Janice Spaulding, Goat Addict and Authority
Janice Spaulding started raising goats in 1989. Her first goats were 2 Angora does; one was bred and the other was a doeling. When the bred doe kidded, she fell head over heels in love, and her addiction for goats was born.
Over the years, Angora goats, raised for their fiber, Boers, for their meat, and dairy goats for milk have found their way to Spaulding’s farm.
As she added more variety to our herd, she found herself with a steep learning curve. This was long before the advent of the internet and cell phones.
It became evident that others were experiencing this same learning curve and in 2004 Goat School was born! Spaulding started with 12 people on a cold, November afternoon and a class that lasted about 4 hours and Goat School has turned into a weekend long event, held twice a year at her farm, with students coming from all over the United States! A soap and cheese making class is also held on the Monday of those weekends for those wishing to learn all about how to use the product their dairy goats produce!
In 2010, “Goat School on the Road” was added and the Spauldings have crisscrossed the United States teaching both the Goat School class and the Soap and Cheese making classes.
Being true homesteaders, she and her husband have carved their farm out of 28 acres of woodlands, boulders and pretty poor land. Their goats have helped clear areas of land and produced lots of manure which in turn, after composting was used to create some awesome gardens.
A portion of their land was horse logged and some of the harvested wood was used to build a large barn.
Spaulding’s current projects include: Final touches on their second barn; plans are in the works for a pavilion type structure for Goat School, and the ongoing efforts of creating more flower gardens and expanding their vegetable gardens.
The Spauldings compost all of their spent bedding and wasted hay, wood ash, and kitchen scraps, to use in their gardens. In 2011 they produced (for sale at farmers’ markets) nearly 1,000 jars of pickles, relishes, salsas, jellies and jams. The Spauldings own a State of Maine licensed raw dairy selling milk, cheese, and goat milk soaps both at our farm and at farmers’ markets
