you can't find them, purchase them through Cultures for Health (http://www.culturesforhealth.com/). You will also find a wealth of information on the subject at the web site. Last point..... If you decide to purchase powdered kefir starter (which is how I first made kefir before locating real grains), you can save back 1/4-1/2 cup of the batch of kefir to culture another quart of milk. But since it's not real kefir grains, you can only do that for 2-3 quarts, but at least you get more bang-for-your-buck if using the powdered starter.