It all started when my parents moved to Wales in the 1970s. In part inspired by holidays and long stays and intrigued by the notion of self sufficiency and especially encouraged by the TV show called ‘The Good Life’.

The show was about a couple in suburbia, turning their garden into an oasis of grow your own veg and raising a few animals much to the dismay of their upper middle class neighbours.

Naturally my Mum kept goats and like it or not from the moment I arrived was surrounded by them until the day I left home at 18. This meant all sorts of weird and wonderful experiences from the Goat Club Christmas party (for human kids), goat sitting for neighbours, showing (my Mum’s obsession), Howard the Humane Killer, bottle feeding kids, selling milk to a cheese maker (Pant Mawr cheeses) long before goat cheese was popular and much, much more.

Have always loved animals but never thought much of it other than it was my Mum’s hobby/ obsession but when the chance arrived to join a goat collective, more years than I care to mention later, of course it was going to be a yes..

The experiences of the collective are worth blogging partly for our own benefit as something of a knowledge base and partly to help understand husbandry techniques and figure out solutions to our problems.