Actually, a cute kid, a baby boy, and two adult female goats, that is. :) The wild grass on an empty lot in Cebu was growing at a much faster pace than we could cut it so I was searching for an economical and environmentally friendly solution… And since early rains had hit Cebu and La Nina would likely result in an incredibly wet rainy season, the problem was only going to get worse. Even assigning folks with machetes every few weeks (to hack away like some gory murder scene in a low budget horror movie) didn’t seem to do the trick. So I had this brilliant idea that we should acquire several goats to keep the grass clipped short and neat. I asked a few people if goats liked to eat grass, and they nodded enthusiastically. So like a ding dong, without doing much further checking, I sent some crew to a goat dealer to buy two goats. They got two large or adult females and one baby boy (kid) thrown in for free. Total price was roughly PHP3,000, the equivalent of just 10 days of a human grass cutter, so I thought it was a good deal. But what did we know about goats, anyway???
First of all, the goats are mother and son, and another adult female (with strange skin growths on its neck). The mother and son are incredibly noisy, and if the kid strays out of sight, the mom makes these incredibly loud calls to locate the little one… And the real bummer? They don’t eat ALL the grass in their path, they just pick and choose and basically eat the “mesclun” and not all the greens growing. So they don’t wipe out the grass as I assumed they would. Not like a lawn mower would. Maybe we need cows, but the lot isn’t that big. At any rate, they eat, they poop and they bleat or whatever it is that they utter. Mind you, after just three short weeks, the thin goats that we bought and that I assumed would become kalderetang kambing in a month’s time if they didn’t do their job well, have fattened up a bit and are beginning to look rather cute. So it was the wrong time to bring The Kid around for a visit, as she instantly fell in love with the goats, and we are now banned from ever planning their inclusion in a stew or barbecue.
While I only photographed the goats near a gravel driveway, in the deeper grass they actually disappear and all you hear is the rustling of grass as they move around. I suspect these would make good eating but with faces like these, how could we? The little guy was barely two months old, and if you rub his forehead, he plays with you by pushing back on your hand, as if locking horns… Oh, and one last observation, why does his mom have small horns? Aren’t those just for guys? And what did The Kid name her new found kid? Billy, of course. :)
50 Responses
Hi MM, Billy’s quite a good name! Oh well, getting your grass nibbled though at the scope you did not expect is a lot better than not getting grass cut at all! =)
Awwwww, the Kid’s kid is so cute! Billy looks like he is actually smiling! Thanks for saving them from becoming main ingredients in caldereta!
that’s a funny story.It reminds me when my son was about 4 (that was 10 yrs. ago) we ordered live lobsters for our anniversary dinner and he fell in love with it.we were not allowed to cook it.he actually named them and kept them as pets which lasted a few days. we had chicken for dinner instead.
For some reason, reading this article made me miss having my family with me. Billy the Goat is cute. :-)
billy goat gruff. . . so cute hehe. . .but back then, this was a horror story for me, I have this story book before that has this illustrations, and for a kid, i tell you, the troll was really scary. . . hehe which reminds me of Monster House, a computer animated film which was intended for kids but arghh. . . if you have watched it, it’s a bit morbid, it could definitely pass as a horror/thriller movie, the story is just a bit innapropriate for young audiences, and they could actually remake this with real actors, it could beat those asian horror flicks. . .
We have lots of goats roaming here. of course, they’re not ours but I notice the sense of family they have. When the youngs get lost, they bleat so loud and the mother goat bleats back. Whenever I see all these farm animals (be they pigs, goats, cows, etc) herded to the slaughter house, I turn the other way.
But, just show me a nice meat dish and I will eat it with gusto to honor the “sacrifice.”
Billy the Kid. Teehee!
Billy is so cute! My fiance and I were also thinking of getting goats for our small parcel of land in Batangas, for the same reason MM. But now you got me having second thoughts hehehe…
Coolio! There are a couple of counties and regional parks districts here that use goats exactly for that purpose – clearing excess vegetation in a “green” manner. They rent herds of goats from farmers and let them loose in open space preserves for a certain amount of time. Everyone’s happy. The goats are well-fed, and the parks are groomed. Win-win!
