Love is like a herd of goats...

When our cheesemaker Mandy got married last year, she was determined to have goats feature throughout the wedding! Not only did she and her husband Paul have a goat accompany them out of the church, but she also wrote a special piece about the similarities between goats and love. With Valentine's Day upon us, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to share Mandy's thoughts with the world. Happy Valentine's Day one and all!

❤️ A blog for Valentine’s Day…. Why love and relationships are like looking after a herd of dairy goats ❤️

Firstly, there is no way of talking about goats that enables one to sound like a sane person, and so it is with love.

On a cold winter day mid February, love is warm. Love needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy. Love does not like to be left alone for long and love is always happy to see you.

Is love good all the time? NO! Like goats, love may chew things up, love can make a lot of mess and noise, love needs a lot of cleaning up after. Love can be the perfect escape artist. Love can be stubborn. Love can sulk and be stroppy if it doesn’t get attention. But you can never be mad at love for long.

Like goats, love is loyal. Goats can be very loving towards each other, in ways that mirror the best human relationships. You know your partner at goat level when they forgive you when you eat their dinner because you were hungry and couldn’t wait; they wait for you in the rain to walk you back home after a hard day at work, or in the milking parlour; they will scratch your back without expecting you to scratch theirs.

Looking after goats is also very representative of family life: for example, sometimes, you have to put the health of the herd ahead of the needs of an individual goat. Some goats are bold and outgoing, others are quieter and observe more, but it means that as a unit, they are always safe because they have each other. Like the family unit, everyone has their place in the herd and everyone is an individual, but only make sense as a herd, covering each other's downfalls and relying on each individual’s strengths.

That’s not to say they agree on everything all of the time! They most certainly don’t. But they stick with the same companions for years and years, and no matter how much they argue, there are always plenty of kids!

In terms of love, it’s the simple things in life that matter - a warm home, a clean soft bed, happy mealtimes together, and regular worming for parasites!… Loving couples are like goats when they know each other so well that they communicate by just nudging and grunting at each other…. and hopefully not biting when

they’re cross!

In goat husbandry, you learn to recognise the sounds of distress, and the different calls that goats make when they’re hungry or in pain, or have inexplicably managed to get their head stuck in a gate! And so it is with human romantic love.

With the billy goats, fondness kind of creeps up on you, and this can be what it is like with your special human person. They start out not seeming like anything special, just as hairy and malodorous as the next average male, but then suddenly, all you want to do is make them happy, even if that means trimming their beards or hooves for them.

To conclude, both love and goats are a lot of fun and are full of surprises.

If you were to ask a goat it’s life mantra, it would be something along the lines of - “if you can’t eat it or chew it, head butt it”.

Like the best lovers, goats don’t follow the rule book - they eat it.

Happy Valentine's Day goat and cheese lovers!❤️ ❤️ ❤️