The Dairy Goat Handbook

Book excerpt: The Dairy Goat Handbook explains everything goat keepers need to know about their animals, from the best ways to keep them healthy to methods for making delicious goat cheese. The Dairy Goat Handbook is a guidebook for those who would like to raise dairy goats - or dream of raising dairy goats—and want to know how to begin and maintain a successful herd. There are other books on the business of keeping dairy goats, but none quite like this. Written by a dairy goat farmer, this guide combines a deep knowledge of the animals themselves with fifteen years of experience running a successful business. Fully illustrated with photographs of life on a working dairy farm—the goats, the farm, the dairy equipment, and the cheese and milk—this book explains as well as celebrates the life of a dairy goat farmer. The author, Ann Starbard, owns Crystal Brook Farm in Sterling, Massachusetts, where she and her husband raise dairy goats and make fresh goat cheese that they sell onsite, at farmers' markets, and at restaurants. Ann explains the details of raising goats and running a dairy in simple, clear, easy-to-understand language; this is a book for everyone interested in the business of raising dairy goats.