Dapper Goat Dairy Farm is a company outside of Gonzales, Texas run by Kelly Allen. They make a variety of dairy products, most importantly: goat cheese. They have a wide range of flavors that are all particularly delicious especially with some crackers.

We are pleased to share the process of creating said cheese and the story of the life of the goats that make it as a special Tuesday Top 10 this week.

All captions and photos by Zanna Allen.

IT ALL STARTS HERE: Baby goats on the farm are kept in a separate pen due to different feeding schedules. These kids can’t produce milk yet, but once they can, they will be moved in with the rest of the herd. Goats only produce milk when they are pregnant, and then a few years after giving birth. To keep up with production rates, the goats need to be bred on a regular basis. “More babies means more goats means more milk,” farmhand Chelsea Smith said.

LIFE IN THE HERD: Goats are naturally social animals, and when living in a herd they establish a herd pecking order; however, because this group is only female, to prevent diseases and unwanted pregnancies, the order is somewhat different. Typically there is a hierarchy of dominance: mother over child, horns over none. Not all females have horns but those who do are usually dominant over those without horns. A herd will appoint a “flock queen,” who choses grazing areas and can warn the flock of dangerous or inedible plants. Goats are not fully domesticated, however, which means goats see humans in their order of hierarchy. Goats can relate humans as their Goat Queen or Top Buck, so their system of order in a farm setting will be totally unique. When a new human walks into the herd carrying a strange device that makes clicking noises, it would be the same as if a weird new goat came in. So the goats display varying degrees of wariness and curiosity.
“They might take a second to get used to you, but they’re really sweet,” Smith said. “They’re just like weird looking dogs.”

DON’T RUB ME THE WRONG WAY: Goats rub their heads together as a sign of trust and affection. Here, two goats share a little love. “Aw, little love bugs, I bet they’re friends,” Smith said. Goats will even do this with humans. If a goat feels positively about a person, it may rub its head on them to show its affection. This is different from goats habit of butting heads. Goats butt heads to establish dominance and their hierarchy.

AIN’T NOTHING BUT A WATCHDOG: This Great Pyrenees isn’t here to cuddle: she’s got a job to do. She and one other dog sit with the goats when the people working on the farm can’t be there to protect them from predators or anyone else wanting a bite of these caprine ladies. Guard dogs aren’t accustomed to the luxurious life of a pet dog. They spend long hours on high alert, so much so that this dog’s tail is long and matted into dreadlocks. All in all, they’re some of the most reliable watch dogs you can get. “You wouldn’t believe how well they watch them,” Smith said. “They really are much better at it than any person could be. They’ve got the hearing and the nose for it.”

TAG, YOU’RE IT! Tags are useful in many ways to a farm. This particular goat has her tag in her left ear, signifying that she is female. Tags can also be used to keep track of the goat’s flock number, year of birth, company, time of birth or contact information in case it gets out. Tags come in many different colors, which can be used to indicate what year the goat was born. “Half the goats we got look the exact same,” Smith said. “We need tags to be able to tell who’s who and what’s what.”

GOT MILK?  Milking the goats is the first step in the process of making cheese. The goats are loaded onto this platform daily to be milked. They are given food where their heads are placed to keep them calm and distracted. Goats lactate for most of the year; however, for one season they do not milk them to “dry them up.” During peak lactation, goats can be milked twice a day. “Goats don’t particularly want to be milked, so it has to be a well-oiled machine for everything to go smoothly,” Smith said.

COLLECTION: This is where the milk is collected, the tubes connect to the goat’s udders and pump the milk without much effort from the farmers. The milk is then brought through a pipe into the next room where the next step of cheese production can begin. The whole milking event, however, is incredibly noisy and chaotic. “Those there are the suction parts that get us all the milk,” Smith said.

JUST CHILL: This is the second part of the cheese process. The milk just pumped is brought into this cooler and kept at around 32 degrees. This keeps the milk fresh and prepares it for pasteurization. Recently, Dapper Goat Dairy has begun to sell raw milk which has brought in more revenue than they were expecting. Raw milk does not need to be pasteurized so it is taken out of the chiller and bottled to sell. The rest goes through some more pipes to the room next door. “Now that we’ve started selling raw milk, it’s become a decision of milk or cheese at this stage,” company owner Kelly Allen said.

PASTEURIZATION STATION: Finally, the milk will go into the pasteurizer, which will heat the milk to kill off all of the bacteria. The milk is heated to around 147 degrees and sits in there for about half an hour. The mixture is then taken out and rennet is added. The rennet separates the curds from the whey. Rennet is found in many places, but at Dapper Goat they use plant-sourced rennet. The mixture is then put through a cheesecloth, and the whey is squeezed out. However, this doesn’t get all the whey out, the curds are hung up on a rack for a few hours for the rest of the whey to drip out. Once this is complete, the curds are added to a mixer and mixed together along with salt, spices and other ingredients to make their wide variety of flavors. “I mean, it’s good cheese,” Allen said. “I’m proud I make it.”

SQUEAKY CLEAN: Other than making cheese and milk, Dapper Goat makes a variety of soaps to sell at the farmers market. Here, the soap sits on a tray to be packaged. For Dapper Goat, it’s a great source of revenue. Soap is not expensive to make, it only requires a few ingredients and steps. Each bar sells for around $6 and costs around 50 cents to make. It also only needs a small amount of goat milk, so that more can be focused on making cheese. “The soap is actually great,” Allen said. “It has the same pH as your body, which means it keeps your hand soft and healthy. Heck, I use it for everything. I used to have dandruff, but I don’t anymore because of it.”