Victoberfest!!

  

  

                                    

Parking for Victoberfest!

The Second Annual Victoberfest was held at Victory Hill Farm on the 14th of October. Victory Hill Farm is a dairy goat farm about five miles north of Scottsbluff run by Sarah Pena. The farm has dairy goats, some meat goats, horses, chickens, and pigs, although much of the farm's income comes from goat and sheep cheeses. Sarah makes and sells amazing chevre, feta, gouda, and cheddar from her goats' milk and ricotta and cheddar from sheep's milk. Sarah sells her cheeses and meat at the Scottsbluff Farmer's Market and directly from the farm.

The pigs were happy, well-fed little porkers, snuffling and snorting around their enclosure looking for spare food scraps. They are fed the leftover whey from the cheese-making process, doing their part to help reduce waste from the whole process. While not exactly cuddly with their bristly hair, who can resist those curly tails?

   

Happy whey-fed piggies 

                  

One of these things is not like the other...

Like all dairy animals, goats need to have kids in order to produce milk. Yes, baby goats are called kids, just like people. So small-scale dairy goat farms will have both mama goats and kids, as well as a few bucks that are kept apart from the ladies to control when pregnancies happen. The milking goats are the workers on the farm and are milked daily. Cheese is also made daily, or every other day depending on milk production.

Goat eyes are so cool.

         The giant spools are there to provide the goats something to climb on. Goats love to climb on things.

The dry goats are the baby goats that are not old enough to be milkers. These young goats are kept separate from the milkers, and were very excited to see all of the visitors to the farm. Having eaten all of the cottonwood leaves inside their enclosure, the little goatlings were politely begging cottonwood leaves from everyone on the outside of the fence. Seeing as cottonwood leaves aren't bad for the goatlings, I happily obliged their whims and collected leaves for them.             

   The goats here have all different types of ears. The elf-eared goats look as though their ears have been clipped, but they're just naturally small, delicate, and pointed.

                                                    

Elf-Ears!

And more elf-ears!

         

Swiss-type ears

More elf-ears!

I'm going to have elf-eared goats on my dairy farm.

 What celebration would be complete without pony rides? Especially with such beautiful little ponies? These little guys were tuckered out about halfway through the afternoon, and backup ponies were brought in. Unfortunately I was too tall to ride the ponies, so I just took photos.

How cute is he?

Pony wagon ride!

There was a chicken feed machine where you could put in a quarter and get a handful of chicken kibble for these lovely, laying ladies.

Elizabethan neck feathers

Communal dust bath

     

There are also a few horses that live on the farm and help with the haying and other farm chores. These beauties live between the milkers and the goatlings, and have learned well one of the hazards of living next door to goats: you lose your tail. All of the Victory Hill horses have short, sheared tails thanks to the nibbling goat neighbors.

Short tails are in fashion this season.

Fall colors have once again come to the high plains, albeit more muted this year due to the severe drought. Instead of the reds, yellow, and oranges of New England, western Nebraska has the golden browns and russets of prairie grasses and dried feed corn.