Tag: goat milk lotion

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Goats

February Featured Animal

I want to spend a little time each month highlighting one of the animals on our farm. If we didn’t have livestock, we wouldn’t have a business, so we want to give them some recognition!

Holly is the February feature! She loves the camera and likes to have her picture taken. I’m sure she knows she’s pretty!

The animal of the month for February is Holly. Holly is a 4-year-old registered Lamancha dairy goat. She is our friendliest goat because she was a bottle baby. That means she is also the one who is always in the way and “helping” when we are doing something near the goats. We have her one and only daughter so far, on our farm with her. Her birthday is April 29th.

Holly had a bit of a rough start and was rejected by her mom at birth. Her back legs didn’t work when she was born. Colton spent quite a bit of time working with her to get her up and going. She spent some time living in a box in our kitchen until she started walking on her own. I always said I would never have sheep or goats in my house…never say never! I wrote about Colton saving her here: Colton and Holly.

Colton has shown Holly at our county fair a couple of times. She never places well because she is cow-hocked (back legs turn in at the hock) and doesn’t have the best confirmation but he still loves taking her. She is his favorite goat with her daughter, Ivy, a close second. Holly loves food and is almost always the first one to the feed trough or hay feeder when they are refilled. Pumpkins or winter squash are a favorite snack for her. She will almost always have an orange face when we treat them to winter squash because she rubs her whole face in it.

Holly has only had one kid, Ivy. She didn’t breed the first year we tried but did last year. She is also bred this year and due to kid in March. Some of our goats have miscarried their babies this year so we are watching her closely. Colton is hoping she has at least one doeling so he can keep it in the herd.

Holly is one of the dairy goats that provides milk for all of our goat milk soaps and lotions. She is usually the third one to be milked. It is amazing how the goats quickly learn the routine and will line themselves up at the gate and for the most part stay in order. They are smart creatures!

Her favorite treats are pumpkins but if those aren’t in season she also likes orange peels. Holly enjoys the leaves of thorny Locust trees and helps to keep them under control by regularly eating the saplings down in the pasture. She is almost always cooperative while milking unless she runs out of alfalfa pellets. When that happens she refuses to stand still until her feed bin is refilled.

When you purchase one of our goat milk soaps or lotions, there’s a good chance that some of Holly’s milk is in it! You can check out all of our goat milk skincare products as well as our other products here https://14handsranchks.com/ranch-store/.

Here are some pictures of Holly over the years. She is well-loved and will hopefully have a long, happy life here at 14 Hands Ranch!

Categories
4-H Agriculture Goat Milk Lotion Goat Milk Soap Goats Livestock

Animal of the Month

I want to spend a little time each month highlighting one of the animals on our farm. If we didn’t have livestock, we wouldn’t have a business to begin with, so it seems like a good idea to give them some recognition!

This is Stormy with her set of twins from a couple of years ago.

The animal of the month for January is Stormy. Stormy is a 6-year-old registered Lamancha dairy goat. She is our oldest goat. We have 3 of her daughters on our farm with her. Her birthday is April 1st. Hailey named her Stormy because she was born on a stormy night; yes we choose very original and unique names around here.

Hailey and Colton have both shown her at our county fair. She has a sweet personality and is a very personable goat. However, Stormy prefers to do her own thing most of the time rather than follow the rest of the goat herd. Stormy strongly prefers the weather in spring, summer, and fall. When it starts to get to around 40 degrees or below, she chooses to stay in their shelter unless fresh hay or grain has just been delivered.

Stormy is always a good mama and usually has twins. Interestingly, all of her babies have been mostly black with just a small amount of white on them just like her with the exception of one (pictured above). We are hoping she will have at least one doeling again this year when she kids in March or April.

Stormy is one of the dairy goats that provide milk for all of our goat milk soaps and lotions. She is always the first one in line to go to the milk stand for milking and does NOT like it if another goat pushes out the gate in front of her. Her favorite treats are alfalfa pellets and orange rinds. She also really likes a spring sapling with new green leaves, my peach trees are a particular favorite of hers. Stormy is always a good girl when being milked and never steps in or kicks the bucket, which is greatly appreciated by the person milking her.

When you purchase one of our goat milk soaps or lotions, there’s a good chance that some of Stormy’s milk is in it! You can check out all of our goat milk skincare products as well as our other products here https://14handsranchks.com/ranch-store/.

Here are some pictures of Stormy over the years. I didn’t have as many of her as I thought I did becasue she doesn’t really hang out with the other goats. Almost all of my photos of her are of her taking care of her babies which shows how good of a mama she is. We love Stormy and hope to have her around for several more years!

The morning she was born. Hailey is holding her.
Her first set of babies.
Categories
Goat Milk Lotion

January’s Featured Product

Welcome to 2024! We will be starting a new featured product spotlight every month. This will come out the first week of every month and will give you information about the product and a discount code to use if you purchase it.

January’s featured product is our Goat Milk Lotion. By now many people who are experiencing winter temperatures have dry and itchy skin from the cold, dry weather. Our creamy, goat milk lotion, made with only natural ingredients, is perfect for winter skin. We offer a variety of scents as well as unscented.

