Kids Cooking Green visits Bedford Blueberry Goat Farm

As dusk settled on a recent wintery afternoon, a group of 5th graders with a local after-school cooking program, Kids Cooking Green, paid a visit to Bedford Blueberry Goat Farm. As the goats nibbled on a Christmas tree, Farmer Ann, a researcher and award-winning scientist who taught at Harvard Medical School for years, shared her experience raising these goats and how she's running the dairy and farm.

She told the students that the goats are from Switzerland, and are excellent milk producers. Farmer Ann told the kids as much as goats like to nibble at coats, etc., they really are picky eaters, favoring hay and similar greens. They also don't have upper teeth, but do have really strong molars in the back of their mouth. 

The goats are also really good with people. They quickly trotted over to their milking stations in the dairy, and proceeded to chew some snacks from a bucket as the children lined up to try milking them. "Warm!" was the most consistent reaction as kids squeezed the goats' udders and watched the milk squirt into the bucket. 

Farmer Ann explained that the pasteurization process means heating the milk only to 145 degrees, so it keeps the good nutrients and gets rid only of the bad stuff. The kids all got a blue ribbon that said "I milked a dairy goat" and received some milk to drink (see picture of them holding up their small jugs of milk!) I can say that the milk is delicious! You can purchase Bedford Blueberry Goat Farm's milk at Wilson Farms in Lexington and Dave's Fresh Pasta in Somerville.