That kid is so cute!
oh, please no kaldereta. they’re too adorable…..milk them and make goat cheese!
Reminds me, of my one and only visit to my grandpa’s house in Calatagan. The highlight of my day was the kid he ended up buying for my sister and I. It was adorable.
Yabbut, you’re not the first to come up with the Green solution! Check this site out – https://thegoatlady.org/ – since you now have no plans of eating your goats, maybe you could start a Rent a Ruminant side business instead? Apparently, they wipe out blackberry jungles in no time flat.
We have a livestock farm where we grow pigs, cows and yes, goats. And we’re out of grass! The right amount of rain, MM, will make the grass grow but too much of it melt the grass also as what happened to us after almost two months of non-stop rain here in Bicol.
Raising goats is not very complicated as their requirements are almost non-existent. It wouldn’t hurt though to have a small kubo built about four feet above the ground so they will have a place to rest or seek refuge in in case of heavy rains or floods.
I am with Bijin on milking them and making goat’s cheese.The kid is so gorgeous!
…great name…BILLY, the kiddie goat!!!!
linda and bijin, YOU milk the mother’s!!! :) They can get downright nasty!?! :) bea, the goats hang out in the garage in the evenings and during rainshowers… chi, thanks for that link. Trivia query for the day… why do goats keep on chewing even if they have nothing to chew on? fried neurons, I presume all the little raisenet type droppings are organic fertilizer as well…
Hi MM! I can’t help but laugh at this “why do goats keep on chewing even if they have nothing to chew on? fried neurons, I presume all the little raisenet type droppings are organic fertilizer as well…” tehehe… Goats are part of the ruminant family, it digests its food in two steps, first by eating the raw material and regurgitating a semi-digested form known as cud from within their first stomach, known as the rumen. The process of again chewing the cud to break down the plant matter and stimulate digestion is called ruminating.(fr. wikipedia)
My family own a little goat farm in Pangasinan and every now and then one is slaughtered (sad..) and cooked read:kilawin, pinapaitan and caldereta. If you plan to make goat cheese, get the kind that produces a lot of milk like the Anglo-Nubian.
Love Billy the Kid. hehe
My aunt in the province had the same idea… goats as grass cutters or lawn mowers! Unfortunately my room is just beside the vacant lot where all 3-5 mature goats are! I feel like slaughtering them and cooking them as Caldereta when I can’t sleep because of their non-stop bleating. Oh why do they have to make that noise when I’m about to sleep?! Hay…
A garden and goat don’t mix…nuff said.
I think they do chew cud even when they’re apparently eating/chewing nothing. If I remember my Zoology right (my apologies to Prof. Amarillo), goats chew and swallow grass then regurgutate it some minutes (to an hour?) later for more chewing so they can digest the grass. So they appear to be just start chewing again even without dipping their heads down nibble any grass.
Hemingway, my trainees and I were talking about goat dishes over lunch. The possibilities are endless: caldereta, pinapaitan, sinanglaw, inihaw… *yum* But that kid is too cute. Wait a few more months. Hehehehe…
SKL (share ko lang), when I read “The Kid has a Kid”, my initial reaction was: “but she’s only in sixth(seventh?) grade!”
Whenever I visit mom’s province up North, my relatives would always have a goat and a pig ready for slaughter. And for some reason, I become completely vegetarian the day pork ang goat are served.
If anyone remembers the old electric power plant where the Rockwell Power Plant mall used to be, they might recall a small herd of sheep that used to keep the grass in check on the “lawn”. I remember driving past the plant everyday to school and looking forward to the sheep sightings.
Cute, but don’t let them near Mrs. MM’s garden.
kamlbing klein :)
kambing klein :)
Billy is definitely cute…but will not make a great caldereta stew if you don’t know the right way to slaughter it. I have heard that intact males can give the meat a “bucky” smell. So, if you opt to have a good caldereta…make sure that the one you’re having is a wether (neutered male) instead of a buck.
MM, maybe they don’t want a guy milking them! LOL!