Goat milk provides several benefits to skincare products. It is a gentle cleanser and helps to maintain your skin’s natural moisture. Goat milk is rich in nutrients such as vitamins and minerals as well as helping to reduce inflammation. It can even help to reduce wrinkles and acne while soothing dry, damaged skin. The benefit that was most important to me though was that it is less allergenic than products containing synthetic ingredients.

Several years ago, I experienced skin issues that included itchy, dry skin, and rashes. It felt like my skin was itching on the inside. Looking for relief, I went down the rabbit hole of natural skincare products. When I discovered goat milk products and the benefits from them, it seemed like a natural solution since we were already raising dairy goats.

This led to a lot of research and trial and error when I began to make my soaps and lotions. The relief from the skin issues I had been having was almost immediate after I began to use our products daily. My skin was no longer itching inside or out, no more rashes, or dry skin. I have experimented with adding synthetic fragrance oils to my lotions and that will make all of the symptoms flair up again. For that reason, you will never find synthetic fragrance oils used to scent our products. We promise to always use the best, most natural ingredients we can find so that our products are great for all skin ages and types.

If you are looking for a more natural skincare option for your skin, I encourage you to check out our Goat Milk Lotion. During January, we will be giving a 10% discount on all purchases of our lotion. Just use the code featuredproduct23. It cannot be combined with other coupons.

We hope you enjoy our Goat Milk Lotions!

Categories
Agriculture Goat Milk Lotion Goat Milk Soap Goats Made In Kansas

Making the Switch to Goat Milk Soap & Lotion

Updated February 2023

It’s been almost three years since we made the switch to using goat milk soap and 2 years since we started using only goat milk lotion. Today, I want to share some of the reasons we now only use goat milk soap and lotion. We had slowly been trying to switch over to more natural products for our home and skincare.

As I was researching natural soaps and skincare, it was pretty easy to conclude that we needed to pay more attention to what we put ON our bodies just as much as it is what we put IN our bodies. Goat milk soap kept coming up as a recommended soap in the articles I was reading. Since I had a deep freezer full of goat milk I decided to give goat milk soap making a try. We had originally saved the milk for any bummer lambs or kids that we might have but hadn’t needed it. The goats were also due to start kidding soon so I wasn’t worried about needing the milk for anything other than soap making experiments. My sister-in-law had made some soap as well and she reassured me that I could do it too!

During my research I learned that goat milk is rich in fatty acids that make it a gentle cleanser and moisturizer. The cream in goat milk has an anti-inflammatory effect. These fatty acids help to lock in moisture and nourish your skin. The lactic acid in goat milk also acts an exfoliate helping to keep your skin clear. Your skin is the largest organ on your body – what you put on it matters! Take a look at the ingredients list on a normal bar of soap or bottle of body wash, how many of the words can you pronounce and do you even know what most of the ingredients are? Goat milk is mild and gentle enough that even people of all ages and with very sensitive skin can use it without having it dry out or irritate their skin.

I tried a few different recipes and our family started using the soap. It was important to me as I started making soap, and later lotion, that only natural, easy to pronounce ingredients were used. As our family switched to goat milk soap no one ever complained about it – and in a large family that’s a big deal! In fact, they liked it. The kids liked that we could customize the scents as well. The final thing that convinced me that goat milk soap was the best for our family, was when we went through the entire winter last year and no one complained of dry itchy skin like they usually would.

Ironically, after switching to goat milk soap, lotions started to make me itch, especially after shaving. It didn’t seem to matter what kind of lotion (I was already using a fairly natural lotion) or shaving cream I used, it always felt like my skin itched underneath. I’m not really sure why it took me so long to think of it but after a few months of this, a light bulb went off and I decided that I should probably try making my own goat milk lotion as well. After making and using goat milk lotion for a few days the itching went away and hasn’t came back!

I have used mostly essential oil for the scent in all of my soaps and lotions but I did try a couple of frangrance oils. However, even with all of the other ingredients being natural, I couldn’t use my own soap or lotion if it had frangrance oil for the scent. Now you will only find high quality essentail oils for the scent in our soaps, lotions, and lip balms.

Our family now uses our goat milk soap for face wash, body wash, and I use it for shaving as well. Our goat milk lotion is a great allover moisturizer. I use the unscented and lavender lotion on my face daily without it causing a breakout.

I enjoy making the soaps and lotions in small batches and experimenting with new combinations. My current favorite soap is Lavender Orange. It smells so good and fresh! This week I will be making Unscented Honey and Oatmeal to restock it and experimenting with a Calendula soap. I grow calendula to use in a healing salve I make so why not use it in soap!

Switching our soap and lotion to natural products has led to using more natural candles and other cleaning products but thats another post for another day!

If you are interested in trying any of our goat milk soaps or lotions head over to our Ranch Store. Or if you have been using our products and enjoy them, please leave a review and share our page with others. You can also subscribe to our newsletter so you will always be the first to know when products are restocked – just scroll down to the bottom of any of our pages and you will find the box to enter your email.

As always, please contact us with any questions you might have!

~Jada