HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-07-29, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1987. PAGE 5.
Goats for milk more than drop
in the bucket for Morris family
For the VanderSterre family of Morris Township, milking goats was the ideal way to get into the dairy
business when time, space and money are all in short supply. From left are Peter, 4, Rachel, 5, and Sarah,
21 months, with parents Fred and Henrietta.
BY TOBY RAINEY
Fred VanderSterre of RR 4,
Brussels is really a traditional
dairyman at heart, but he milks up
to 50 goats a day at his small
acreage on the Sixth Line of Morris
Township, because it is the only
way he can be in the business at all
at this time in his life.
Without an established family
tradition of dairying to back him,
andwiththree small children at
home, Mr. VanderSterre says that
what makes the goat business
attractive is that there is no quota
attached to it, making it the ideal
choice for someone like himself
who could not begin to raise the
tens of thousands of dollars needed
tobuy into a herd of Hol steins at
today’s prices.
“And I enjoy the goats,’’ he
says. “They are a good, depend
able animal, and they have been
The International
Scene
Give me that
TV religion
BY RAYMOND CANON
Sometimes I think that even God
must be a bit confused by what he
sees in the field of TV religion in the
United States; certainly I confess to
being somewhat at a loss to
understandwhatisgoingon. What
we have been seeing these past few
months are charges and counter
charges on a scale which we
thought belonged only to the field
of politics.
What brought the house of
political cards tumbling down was
the revelation that good old Jimmy
Bakker had been somewhat less
than faithful a few years back and
had paid a goodly sum of money to
keep his indiscretion hushed up.
However, as is usually the case, the
truth will out and the result, among
other things, is that Jimmy and his
heavily laquered wife, Tammy
Fay, are now on the outside looking
in. As I write this, the PTL empire
which they built, has now filed for
voluntarybankruptcy, a ploy which
can be used in the United States,
but not in Canada, to keep the
predatory financial wolves from
the door while the financial
good to us over the past three
years.”
And it is obvious that the
VanderSterres have been good to
the goats, as the gentle animals
crowd around the family and
respond with perfect obedience to
the routine they have been trained
to observe in the spotlessly clean
milking parlour, paying no atten
tion to the stranger in their midst.
When the VanderSterres bought
the farm in 1984, it was already set
upasagoatmilkingfacility, but
Mr. VanderSterre has improved
and refined the operation until it
runs smoothly with the five to six
hoursa day, seven days a week,
that he can put into it, with a
minimum of help from his wife,
Henrietta, who is kept busy with
Rachel, 5, Peter, 4, and Sarah, not
quite two.
Most work days start at 4:30
problems are sorted out.
I’m sure I will offend some
people whatever I write about
religion but I must confess to
finding both Jimmy and Tammy a
bit hard to take. I used to watch
them now and again over Channel
43 from Cleveland at 6 a.m. and
found them very strong on asking
for money and very weak on solid
religion. Somebody has called
them the “Jim and Tammy Show”
and that is about what they were,
entertainers.
What I liked about the proceed
ings were the singers but that
seemed to me to be peripheral to
the main theme of selling religion.
About the only monument to the
Bakkers appears to be the huge
religious amusement park, if I may
use that expression, which last
year attracted more visitors than
any other similar park with the sole
exception of the Walt Disney
attractions. That, to my way of
thinking, is saying something but
what it is 1 am not quite sure.
But, if God was having a bit of a
problem making out what the
Bakkers were really up towhen He
a.m., since Fred also works out six
or seven hours a day at Wayne
Fear’s Monoway Farms, only a few
kilometres away. He has worked at
a variety of jobs since^emigrating
from Holland 11 years ago, but has
been in some aspect of farming for
the past five years, and knows that
farming is where he wants to stay.
He plans to work out for another
two years, at which time he feels
the goat herd will have developed
to the point where it can become
the family’s sole support. To this
end, Mr. VanderSterre has em
barked on a careful program of
selective breeding and harsh
culling, raising his own replace
ment does to conform to a high
standard of quality which not only
produces a high percentage of
excellent animals, but has improv
ed the dairy quality of the herd to a
remarkable degree as well.
took their reportedly huge incomes
into consideration, He must have
had a good laugh at Oral Roberts
sitting in his prayer-tower, telling
all the world that God would “call
him home” unless people donated
no less than $8 million to his
Oklahoma headquarters by the end
ofMarch. What Oral really did with
the money I am not quite sure but it
is certain that he was saved
from the threat of a godly
thunderbolt by an eccentric mil
lionaire who, while he admitted he
was not exactly a Christian, did
seem to like Oral’s style.
Some of the surveys which have
been taken on evangelical givers
show that fully one-third of them all
earn less than what we could
consider the poverty level. Wheth
er they are the same third who also
concentrate on achieving instant
prosperity by buying lottery tickets
on a regular basis is of course
problematical at this time but the
comparison does strike me as
having some merit.
Where does it all go? In the
United Church which I attend and
of which I am the chairman of the
In the past year alone, milk
production at the dairy has gone up
by 15 per cent over the 1986
volume, witheachofthe50or so
Sanaan Nubian does giving an
average of 800 litres of milk per
year, with the odd excellent animal
capable of pushing that as high as
1,300 - 1,400 litres.