We had lunch at the Kambingan in Cagayan de Oro with Justin, my 1 year 9 months old grandson. In an enclosed space Just outside the screened window were baby goats.
We showed them to Justin and asked him to repeat the bleating sounds – and he did them.
Kambingan is by the new road going back to the city from Makahambus Cave and White Water River Rafting.
Had Justin’s elder brother, Nico and sister Illana been around – I am not sure we would be eating goat adobo or any goat meat. The bleating kids that look like they are waiting to be slaughtered with their cries will veto any goat adobo or any goat dish order.
Billy the Kid and The Kid…cute! if MM gets a goat, goat cheese can’t be far behind :-)
Sate kambing, yum.
goat cheese and goat’s milk soap
masarap for papait, and kaldereta.
billy the kid is adorable! pls. don’t let him end up on someone’s plate.. :D
Goats are really cute and will eventually become more than efficient in clearing your grass. Soon they will eat every living foliage in your garden.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/indiorebelstudio/2459390734/
I took a pic of this goat at Bayawan, Negros Oriental. I did not bring him, her, it home.
Oh Billy is soo cute! But has anybody here wondered why their little droppings are so tiny and round compare to dogs and such? Just a question..hehehe :)
Billy is so cute, but I’m wondering what were you thinking when you got those goats, MM? They are very noisy.. When I was a kid, the back of our village used to be a little rice field, and there were many goats there. They were truly noisy, smelly and their poop were just everywhere.. ;)
REALLY, WHAT WAS I THINKING, indeed. :)
Hi MM,
I’m a long time reader although this is probably my first post to your blog. This reminds me of a book that I recently read, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. It’s an interesting book about food and Pollan essentially describes four very different meals. One of the meals is at an organic farm. The operation of that farm, Polyface farms, is very interesting. The farmer characterizes himself as a grass farmer.
we also had a baby goat before and my youngest sister named him Billy too. Unfortunately, after several months Billy became kaldereta when my dad celebrated his birthday… my youngest sister cried for weeks…
true, goats are so noisy.
Billy the Kid! Hilarious!
Hi Marketman,
If you’re interested I can send you formulae for goat’s cheese
I’m so glad The Kid got to see (read: save) Billy and Billy’s mom and aunt before they became kaldereta ingredients. Yay, the family’s spared, esp. the oh-so-cute-and-adorable Billy. Go, Kid (and kid)!!!
Goats are so noisy you just want to beat the cr*p out of them. They poop all day long and they smell. You had a nice idea going there but….Anyway way Billy is a cute name.
The goat comments remind me of when I got a pair of rabbits for my young children in the early 1960’s. One of the rabbits soon became pregnant and to our surprise soon produced 13 babies. After they were weaned, we let them out on our large rear lawn and they spent hours each day happily nibbling down the grass and everything else in sight. Trouble was trying to catch 15 very quick rabbits each time they were out to put them back into their cage. It became exhausting. The large cage had drop through hardware cloth wiring so all the poop dropped through into piles which we picked up, put in compost pile, and mixed into ground. Grew great vegetables. Eventually sold them because at that rate of reproduction I would have soon been drownding in rabbits.
Maybe sheep would be better for keeping the grass short? Our Kiwi neighbor has a place over in New Zealand and they have a flock of sheep specifically for trimming the grass.
If you still happen to have problems with grass in your lot you can try to raise a turkeys.. They would really clean it all up for you.. I’ve read from another post of yours that you had a somewhat a not so great encounter with them turkeys.. You can raise Sasso chicken as well… After all Turkey/Sasso meat would contribute to good eating.. : )
paeng, I would love to raise chickens at some point… but first, I need to get rid of some goats, he original 3 are now 6, just a year later!
Wow!! 6 goats already!…. That’s a lot of good to eat meat if you ask me..yum yum.. You can sell them if you want to.. That’s how you got it in the first place.. :)
i prefer turkey rather than sasso in eating grass but you need to have fence for them not to roam around all over the place. as of now i have 10 heads of turkeys not to include the 15 heads sold last christmas, four heads of sasso and numerous native chicken and their chicks, four heads of goats including boer and white baby goat.
goats are the cleanest animal…..