More cheese

This week we have made soft curd cheese with garlic and chives (Jacqui), "Kilchoan Crofter" which is now out of the press and maturing, ricotta made from the whey of the Kilchoan Crofter and butter. Pia has been and continues to be highly productive giving around 3L a day. Of course none of this is economic but as I'm retired the opportunity cost of my labour is zero and the artisan cheeses are excellent.

It takes 10kg of goats milk to make 1kg of semi-hard cheese like the Kilchoan Crofter and the average milch goat like Pia will yield about 800kg milk in a lactation, or 80kg cheese. Dave, gourmet, accountant and smallholder reckons an artisan cheese must sell for £25/kg to be profitable. If he's right that's sales of £2000 worth of cheese per goat. Ergo twenty goats should keep me in some style here in Kilchoan with a 20% mark up.

 Here's the snag. We have or soon will have the goat housing for up to 20 goats but we would need a milking

Cheese as it comes out of the press

parlour (£5000), cheese room and store (£10,000) these costs are based on DIY and secondhand kit. Then of course we'd need more goats (£3000) and marketing costs (£??????) and a sum for contingencies so £25000 in all perhaps.