If left alone, a doe would
normally come into heat once a
year, usually in the fall, and after a
successful breeding would pro
duce a kid or kids 150 days later.
However, since the demand for
goat’s milk and goat’s milk
products remains steady through
out the year, with even a slight
increase in consumer demand in
the winter, Mr. VanderSterre
manages his herd for steady
production throughout the year.
He says this can be accomplished
by regulating both the amount of
light the doe gets, and the type of
feedsheconsumes, and by regulat
ing the temperature of her sur
roundings.
Except during the coldest
months, the VanderSterre herd is
kept outdoors, with dry does, fresh
does, and milking does all together
on succulent pasture, along with
any kids which may be in the herd.
The kids are left on the does until
they are eight weeks old, while
their mothers continue right along
with the milking herd, capable of
producing enough milk for both the
kid and the milking machine.
Replacement kids are tagged,
and the remainder shipped at 10
weeks, or when they reach a weight
of30 - 35 lbs. Always careful of his
animals, Mr. VanderSterre likes to
truck them himself to the Kitchen
er livestock market, where prices
are kept fairly stable because of the
relatively low supply in Canada,
combined with a high ethnic
demand in some quarters. Culled
older animals are also shipped, in
the face of steady demand.
Young does are first bred at 18 to
20 months of age, and introduced
into the milking herd for a few days
about three weeks before they are
duetofreshen, sothatthey become
used to being handled in the
milking parlour, as well as to the
routine of twice a day milking. Mr.
VanderSterre says goats are highly
intelligent animals, and learn very
quickly what is expected of them.
outreach committee, we make sure
that our charity dollars get the
biggest impact possible. At PTL,
however, millions of dollars seem
to have vanished into thin air. How
much did Jimmy and Tammy get?
How many other nests were lined?
Perhaps now that the income tax
people in Washington have started
to take an interest, we shall soon
find out.
What really amazes me is the
number of Americans who are
involved in such religious activi
ties. A recent Gallup poll indicates
that one in every three Americans
considers himself to be evangeli
cal, the common denominator of
which is that they all have had some
direct spiritual experience. The old
picture of the evangelicals is
changing, nevertheless, in that
more than half of them now live
outside the South and about half
ofthem have spent some time in
college. Fifteen percent of them
are reported to be blacks while
about one-fifth also hold what are
considered to be fundamentalist
views - i.e. they believe in the
literal truth of the Bible.
The herd shows ample evidence of
both intelligence and training, as
they crowd up the ramp in the
parlour, entering the milking
platform three at a time and going
directly to the proper stanchions,
where they munch on a 16 per cent
dairy ration for the very few
minutes the milking by machine
takes, then jump down and return
obediently to the holding pen until
the whole herd can be released at
once to pasture.
The rich alfalfa-Timothy mix
pasture is managed on a unique
grid system which Mr. Vander
Sterre says is common in New
Zealand, but is seldom seen here.
The pasture is marked off in a
series of small plots, each only
about five feet wide across the
width of the small field, with the
electric fence controlling access
moved five or sixtimesaday, so
that the herd is always grazing on
fresh, untrampled roughage,
whichhastimeto grow in again
before the herd returns to that
particular plot.
Mr. VanderSterre says that it
causes quite a double take from
passing motorists as they see some
50 spotless white goats all lined up
shoulder to shoulder across the
width of the pasture, grazing in a
regimented fashion but controlled
by the unseen wire, which they
could easilyjump if they wanted to,
but obey simply because they know
they are on to a good thing in their
present situation.
The milk is stored in a stainless
steel cooler similar to that in a
traditional dairy barn, but much
smaller. It is picked up every
Tuesday by a truck, from Hewitt’s
Dairy Limited in Hagersville,
between Hamilton and Simcoe.
The family-owned dairy handies
cows milk as well, but has a
separate facility for the handling of
raw goat’s milk, which trucker
Hugh Henderson says he picks up
from some 35 producers in Sou
thern Ontario, bringing in some
25,000 litres a week from produ
cers inanareathat ranges from
Brussels to Aylmer, Grand Valley,
and Georgetown. There are four
commercial goat's milk producers
in Huron County alone.
The Hewitt dairy handles all the
^demand for raw fluid goat’s milk.
Continued on page 12
Most of them are also members
of independent evangelical
churches and these are the ones
that are really showing the growth
patterns. It is the Pentecostal and
Charismatic churches, such as the
Assemblies of God, who are strong
on faith-healing, that have been
winning converts faster than any
other denomination. These are the
ones who tend to get on television
and they have demonstrated their
effectiveness by persuading peo
ple to send in as much as $200
million a year. Jimmy Swaggart,
whom i find to be one of the most
stereotyped, admits that he took in
during the course of 1986 no less
than $175 million. His style of
fire-and-brimstone religion cer
tainly seems to sell and sell well.
And so it goes! Frankly 1 will not
be surprised one iota to see Jimmy
and Tammy Fay back on TV
sometime, somewhere. They are
hooked on T. V. and probably don’t
know what to do without it.
Judging from the money that is
pouring in, so are a lot of other
people. God alone knows where it
all goes.