Goat dairy provides new challenge for Eagle Lake couple

By MONETTE TAYLOR | South Central Texas

June 28, 2001 -- "The thing was...I couldn't drink cow milk and we went to his uncle's, and his uncle had goats. I said, 'You know, we need to get a couple of goats.' I never dreamed this would happen!" said Billie Williamson who, along with her husband, Tom, has a goat dairy just outside of Eagle Lake in Wharton County.

While dairies are new to Billie, Tom was reared around cow dairies.

"My dad had a small dairy for a while, then he quit and everyone around us had dairies, so I worked on dairies when I was growing up.

"We tried to do a goat dairy in Mississippi, but they didn't want pasteurized milk.

"They wanted raw milk, and they had a law that said you don't sell raw milk...period," said Tom.

While goat dairies are fairly new to the area, Williamson said there had been a lady in the Waller area who had one for a while.

"She went out of business...Mother Nature pretty much put her out of business. "She had a couple of tornadoes and a flood, and after all of that, she couldn't survive all that stuff. I bought most all of her equipment," said Williamson.

The Williamsons have around 100 head of goats. Some are Alpine, originally from the Alps and France, and La Manchas, originally from Spain.

There are crossbreeds, too, according to Williamson.

Days start around 4 a.m. with the first milking and ends after a 4 p.m. milking.

"First thing we do when we get to the barn is move them (goats) out, put their food out, bring them through and milk them and turn them out. They go right back to feed and water," said Williamson.

Milking the 35 head of goats takes around an hour and a half, and most goats produce about a gallon of milk a day.

All milking facilities and pens have piped in music, 24 hours a day, which Williamson believes keeps predators away and the goats seem to stay calm, too.

By the time the dairy is in full operation, they will include a pasteurizer, holding tanks, a bottler and a capper.

The holding tanks will chill up to 200 gallons of milk at a time, according to Williamson.

"I've had two different people approach me about distributing the milk. That would be great! I won't have to go put it in stores or anything like that," he said.

Presently, the Williamsons sell their goat milk to Cheesemakers, Inc. in Cleveland and the cheese produced is marketed to grocery stores in the Houston and Austin areas.

"I've learned how to make the cheese and the butterfat varies according to the time of the year. I have all these cookbooks, but I change the recipe before I ever make it, so I do the same thing with cheese. People say, 'You can't make cheese like that,' but I do.

"One day, somebody said, 'Well, your cheese isn't yellow.' I said, what color is milk?" laughed Billie.

The goats produce about 212 gallons of milk a week, mostly from does who have had kids. They consume over 100 pounds of feed a day.

"You get some precocious milkers which you can milk before they have a kid, but most of these have already had kids, which is why they are milkers. "We have had a couple of the precocious milkers that we just couldn't wait until they had a kid. They started milking without even being bred."

While milk containers continue to change at the stores, research has shown that the clear containers do not keep the milk fresh as long as other containers.

"I know they put milk in these white containers or pretty containers, but the light is what kills the milk and keeps it from lasting a long time.

"I use stainless steel containers for our milk at the house. It will last a week and a half or two weeks.

"You can't pick up milk in a store and it last that long," said Billie.

All of the goats are registered with the American Dairy Goat Association and the Williamson's goal is to be a Grade A dairy, once everything is in place.

This will mean they have met all the qualifications needed, according to guidelines in place by the USDA, concerning inspections for quality control, facilities, equipment evaluations, sanitation of processing equipment and pasteurizing temperature of the milk.

Meanwhile, the goats will continue to provide milk for the cheese producers and be curious about what is going on around them.

"If curiosity killed the cat, it's sure to kill a goat!" said Tom.