Murdock goat farmers develop plans for on-the-farm creamery

By Carolyn Lange | West Central Tribune

Carmen Maus had no intention of having a goat on her rural Murdock farm.

And yet, when she and her good friend Theresa Smith went to a livestock auction in 2017 in Benson, there she was, buying a goat.

“He was so stinking cute, so I bid on it,” said Maus, of rural Murdock. “I hugged him and I loved him and I named him George.” It was her “gateway” goat, she said. Now, Maus, her husband, Ryan, and Smith have about 100 dairy goats in their limited liability partnership — and that was at the beginning of this year’s kidding season that could bring the total number of goats to nearly 300.

For the last couple of years, the three-person team began using the milk from their goats to make handcrafted soap and lotion that they then sell at farmers markets and craft shows.

As the herd quickly grows, the partnership, which operates under the name C-R Farm, is preparing to take the business to the next level.

If everything in its business plan falls into place, by this time next year, C-R Farm will be operating an on-the-farm micro-creamery to bottle its own goat milk and make goat cheese that will be sold in retail outlets in a region stretching from Murdock to St. Cloud to Marshall.

The partners used time during the pandemic to research creamery requirements — including licensing with state and federal agencies — and have sought construction bids and financing. They further tested cheese-making recipes and courted markets to sell their goat milk and cheese.

Every single goat on the C-R Farm in rural Murdock has a name. The farm currently has about 100 goats, but that was at the start of the 2022 kidding season and there were about 70 bred does yet to give birth, meaning that more more names will have to be found for more goats. This doe is named Toppy.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

Based on their product research and one-on-one visits with potential vendors, the team is confident there’s a ready market for locally produced, made and bottled goat milk and goat cheese.

“There is a market for it,” said Ryan Maus, who will take on the role of cheesemonger. “If we could sell cheese today we would sell out every day.”

When the three friends first teamed up with the LLP, the primary goal of raising goats wasn’t to just make money but to “try to make money with what we enjoy doing,” said Smith. “We have our hearts in it,” she said.

Carmen Maus, one of three partners in C-R Farm in rural Murdock that has plans to open a micro creamery to make cheese and bottle goat milk, snuggles with a newborn goat Jan. 5, 2022.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

Kidding around with goats

Acquiring goats is like eating potato chips, said Smith. You can’t have just one.

For years Smith had a few dairy goats that her daughters showed at fairs for 4-H. When the family went on vacation Carmen and Ryan would take care of Smith’s goats. “Hated them,” said Carmen. “I said I’d never have goats.” But then there was George, and now there are well over 100 goats on the Maus farm.

Smith, who has a vet tech degree, has the primary role of herd health; Carmen (who is the only one currently without an off-the-farm-job) does a majority of the feeding and twice-a-day milking; and Ryan has maintenance covered.

The herd includes a variety of breeds: Nigerian dwarfs, Oberhasli, Alpine, Nubian, Saanen Lamancha and some mixed breeds.

Raised primarily on pasture grass in the summer, the goats consume a considerable amount of hay in the winter, along with supplemental grains. With the drought last summer reducing hay cuttings, C-R Farm was forced to purchase hay.

Smith’s expertise with herd health included giving a doe with milk fever this winter a good dose of “goat magic,” which is an elixir of molasses, corn syrup, canola oil and antacid tablets dissolved in hot water.

“It brought her back,” said Carmen of the doe. “She was on death’s door.”

Theresa Smith, left, and Carmen and Ryan Maus, take a break after the evening milking of goats at C-R Farm in rural Murdock on Jan. 5, 2022. The three business partners currently use the milk to make soap and lotion. They plan to open a micro creamery by the end of 2022 to make cheese and bottle goat milk.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

All three partners are in the barn for the 5:30 p.m. milking, which includes does prancing up a ramp to a platform that brings the goat’s udders to eye level.

The barn, which had been used for dairy cows in the past, is still equipped with a pipeline system that’s now used for the goats. They can currently milk four goats at a time.

It’s all hands on deck during kidding season, which started in early January this year.

The kids are separated from their mothers shortly after birth and are fed bottles of fresh milk from the daily milkings. Sitting on a hay bale in the middle of a pen full of hungry kids is a blur of activity as baby goats scramble onto the lap of whoever is holding the bottle of milk.

The kids are given milk for about three months.

Because all the babies are bottle-fed and handled every day, they “want to be in your pocket all the time,” said Carmen. That one-on-one interaction with the babies makes it easier to handle the goats when they’re adults, especially those that will be milked.

Carmen Maus feeds newborn goats bottles of fresh goat milk at the C-R Farm on Jan. 5, 2022, as business partner Theresa Smith looks on.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

Raising goats on the C-R Farm includes bestowing unique names to each one as soon as they’re born.

