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Open day picnic review

The Farm Picnic day went well.

The day was blustery and cool so we think that deterred people but the experience was still fun for those that came. We had lots of complements on the cheese being delicious.

Everyone enjoyed holding the baby Kids. The girls helped here and where great. The Boys helped on the farm trail and everyone helped get the farm ready so Wow! Spring cleaning all done!

The farm looks great even the wisteria is in flower, usually eaten by now by Crimson Rosella’s! It was a great trial run and we hope to develop the idea so more families know about it. Anyway check out the photos below on it when you get time and give us any suggestions or feed back.

If you have a group that wants to visit the farm please contact us via email or phone and organise a time. We would love to have you. You might be travelling past please drop in, call or email if you want make sure we don’t miss you!

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Jannei – School Holidays Picnic

This is late notice but families and singles who love our cheese or goats are welcome at our picnic day. We are having 1/2 hourly tours of the farm & tastings of cheese 11am till 3pm October the 3rd. B.Y.O picnic.

Then also a mud map self guided tour to go slow around the farm and experience nature with the family.

The idea is to join a tour or cheese tasting when you are ready and in between have a picnic and pet the goats as you go on the 10minute walk /half hour trail. The goats will be fed at 2.30pm finish- 3pm.

Its $10 a family that’s two adults with children or $5 for singles. We are setting up a WC so all good. Praying for good weather now!

Download   Broshure here.

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A visit to Jannei Goat dairy

WE’RE LATE. It’s a grey rainy day in November as we head west along the Great Western Highway past Lithgow heading for Jannei Goat Dairy at Lidsdale. However all is well when we do eventually arrive at Jannei, as Neil and Janette Watson are too busy packing up their cheeses for the following day’s Pyrmont Growers Market in Sydney to be concerned about our late arrival.
The Watsons started their cheese making here in 1995 when Neil decided he wanted a change from teaching agricultural science at a school in Portland. When looking for an alternative income, it’s not surprising that Neil would be thinking milk. He grew up on a dairy farm in that wonderful, rain-blessed dairying country around Wauchope on the NSW central coast.
Initially they intended to sell their fresh goat milk into the Sydney market but found this was not profitable in the volumes they could produce. So Janette supported Neil’s experiments with cheese making.
He started with hard cheeses in 1996, but soon found that what his customers in Sydney really wanted was fresh curd. Just about the only goat curd available in Sydney at the time was coming from Gabriel Kervella in Western Australia. So local chefs and retailers were delighted to have a truly local product. From this base product, Neil has added many award winning cheeses such as their Bent Back Chev, Buche noir and Chevrotin.
Cheese making takes place six days a week and while Neil is busy with the curd, Janette uses her background in advertising and design to market their cheeses to an ever-increasing number of customers.
Jannei milks around eighty goats (mostly Saanen) from a herd of one hundred producing about 130kg of cheese a week. Ninety percent of this is delivered weekly into the Sydney market where Simon Johnson is the main distributor.
Diet for the goats is very important to Neil who goes to great lengths to ensure that every goat in the herd is in peak condition, thus ensuring the highest quality milk for cheese making.
In June 2007 Neil had major heart surgery. During his hospitalisation and subsequent recovery Janette took responsibility for all aspects of the business, including the cheese making. So now they often work together in the cheese making room. The weekly trips Janette makes to the Growers Markets she says are hard work. With the long travel time, some days are barely profitable. Jannette says she looks past the sales and considers it important to be there, as it is their only regular marketing exercise.
If you would like to visit the dairy for a tasting or purchases of their cheese, phone first to check that either Neil or Janette are available. Blessed are the cheese makers.

article by – RF. Russell Smith, www.regionalfood.com.au

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An interview on ABC

Farming dairy goats and making award-winning cheeses isn’t something Neil Watson planned.

It’s a career, business and lifestyle he and wife Janette just sort of fell into.

“We started in 1995 and it sort of happened by mistake really,” he laughs.

“We had 40 acres and we thought ‘surely there’s some sort of farming we can do on a small acreage and make a living’.

“So we decided to try dairy goats.”

The couple bought a small mob of dairy goats and started farming them as a hobby west of Lithgow in NSW.

“The cheese making happened when we realised that selling fresh milk was quite competitive.”

“We then decided to experiment with cheese making and we found out we could do it,” Mr Watson laughs.

“Although I was trained in agriculture, I wasn’t specifically trained in cheese making.

“So over the years it’s just gradually developed and grown and it’s turned into quite a successful small business.”

The couple has won dozens of awards for their cheeses.

“It’s pretty hard to win awards, it’s quite competitive,” Mr Watson says.

“But we always manage to win here and there.

“We won our first award in 1998 at the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association Cheese Show in Melbourne.

“We make a number of different varieties of cheeses.

“Some are hard, but our most popular ones are the fresh cheeses, which are soft.

“Then we do some white mold cheeses as well.

“We also sell fresh milk and yoghurt.”

The couple’s cheeses are in high demand.

“Most of our cheese goes to Sydney to supply restaurants,” he says.

There are about 120 milking does at the Jannei Goat Dairy at Lidsdale.

“We milk up to 80 every year,” Neil Watson says.

“We sell a lot of the young females on the export market.

“But we keep quite a few too for replacements and to grow the herd a bit more.”

It’s currently kidding time at the farm.

The piercing bleat of baby goats can be heard ringing out across the paddocks.

“We’ve got kids everywhere,” he says.

“It’s normal for goats to have twins and triplets are fairly common as well.

“We shut the baby goats up in pens so they don’t wander off and get lost.

“Then when we let them out there’s big rush as they all try to find their mothers.”

After the goats have given birth and fed their offspring, the amount of milk they produce starts to rise.

“Our goats average about two litres of milk a day,” Neil Watson says.

“But it can get up to four or five litres.

“[That enables us] to get that cash-flow going and we can afford to buy in the grain and hay to feed the goats.

“We feed them lucerne hay, oats and grain.

“We’ve started buying the big bales of hay because it’s a lot more economic.

“Our feed bill is our main expense.”

Mr Watson says there are only about four or five goat dairies in NSW.

“We’re probably the only registered goat dairy in the state’s Central West.”

Interview by Brad Markham from Lidsdale 2790, Wednesday, 02/09/2009