Who was the guest speaker for the March 2007 Men's 710 Breakfast meeting?
Here's a couple clues. Volunteer firefighter. Not enough to guess yet? How about, "bumper crop rhubarb cultivator" in Central Baldwin County? Still haven't got it? How about, Christmas and Easter painted cut-out decorations just east of Silverhill on 104? Oh, come on now! Here's your last hint: goats! You are right. It was "Gus" Clifford Utter, one of those Utter boys. Gus' goats inhabit that hillside on Highway 104 on the east side of Silverhill.
"Gus" Utter left Silverhill in his youth, but in 1985 he says, "I came over home from Florida after living there 22 years and bought part of my brother Paul's land. I put up some fence and a small building.
Once I got the culvert in on Highway 104, I could get in, but there was all this brush. My brother Ralph got me connected with eight small goats. Ralph took care of things for awhile, because I was still in Florida.
A year and a half after the goats were grazing on my "new" property, I could see what we had. Then I hurt my back over there in Florida about that time, and I came home and 'retired' here with my wife Kitty. It was about 1988 by then."
Kitty would lay out the house plans and Gus and Kitty would build their Silverhill home with the help and advice of the Utter brothers. "So, here I am now," Gus says.
It didn't take long for the brush to be cleared with the goats. When Gus had relocated, he began breeding goats. "So why goats, Gus? Why not sheep?" I ask. "Because sheep won't eat this stuff that's growing here. Goats will eat almost everything," Gus responds. He was soon up to 11 to 14 nannies at a time, and found that the goats could be marketed right from his place on 104 or he could run them over to Lucedale.
Upkeep for goats is not an issue. Gus reports that he feeds those goats in the morning and the evening with a little hay this time of year because the pastures are short, but "they get interested in new-growth stuff in the spring of the year." Right now Gus is working on breeding a bigger goat, "upgrading the size." Although his place is pretty pasture-like right now, Gus offers that "if you've got ground to clear, they'll eat everything, regardless of size."
People greet Gus with, "Oh, you're the one with the goats." Many people stop to look at his herd.
"You learn some things about goats when you have them for awhile. Oak leaves are good for worms. Goat manure and shade cloth grows great rhubarb in Central Baldwin. And they are fun," Gus says as he points to a dead tree laying in the field. "See that log. Those little kids ("kids" are baby goats, you know) will run up and down on that log and bump one another off." God's little humor machines, I guess.
Locally known for raising goats, he spoke from experience. He has "shared" a local billy lately in breeding the size of his goats to a bigger animal. Current size is about 150 pounds for a female and maybe 200 pounds for a male goat. So, there was "weight" in what he had to say.
He started off by telling the men's breakfast group about felled trees being a source of goat recreation in his field - "they love to play on those logs." The best part of goats, from a farmer perspective, is that "what cattle won't eat, goats will. You let them lose in a pasture, that pasture will be clean." If you need to clear a five acre plot, "figure you could do with with maybe three to eight goats. It will take about a year and a half and those acres will be clean as high as a goat can stand on its hind legs."
With a five month gestation period, "you can get three goat families every two years. Medicines and vaccinations - figure every three months." And those critters will eat almost anything, including those sour oranges as well as weeds, acorns, oak leaves, brush, you name it.