The names of the kids typically correlate with the mother’s name. So when Truffle had five babies, her kids were named Peppermint Patty BonBon, Coco Bon, Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter Cup and Tootsie Roll.

There’s also Reba McEngoat, who gave birth to Patsy Climb and Tammy Whynot, and Twix had a kid named Kit Kat.

Theresa Smith, front, and Carmen Maus milk goats at C-R Farm in rural Murdock on Jan. 5, 2022. The two women and Maus’ husband, Ryan, are business partners who currently use their goat milk to make soap and lotion.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

The father of most of the 2022 crop of kids is officially named Hay Creek Ahna Honey I’m Good.

“We call him Andy,” said Carmen.

Each goat has such a distinctive personality that it only seems appropriate to give them each a name, said Carmen. She scoffs when asked how she remembers each goat and each name.

“If you have two dogs you don’t forget one of their names, because you know them so well,” she said.” We spend every day with these guys, so we know them really well.”

Carmen and Ryan Maus pour warm liquid soap, made from goat milk, into trays Jan. 5, 2022. After the soap hardens it will cure for three weeks as part of the chemical reaction called saponification that allows the lye and fat to become soap that’s gentle on skin.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

Smooth operators

In a demonstration, Carmen Maus puts frozen goat milk in a kettle and slowly stirs in white powdered lye. As she steadily stirs, the lye heats up the milk so much that the outside of the kettle gets hot to the touch.

The chemical reaction is normal in making homemade soap, she said, and the lye must be added slowly and steadily stirred to prevent the milk from scorching.

On another kettle she heats up a kettle of lard, which she rendered from hogs that were raised on the family farm, along with coconut oil, olive oil, cocoa butter and castor oil that’s added to the goat milk and lye mixture.

Powdered color is added to a kettle of goat milk and lye that’s used to make soap at C-R Farm in rural Murdock.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

Different colors and fragrances are added to each batch of the liquid before it’s poured into decorative molds. After the soap hardens, the four-ounce bars are popped out of the molds and left to air dry on racks for at least three weeks in a process called saponification, which creates a chemical reaction to turn the lye and fat into soap that’s gentle on skin.

Goat milk lotion is made by heating up fresh goat milk and distilled water in one kettle while almond oil, wax, shea butter, avocado oil and vitamin E are melted in another..

After the ingredients cool and essential oils or fragrances are added, an immersion blender is used to “whip it until it gets all emulsified,” said Carmen.

Smith had been making soap and lotion on a small scale before teaming up with Carmen and Ryan.

They created the LLP in 2019 and in 2020, as the pandemic started to take hold, they increased the number of goats they milked and began producing larger quantities of soap and lotion, which has proven to be a profitable aspect of their business.

“We think our product is great, so we wanted to share it,” said Carmen. “We have done very well at farmers markets.”

A bar of soap sells for $7 and the lotion ranges from $7-10.

A variety of soaps and lotions, made from goat milk produced on C-R Farm in rural Murdock, is on display at the on-farm store Jan. 5, 2022.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

Creamery dream

A thick notebook with regulatory, licensing, financial and construction plans provides an outline for C-R Farm to build an on-the-farm micro creamery. They intend to retrofit existing buildings to meet regulatory requirements.

There are layers of inspections and approval needed before grants and loans can be pursued and before construction can begin, but the partners are hopeful they’ll be making cheese by the end of the year, followed by bottling goat milk.

“We’re waiting on some numbers so we can get funding,” said Carmen.

They have plans to add a public viewing area behind glass in hopes of meshing the goat creamery with agri-tourism.

The name of C-R Farm (C is for Carmen and the R is for Ryan) creates a clever invitation to “come see-our-farm,” Carmen said. “It’s a play on words.”

When they’re at full milking speed, they anticipate generating 40 gallons of goat milk every day.

Soap made from goat milk is set to dry and harden Jan. 5, 2022, at C-R Farm in rural Murdock. A bar of soap sells for $7 and the lotion ranges from $7-10.

Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune

Because goat milk is “naturally homogenized,” it’s usually sold as whole milk, she said, adding that goat milk contains magnesium, selenium, vitamins A-E and, because it has smaller protein molecules than cow milk, it can be easier for humans to digest.

Everything — from how the bottles are mechanically sealed to what the labels look like — must be approved by regulatory agencies before the creamery can be launched.

Ryan has been testing out different varieties of cheese, including sweet and savory chevre and a feta-like cheese. He eventually intends to add mozzarella and hard cheeses to the menu.

They intend to make cheese on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, bottle milk on Tuesdays and Thursdays and use the weekend milk for lotion and soap.

“We want to have all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed and put milk in a jar by the end of the year,” Carmen said.

Carolyn Lange retired from the West Central Tribune in February 2022.